China-ASEAN Vocational College Students Culinary Skills Competition kicks off in Nanning

[ASEAN Special Line] China-ASEAN Vocational College Students Culinary Skills Competition kicks off in Nanning

China News Service, Nanning, October 29 (Reporter Huang Yanmei) The 2026 China-ASEAN Vocational College Students Culinary Skills Competition kicked off on the 29th at Nanning Vocational and Technical University. 50 teams and 235 players from China and ASEAN countries competed on the same stage, using food as a medium and competition to make friends, and went to a grand food and cultural exchange event spanning mountains and seas.

The competition has three major competition items: hot dish production, Western food production and flavor snack production. It takes into account the inheritance of traditional skills and modern catering innovation, and comprehensively examines the contestants' practical skills, creative ideas and comprehensive professional qualities. The competition adopts a comprehensive scoring method that combines a professional referee group and a public review group.

The competition site includes an ASEAN food exhibition area, a cultural and creative artificial intelligence (AI) exhibition area, and a business banquet booth. There are performances of intangible cultural heritage skills such as food carving, sugar art, and tea art, as well as interactive displays of catering intelligent robots, and interactive experiences of cooking robots. During the same period of the competition, special lectures by industry experts, seminars on cultivating international culinary professionals in Nanning, and a signing ceremony for the transformation of competition results were held.

Patavithong Sriyong, a student at the Royal Institute of Technology Phra Nakhon in Thailand, said that he was very happy to share Thai food culture through the competition platform. He looks forward to exchanging skills with contestants from various countries and learning from each other, making food a bridge between ASEAN and Chinese people.

This competition is sponsored by the Education Department of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Hong Kong Vocational Training Council, and hosted by Nanning Vocational and Technical University and Guigang Modern Vocational Education Development Center.