[Video/Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government]

A group of six secondary students from County Cork in Ireland, a sister county of Jiangsu, sent a video message to the eastern Chinese province on March 6 and extended best wishes for its fight against the novel coronavirus outbreak.

In the video, the six students were divided into two groups of three and recited Ode to the Plum Blossom, a famous poem written by the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Though the students' Chinese were still at a low level, their sincere wishes and confidence in China overcoming the difficulties were fully brought out, complementing with the poem's tone to extol the spirit of plum blossoms in standing firmly amid the bitter cold.

"Everything will get better and cheer up for China," the students said.

The students were winners of the first Meihua Cup Chinese Language Competition, which was initiated by the Cork County government, Nanjing education bureau, Cork County education bureau, and Confucius Institute at University College Cork on Feb 13 and has seen 15 groups of participants.

The competition was one of the cultural and educational fruits yielded by Jiangsu province and Cork County under a cooperative agreement inked between the two sides in November 2017.