SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The 18th "Chinese Bridge" Chinese proficiency and cultural contest for college students from Northern California will be held here this weekend, organizers said Tuesday.

Jiaxin Xie, director of Confucius Institute at San Francisco State University (SFSU), said 22 candidates selected from the University of California system, the SFSU system, Stanford University and other colleges, will compete to showcase their Chinese language proficiency, including a three-minute speech in Chinese, and other talented skills.

They will demonstrate their Chinese cultural talents such as dance, martial arts (Chinese Kong Fu), Xiang-sheng (or Chinese style crosstalk), Chinese poetry, skit, song-singing and instrumental music.

The top two winners will be recommended to compete in a regional competition scheduled for May 4 with tho top winners from the Confucius Institutes in the states of Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

The regional competition will select two university students and two middle school students for the final contest to be held in China later this year.

The 18th "Chinese Bridge" contest for Northern California college students, sponsored by the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), will be hosted by Confucius Institute at the SFSU.