Hundreds of students attended this year’s Freshers’ Fair in the Central Building, where representatives from the many student clubs and organisations at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University set out stalls to recruit new members.

Over 100 student clubs and societies were represented there, from fashion design and photography to debate, cinema and model building. A wide range of sports clubs also sought new members, including parkour, archery, and Ultimate Frisbee.

Yuge Yuan (pictured below, centre) of the dance club Hip Hop Park invited fellow students to share their passion for street dance: “We’re a hip hop dancing group, and we want energetic, passionate people to join our club!” she said.

From midday until early evening the Central Building ground floor area was packed with eager students seeking out new hobbies and interests, chatting with club members, and signing up through QR codes and email lists.

Robert Lukaschek, a visiting student from Germany taking modules in business and economics at International Business School Suzhou, signed up for the Boxing Club: “I took up boxing a month ago in Germany, and I was glad to find a boxing club here so I can continue my training,” he said.

Xinyu Liu (pictured below, left) of the Science and Innovation Association, was running a stall that featured a virtual reality headset display: “Our club was established in 2009 and we have over 40 members,” he said. “At the moment we’re focused on developing our own virtual reality games.”

There also were performances by student rock bands, musicians playing Western classical and traditional Chinese music, and dance groups.