Solo Uniacke, Rosamund Pike’s 12-year-old son, has gone viral in China after winning the world championship in a Mandarin language competition.
On October 28, Solo was named the winner of the Chinese Bridge competition for primary school students, held in Tianjin Municipality, northern China.
The preteen, whose Chinese name is You Zijun, started learning the language when he was just three years old and has since learned 400 Chinese characters.
While there are more than 50,000 Mandarin characters, the average person only needs to know about 2,500.
According to the South China Morning Post, Solo said after his victory in the government-organized contest that he would continue learning the language until people consider him “the first Chinese with blonde hair.”
Solo’s Mandarin skills have impressed many people on social media.
‘How wonderful!!!!’ one noted on Instagram.
Another wrote: “Chinese Bros sounds better than mine.”
Rosamund Pike’s son Solo Uniacke has gone viral in China after winning a Mandarin language contest.
Solo Uniacke, 12, was named winner of the Chinese Bridge contest on October 28.
Writing in X, a third added: ‘Wow! ‘I’m quite impressed that British actress Rosamund Pike’s family (including herself) speak fluent Mandarin!!!’
On TikTok, a fourth wrote: “OMG that’s so impressive.”
Another addition from Rosamund: “And she’s behind the adaptation of 3 Body Problem so… yeah, she loves Chinese culture.”
Gone Girl actress Rosamund, 45, shares two sons, Solo and Atom, 10, with her partner of 15 years, Robie Uniacke.
In 2021, Rosamund revealed on The Graham Norton Show that her children were bilingual because her partner thought it would be exciting to speak to them in a language she didn’t yet know.
She explained: “So he taught himself Chinese from scratch.
‘Well, you could call it brilliant, or you could call it really stubborn, or you could call it kind of wanting to be a single parent.
“He basically speaks to them in a language I don’t understand, so I thought maybe lockdown was a good opportunity to catch up.”
Rosamund’s two sons, Solo and Atom, were taught Mandarin by their father, Robie Uniacke (pictured in 2015)
The actress appeared in 2014’s Gone Girl alongside Ben Affleck.
Six years earlier, while promoting Gone Girl in 2015, Rosamund shared that her other half had given her the Chinese name Péi Chúnhuá.
At the time, he encouraged Chinese media to refer to her as Péi, as to do otherwise “would be disrespectful to Chinese moviegoers.”
Rosamund, who serves as executive producer of Three Body Problem, has been a big supporter of Chinese Bridge, the competition for foreign students to test their proficiency in the country’s language.
In a video ahead of this year’s final, he said of the programme: ‘The organization has been very inspiring.
‘The things you’ve done, the videos I’ve seen, the photographs, everything seems incredible.
“A huge congratulations to all the children, parents and teachers who have put in such a fantastic effort.”