Changchun's Universiade Torch Packs a Film Strip, a Clivia and a Car Hub Into 711 Millimetres
With 100 days to go to the 2027 Winter Universiade, the northeastern city of Changchun unveiled a torch named Jixiang whose every millimetre is a civic emblem: the city flower, the film studio, the car plant, the local altitude — and a ginseng petal in the flame.
With 100 days to go before the 2027 Winter Universiade opens in Changchun, the northeastern city has shown off the object that will carry its name around the world's campuses: a torch named Jixiang, from a phrase meaning "auspicious and soaring", built — deliberately, down to the millimetre — as a portrait of the city itself.
Start with the number. The torch stands 711 millimetres tall, which sounds arbitrary until the official announcement explains that 711 metres is the highest altitude in Changchun's urban area. The silhouette is the clivia, the city's official flower, "bursting into bloom"; the upper body carries a band of film, for the city long called the cradle of New Chinese cinema, stamped with twelve ice-and-snow icons, one for each of the Universiade's twelve disciplines. The edges take their lines from skis; the base is engraved with a car wheel-hub pattern, for the "auto city" that is home to FAW; and at the flame port a snowflake intertwines with a ginseng petal, the mountain root that is Jilin province's most famous crop. Even the materials advertise the neighbourhood: heat-resistant alloy with sections in carbon fibre developed in Jilin. One Weibo commentator called the result "a city introducing itself in the language of design" (一座城市用设计语言写下的自我介绍).
For an international reader, the genre is familiar but the density is not. Games torches always encode host imagery — Beijing 2022's ribbon is the recent benchmark — but Chinese host cities riding the national "ice and snow economy" push are competing to convert a games into a permanent brand, and the item list is a map of what each city wants to be known for. Changchun's list runs: flowers, film, cars, ginseng.
The city is not a winter-sports capital by national standards — that claim belongs to Heilongjiang's Harbin, whose breakout Asian Winter Games of early 2025 made the case that a second-tier Chinese city can turn hosting into a brand. The Universiade, a competition for the world's university athletes, is Changchun's attempt to make the same case for itself. The flame will be lit in mid-January, carried in 711 millimetres of flower, film, car and ginseng.