Rosamund Pike‘s 12-year-old son Solo Uniacke has gone viral in China after winning the global championship at a Mandarin-language competition.
On October 28, Solo was named the winner of the Chinese Bridge contest for primary school students, held in northern China’s Tianjin municipality.
The pre-teen, whose Chinese name is You Zijun, started learning the language when he was just three and has since grasped 400 Chinese characters.
While there are more than 50,000 Mandarin characters, the average person only needs to know about 2,500.
According to South China Morning Post, Solo said after his victory in the government-run contest that he would continue learning the language until people regard him as ‘the first Chinese with blonde hair.’
Solo’s Mandarin skills have left many people on social media impressed.
‘How cool!!!!’ one noted on Instagram.
Another wrote: ‘Bros Chinese sounds better than mine.’
Rosamund Pike’s son Solo Uniacke has gone viral in China after winning a Mandarin-language competition
Solo Uniacke, 12, was named the winner of the Chinese Bridge contest on October 28
Writing on X, a third added: ‘Wow! I’m pretty impressed that British actress Rosamund Pike’s family (including herself) are fluent Mandarin speakers!!!’
Over on TikTok, a fourth penned: ‘Oh my gosh, that is hella impressive.’
Another added of Rosamund: ‘And she is behind the 3 Body Problem adaptation so…. yeah, she loves the 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 sons were bilingual because her partner thought it would be exciting to speak to them in a language he didn’t already know.
She explained: ‘So he taught himself Chinese from the ground up.
‘Well, you could call it brilliant, or you could call it really stubborn, or you could call it a kind of desire for single parenting.
‘He’s basically talking to them in a language I don’t understand so I thought maybe lockdown was a good opportunity for me to catch up.’
Rosamund’s two sons Solo and Atom were both taught Mandarin by their father, Robie Uniacke (Pictured in 2015)
The actress appeared in 2014’s Gone Girl along with Ben Affleck
Six years before, while promoting Gone Girl in 2015, Rosamund shared that her other half had given her the Chinese name Péi Chúnhuá.
At the time, she encouraged the Chinese media to refer to her as Péi as doing otherwise ‘would disrespect Chinese cinephiles.’
Rosamund, who serves as an executive producer on Three Body Problem, has been hugely supportive of Chinese Bridge, the contest for foreign students on their mastery of the country’s language.
In a video ahead of this year’s final, she said of the program: ‘The organization has been so inspiring.
‘The things you’ve done, the videos I’ve seen, the pictures, it all just looks amazing.
‘Huge congratulations to all the children, the parents, the teachers, who’ve put in such a fantastic effort.’
