On September 27, 2021, Chinese International Education Foundation held the celebration of  "Confucius Institute Day 2021", which was organized in the form of a combination of online and offline. The theme of the celebration is “Honoring the Past, Heralding the Future”. 75 Chinese and local directors all over the world who have served in the Confucius Institutes for more than ten years were awarded the “Medal for Long Service as a Confucius Institute Director”. Zhang Huijing, Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute at Yeditepe University, was awarded the medal.

Yang Wei, President of Chinese International Education Foundation and Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences attended the celebration and delivered a speech. On behalf of the foundation, he expressed his respect to the Chinese and local directors, and paid tribute to the members of the Confucius Institute who have worked hard and made important contributions to the Confucius Institute for a long time.

Zhang Huijing served as the Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Los Andes in Colombia from 2008 to 2018. Since April 2019, she has worked as the Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute at Yeditepe University.

On the day of the celebration, the foundation also announced the list of 100 shortlisted works of the 2021 "Zui•Confucius Institute" Short Video Collection Event and conducted the launching ceremony of the Confucius Institute Global Portal (ci.cn).