Innermost interaction via cultural exchanges between China and France

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 10, 2003

Innermost interaction via cultural exchanges between China and France

The broad avenues carpeted with fallen leaves of plane trees ushers in the Year of Chinese Culture in October, the golden fall in France.

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Culture Year hailed as milestone of bilateral ties

The broad avenues carpeted with fallen leaves of plane trees ushers in the Year of Chinese Culture in October, the golden fall in France.

The Year of Chinese Culture was inaugurated on Oct. 7 in Paris. Our French friends we met here all felt pleased and hailed the splendid Chinese culture from afar. In response to a question at the press conference Chen Zhili, member of the Standing Committee of the State Council put it like this, "Close your eyes and muse upon it. Is there any other choice better than France for the Year of Chinese Culture to make its maiden show out of China?"

It is true that France, the fourth economic power in the world, is a country featuring a unique charm and flavor of culture. And what we must especially stress is that the present French leaders are always persistent in advocating the diversity of different cultures. At the UN pulpit and various international occasions diplomatic and cultural we've often heard their strong voices for the appreciation of and learning from cultures and civilizations other than that of their own. Chirac, French president himself dotes on oriental culture and is even a connoisseur in ancient Chinese bronzeware. The year before when paying a visit to the porcelain exhibition at the French National Museum of Asian Arts reopened after the restoration he bowed respectfully to the exhibits there. And when the photo was published in French papers the hearts of the people were greatly moved. With such a basis of mutual understanding on culture it is obviously logical for the two cultural giants China oriental and France occidental to hold the Cultural Year in cooperation.

Dominique de Villepin, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, writes beautiful essays and poems as he took a liking in literature. At the opening ceremony, he made a sincere and moving speech in which he says: " The Year of Chinese Culture offers us an opportunity to understand China from different angles, especially from her diversified forms of culture, her vigorous and enthusiastic creativeness."

The Year of Chinese Culture is a showcase of Chinese culture and oriental civilization, which is utterly different from that of the west. For hundreds of years, people in the west marveled at the mystery of Chinese culture. Now, the event under the theme of "Ancient China, Colorful China, and Modern China" will offer French people a spiritual enjoyment of the Chinese traditional culture, ethnic and local culture in an all-round and deeper way. It has displayed to the French public colorful and varied culture of China, a flourishing vista in which hundred flowers are vying with one another to blossom.

In this blooming cultural park much more can be expected for the French public. As Mr. Dominique de Villepin put it his long-cherished wish is to see the exhibition of cultural relics entitled the "Sacred Mountain Peak", which is to be held in the Grand Palais in Paris by the end of the coming March. It is a great exhibition of the Chinese landscape paintings and relevant antiques left over from history. He holds that the traditional Chinese landscape paintings tell what a lofty place the Chinese people give to the nature in their mind's eye. Meanwhile, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, French minister of culture is looking forward to the "Exhibition of Confucius Culture" which is to be held at the Guimet National Museum of Asia by the end of October for he deems that Confucianism has been passed on and on till now and benefited the west too. Still others expressed by saying that modern China is full of go and this has sparked the fervent inspiration of artists in their indefinite creativeness. Many people who watched the Chinese Ethnic Fashion Show that day were deeply impressed by the blend of tradition and fashion of the typical Chinese costumes, that China, the "Kingdom of Apparel" introduced at the new millennium has exerted a great charm.

The western art circle and the public are short of understanding in the development of the Chinese art in the 20th century, assuming that the Chinese art in that period has no comparable value as does the western counterpart. Some even took it for an "art for politics sake". The "Dawning East --- Exhibition of Chinese Fine Arts of the 20th Century" is the first time for Chinese arts to demonstrate their achievements in that period. The theme is terse and explicit: Chinese fine arts dance to the rhythm of the social development in the country, indicating the cultural independence that symbolizes another sort of modernity.

The over 300 exhibits displayed in the Year of Chinese Culture tell the people, as Sun Jiazheng, Chinese minister of culture put it, how an ancient China has waded through the vicissitudes of 5000 years, creating a splendid culture in history. They also tell how a colorful China has painted a beautiful scroll of pictures by taking in what can be for its best and be compatible with them, and how a modern China full of go can open up something new by carrying on that left over from the past to keep pace with the advance of the time.

It is the very cultural exchanges that have brought about the understanding and communication said Mr. Jean-Pierre Angremy, French chairman with the Organization Committee of Sino-French Year of Culture with emotion, and that the preparation process itself is a kind of communication. It was not easy to work together at the beginning due to the differences in their ways of thinking and styles of working. But with sincere desire to communicate, they finally overcame all the difficulties and built up good cooperation by wearing their hearts on their sleeve. In this way they put up a bridge of understanding and communication for cultural exchanges. It is foreseeable that in the year to come the Year of Chinese Culture would present a panoramic picture of Chinese culture, making the French people to have a better understanding of the Chinese culture. As a result, the Sino-French cooperation in cultural exchanges will see a better day to come.

(This is an article from the third page of People's Daily on Oct.8, 2003, written by Zheng Yuanyuan and Wang Fang, and translated by PD Online staff member Li Jia.)

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