Exterior view of the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris. Courtesy of the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris
In the classrooms of the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, you can see objects related to Chinese culture everywhere. Photo by reporter Liu Shaohua
French student Marie-Angie Beaumomo (left), under the guidance of her teacher An Ran (right), earnestly studied the guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument. Photo by reporter Liu Shaohua
In the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, on an exquisite classical building in the style of Napoleon III, the five-star red flag flutters in the wind. This is a prime location in Paris, bordering Les Invalides on the left, the Eiffel Tower on the right, and the world-famous Grand and Small Palaces across the Seine River.
In the courtyard, there are two buildings, a classical building and a modern building, as well as a Chinese-style courtyard.
Both buildings have great origins - the classical building was designed and built in 1858 by the famous French architect Le Soufasche in the 19th century, which was originally the private residence of Montesquieu Fesssax, the French Count, and the current office building of the French Mayors' Association on the left is a sister building, which is listed as a French cultural heritage in the 19th century; Designed by renowned architects Aris Atamian and Bruno Gaudan, the building is made of glass, steel and aluminium, borrowing from the characteristics of Chinese tower architecture, with each upper floor indented.
In the courtyard, a small Chinese garden scene is designed with a hexagonal half-pavilion as the main body, composed of bamboo forests and Soviet-style pink wall windows. In 2014, Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China, unveiled a bronze sculpture of Confucius asking Lao Tzu in the central courtyard.
In this quiet courtyard, from time to time, the sound of Langlang reading and the sound of the guzheng can be heard, and the eyes are full of Chinese elements - pandas, dragon dances, calligraphy, Hanfu, kites, screens, ancient books...... Every day, many French people come and go here, fascinated by the rich oriental culture.
This is the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, which was officially inaugurated on November 29, 2002. This is the first cultural center set up by the Chinese government in a Western country, shouldering the mission of disseminating Chinese culture to French society and the public, and promoting exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and French civilizations.
It is affectionately known as the "Chinese Culture Living Room".
Every corner and corner has Chinese culture
Walking through the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, there is a story around every corner.
Outside the courtyard wall, there is also a poster of an event not long ago. The theme is "The 37th Belk International Kite Festival - China's Guest of Honor Event", and the following introduces the content of the event, "100-meter-long dragon kite flying performance, kite competition, experience workshop, Chinese culture booth, Hanfu, folk music, tea ceremony, dragon and lion dance performance".
In 1958, a film called "Kite" vividly described the story of Chinese and French children who met each other because of a Monkey King kite. On April 20 this year, on the seashore of Belk, France, the sky was full of kites, and the guest of honor from China was particularly eye-catching. Founded in 1987, the Belk International Kite Festival is the largest and most influential kite-themed event in France with millions of visitors every year.
In the courtyard, on the lawn stands the sculpture "Ask Dao", created by Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China. He introduced that in China, this is a widely circulated historical allusion. This group of sculptures shows that only by combining asking and preaching can a broad dialogue be generated around the world; Only through dialogue can we communicate our hearts, integrate our emotions, enhance our understanding and seek common development.
Next to the sculpture, there is a nine-colored deer lantern group composed of several deer deer. Liu Hongge, director of the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, told reporters that these were "picked up."
On February 23 this year, on the eve of the Lantern Festival, the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris held a "Hello! China" - "Yu Garden Lantern Festival Food Night" activity. At the lantern festival, the guests shuttled between the bright lanterns of different shapes, and all kinds of rare beasts, gods and fairies came into view. The Organizing Committee of the Yu Garden Lantern Festival previously promised to give the Cultural Center a group of lanterns designed and made with the legend of the nine-colored deer. After the lantern festival, Liu Hongge hurriedly asked everyone to transport a few fawns back as a long-term exhibition.
In order to enrich the exhibition resources of the cultural center, Liu Hongge will always look for some exhibits left over from various cultural activities, and once the activities are over, he will try to find ways to leave some of the most interesting content to continue to hold exhibitions in the cultural center. "To do an event vigorously, come today, leave tomorrow, but we need to communicate with the local people for a long time to spread culture, and we must continue to work for a long time."
In the lobby of the modern building of the cultural center, there are many things that he and his colleagues have collected.
As soon as you enter the hall, on the right hand side is a huge down relief wall, two giant dragons soar and dance together, bamboo weaving craft style, lotus lotus, azure, sapphire blue, autumn fragrance and other traditional Chinese culture color expressions jump on the wall. Many members of the public come here and can't help but take photos with this wall first, which has become a new check-in place for the cultural center. Liu Hongge introduced that this is the exhibit of last year's "Sino-French Fashion Week", which was originally to be removed by the exhibitor, but considering that this year is the Year of the Dragon, it was stayed, but I didn't expect everyone to like it very much.
Directly in front of the hall is a set of screens called "Rushing Streams", which are from a recent video exhibition of Shanghai-Paris Twin Cities Dialogue. "Suzhou Creek is to Shanghai what the Seine is to Paris, the Thames is to London, and the Hudson River is to New York, it shapes the city's spirit and continues to inject impetus into Shanghai's development. Looking at Suzhou Creek is to see the dynamic Shanghai. On the exhibition board, this Chinese city is introduced in a foreign country in Chinese and French.
On the left side of the hall, the electronic display board reads "Lanting Yaji - Rongcheng Book Rhyme". This is the event just held on April 29, with 24 sets of Chinese calligraphy masterpieces specially launched, and calligraphy lectures and experiential activities will be held, using Chinese calligraphy as a medium, integrating traditional Chinese cultural treasures such as Tai Chi, Hanfu, incense, tea ceremony, guqin performance, etc., to present a performance art exhibition to the French public.
If you look up at the second floor from here, you will find that there are many works by Chinese calligraphers, which were left over from the exhibition held in Chengdu not long ago. In the Chinese language classroom on the fourth floor, there are materials left over from the exhibition of "Chinese Characters and Chinese Civilization" after the exhibition in the 15th district government of Paris. As for the library of the cultural center, after the end of the book exhibitions and cultural exhibitions, with the increasing number of books donated from all parties, the scale of the book collection has been expanding, and the total collection of books has now exceeded 25,000 volumes.
The story of spring breeze and rain is constantly staged
A melodious song "Flowing Spring on the Stone" flows slowly from the zither in the hands of Marie-Angie Boyomo. After the song, there was applause all around, and she smiled a little embarrassedly. "I'm not good at playing, it's too difficult."
The guzheng teacher on the side "corrected" Anran: "I am already an amateur fifth-level player, and I can even play the sixth-level song "Yao Dance", as a person who has not been exposed to Chinese music, it is already a very good level." ”
Boyomo fell in love with the guzheng a few years ago, when she watched a lot of Chinese movies and was exposed to this new instrument. She searched the Internet and found that there was a special course for teaching guzheng in Paris. After registering for the name, it will take 3 years to study.
She can play the violin, and she bluntly told reporters that the guzheng "is simply from another world". "It's really complicated to have both hands playing on this huge instrument and juggling a lot of things at the same time. In terms of technique, I think the guzheng is more and more difficult than the violin. ”
She stroked the guzheng with her right hand and plucked several strings to play different notes. "You see, you can play a lot of different things even with just one hand."
Even though he has been studying for 3 years, he still feels that there are too many things to learn. Thankfully, she's already had a lot of fun with it. When she is alone at home, she likes to play a song and trains very hard. Occasionally, she would play for her friends, and the result was that "my Chinese friends were very surprised that I could do this, while my French friends thought the instrument was very mysterious".
One of the reasons why she is addicted to it is that "the guzheng is an instrument that can carry a lot of emotions, and it can show both melodious melodies and cheerful rhythms like dancing". She told reporters as she demonstrated, "You look like dancing like this...... And it's like nature whispering ......"
An Ran watched with satisfaction from the sidelines as Boyomo talked about his love for the guzheng. In fact, Enron has been teaching here for many years. After graduating from the China Conservatory of Music in 2008, she began teaching at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris for 16 years.
In the past 16 years, Enron has watched the guzheng get hotter and hotter in Paris. In the first year, there were only 3 students in the class, and this year there are already 39 students, divided into several classes. Even, at the concerts she attended, some locals would ask, "What country is this musical instrument?"
Today, the guzheng is already an "Internet celebrity musical instrument" in Paris. On social media, there are sometimes "guzheng flash mobs" — guzheng players playing a song in a crowded public place, attracting people to pick up their phones and take pictures, and the video goes viral. An Ran said that now a few students in the class deliberately found the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris to learn this instrument because they saw the video, "and I think the guzheng is very attractive."
What makes An Ran even more emotional is that when she first started teaching, there was only one musical instrument class in the entire Paris Chinese Cultural Center, and now there are pipa classes, bamboo flute classes, erhu classes, and guqin classes...... Not only are there more and more musical instrument classes, but there are also more and more students.
To Enron's delight, more and more students have joined in her solo performances. Everyone started from scratch and spread the guzheng culture from here to Paris and even other parts of France.
And this is also a microcosm of the work of the cultural center.
Wonderful activities one after another
Every week, more than 750 students visit the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris. From Monday to Saturday, students learn about Chinese culture from Chinese to folk music and opera.
On the fourth floor of the Cultural Center, a Chinese teacher is reading Chinese to the children one by one. "Without knowledge, it is difficult to realize one's ideals...... the immature sound of reading echoed in the classroom over and over again.
Facing the reporters, the children opened the conversation box in Chinese.
"My name is Yu Yu, I am 11 years old and I have been studying Chinese for 6 years. I like China and I like to speak Chinese. "I'm 9 years old and I've been studying Chinese for two years." …… Most of the words are correct and round, showing excellent learning results.
In addition to classroom teaching, the cultural center also has many activities.
Some of the events are held in the cultural centre. The facilities here are very rich, with multi-functional exhibition halls, conference and banquet halls in the classical building, reception halls, multi-functional small theaters, art galleries, multimedia libraries, Chinese culture experience halls, Chinese classrooms and other facilities in the modern building, exhibitions, performances, lectures, experiences, promotions, training, and many activities are carried out here.
More events have moved beyond the cultural center to Paris and beyond, launching one brand event after another.
According to the data, in the more than 20 years since the establishment of the China Cultural Center in Paris, it has contacted a large number of local mainstream members of the public and held a large number of activities. In terms of activities alone, more than 3,000 cultural activities of various forms and colors have been held in the past 20 years.
Among them, there are a series of festival brands such as "Happy New Year" and "Mid-Autumn Festival", which are held every year, and the cultural center shares the joy of the festival and feels the cultural connotation with the French public through these activities. There are also self-owned brand activities such as "French Chinese Film Festival", "Paris Chinese Opera Festival", "Paris Chinese Opera Festival", "Sino-French Fashion Week" and "Spring Melody Concert", which are held regularly, so that the French public can understand Chinese traditional culture and perceive the development of contemporary China.
In the well-designed Chinese Culture Experience Center, the event is almost staged in line. Cultural experience brand activities such as "Tea and the World", "Youth Chinese Story Telling Hall", "Entering the Center for the New Year", "Chinese Night" and "Lanting Elegant Collection" invite the French public to walk into the center and experience Chinese culture in an immersive and interactive way.
More activities are taking place all over France.
On the evening of May 12, the first event of the 10th French Chinese Film Festival and the special screening of the Sino-French co-production documentary film "Kangxi and Louis XIV" were successfully held at the Grand Cinema of the Opéra de léval in Paris. This film, made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, focuses on "Chinese stories, international expressions", and was filmed by Chinese and French professional film teams in both countries.
According to reports, the organizing committee of the film festival has selected 10 new films released in China in recent years, such as "Hot and Hot", "Flying Life 2", "Kangxi and Louis XIV", etc., from May 13, in the French cooperative theater for more than a month of intensive screening.
"Cultural exchange is a myriad of things, rich in content, and our job is to slowly expand small clues and stories, and then combine them to tell them serialized and systematically." Liu Hongge told reporters that the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris has always been looking for better ways to disseminate culture in order to achieve better cultural exchange results.
In this way, at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, Chinese cultural display and dissemination activities are carried out one after another.
Source: People's Daily Online
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