Charm of Chinese Culture : from Characters to Literature [16.04.2018]
From 16 to 26 April 2018, the United Nations Geneva office hosts an exhibition of Chinese Language and Culture at Palais des Nations. The event seeks to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity, and to promote equal use of all 6 official languages throughout the organization. The theme for this year is “Charm of Chinese Culture: from Characters to Literature”. The opening was held on Monday, 16 April, where speeches were given by Mr. Michael Møller, the Director-General of UN Geneva, and Mr. Jianhua Yu, China's Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland.
Our school Chinese Institute Geneva Foundation (CIG) attended the opening with a group of 60 Swiss local high school students and adults. Our students actively participated in the lectures presented by Prof. Zhuoyue Huang (Director of Sinology Institute of Beijing Language and Culture University, China), Prof. Harrison von Senger (famous Swiss Sinologist from Zurich) and Mrs. Marine Jibladez (Director of Georgian Sinologists Association). Our student, Francesco Finn, also accepted the interviews by CRI Online and other media. Francesco has been learning Chinese at CIG for 2.5 years.
The opening provided not only an exhibition of Chinese characters and a selection of translation works of contemporary Chinese literature, but also calligraphy show, Chinese food and souvenir T-shirts. For the guests, the Chinese Language Day event is a feast for the eyes and taste buds.
Regarding the ceremony at the UN on Monday, we had the possibility to get to know more about Chinese culture and artwork which I am very interested in. Furthermore, having workshop was making it even better because we had the opportunity to see how it was done. Plus, the speech was also about interacting with the public, which made more lively, and seeing a foreigner speaking very fluently Chinese was impressive and made me want to put even more efforts in my learning.
Have a nice week.
Raphaëlle Houtekier 15 years old
Francesco Finn 14 years old