China Grand Canal Cultural Belt International Communication Dialogue held in Beijing to promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations – China News Service

China News Service, Beijing, November 15th (Reporter Chen Hangxu Jing) On November 14th, the China Grand Canal Cultural Belt International Communication Dialogue on “Scenario Blending and Mutual Learning among Civilizations” was held in Beijing. Experts and scholars from politics, industry, academia and research, representatives of Chinese and foreign media, etc. were invited to jointly Explore the spiritual connotation and innovative expression of the Grand Canal culture and promote the Grand Canal culture to the world.

This event is one of the important theme activities of the 2023 China Grand Canal Cultural Belt Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue and Beijing (International) Canal Culture Festival (hereinafter referred to as the “2023 Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue and Canal Culture Festival”), organized by the Information Office of the Beijing Municipal People’s Government and the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government It is co-sponsored by the Information Office, Hangzhou Municipal People’s Government, China News Service, and World Canal Historic and Cultural Cities Cooperation Organization (WCCO).

The picture shows the scene of the China Grand Canal Cultural Belt International Communication Dialogue event “Scenario Blending and Mutual Learning among Civilizations”.Photo provided by the organizer

Millennium cultural context reveals new face

In 2022, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal will be fully connected to water for the first time in a century, revealing a new face of a thousand-year-old cultural heritage.

Li Gu, leader of the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Beijing Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Municipal Supervisory Committee in the Propaganda Department of the Municipal Party Committee, said in his speech that the Grand Canal served as the cultural link between ancient China and the world, demonstrating the openness and tolerance of Chinese civilization. How to translate China’s canal stories into a language that foreign audiences can “understand, listen in, and understand” and present a credible, lovely and respectable image of China is an important task that requires long-term research and exploration, and continuous innovation and development. . At the same time, using the canal as a medium to do every international communication and image creation with heart and emotion will help build a good international image that matches Beijing’s “four centers” positioning and matches the capital of a major country.

“For thousands of years, the Grand Canal has connected the north and the south, giving birth to prosperous and prosperous cities on both sides of the strait, and also shaping the unique cultural IP of the canal.” Luo Lili, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Government Information Office, explained how to protect, inherit and make good use of the Grand Canal shared, saying that we should focus on content construction and work together to tap canal story resources; we should use values ​​as a link to innovate the canal story narrative perspective; we should use new technologies as a bridge to iterate the canal cultural communication form; we should use the city as a hub to build Canal cultural exchange system.

“Promoting the Grand Canal culture to ‘go global’ is also telling the story of Chinese culture to the world.” Wang Min, vice president of China News Service, said in his speech that exploring new paths for the international dissemination of the Grand Canal culture must focus on emotion, scenery, and communication. , blend into the hand. That is to say, the cultural communication of the Grand Canal must move people with emotion and enrich narrative content materials; attract people with scenery and deeply explore cultural landscapes; communicate and learn from each other, and make good use of new technologies and new methods; break walls and cross bridges to enhance Affinity and effectiveness.

“The Grand Canal of China is not only a world cultural heritage, but also an important route for China’s ‘south-to-north grain transportation’.” Zhang Zhongjun, charge d’affaires of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in China, said that the word “yun” in the canal originally meant transportation, and in the social system , with the help of water flow, the “canal” not only became a carrier for grain transportation, but also a link for cultural integration and dissemination. He said that in the future, FAO is willing to continue to work with all parties to promote the exchange of results and experiences in the construction of China’s Grand Canal Cultural Belt. At the same time, it will take water as the keystone and take multiple measures to coordinate the utilization of water resources, ensure agricultural production and food security, and provide benefits to mankind. and the earth to create a world where water resources are used sustainably.

Blending scenes to tell the story of the canal

The canal has been flowing for thousands of years, and the cultural name card of the canal is constantly being polished. With the help of rich new media means, the dissemination of canal culture has broken through the limitations of time and space, spawning multi-dimensional content and forms, and playing a role in promoting exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations.

In the keynote speech session, the guests at the meeting took “Love, Scenery, and Friendship” as the theme, and jointly contributed to the inheritance, protection and innovation from three perspectives: telling the story of the canal that has conveyed love for thousands of years, showing new scenes along the canal, and promoting exchanges and mutual learning among canal civilizations. Display the cultural suggestions of the Grand Canal.

“The ever-flowing canal water is a collection of splendid Chinese culture stories.” Feng Huiling, director of the Institute of Digital Humanities of Renmin University of China, said that in order to make the canal culture move and come alive in cyberspace, the Institute of Digital Humanities of Renmin University of China started from digital Study from the perspective of memory and digital communication, collect documentary materials and conduct on-site exploration of cultural heritage. For the large amount of historical and cultural resources and materials obtained about the Grand Canal in Beijing, we will implement the three-step process of “manage, count, and illuminate” to conduct standardized and professional management. At the same time, by building a special cultural website on the “Beijing Grand Canal”, the protection, dissemination and preservation of the history and culture of the Beijing Grand Canal are realized in the digital space.

“It is the responsibility of every canal city to tell the story of China’s Grand Canal well and promote Chinese culture.” Yang Jinhuai, deputy director of the Beijing Water Conservancy Bureau and first-level inspector, said that as an important canal cultural city, Beijing still retains a very rich canal heritage. cultural heritage resources. The canal channels and water system patterns in the Beijing area are still relatively intact. In recent years, Beijing has taken people’s livelihood as its guide, actively promoted the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt, implemented ecological water replenishment, realized the interconnection of Beijing-Hebei waterways, improved the coastal landscape, formed a number of waterfront leisure spaces, and launched Wenyu River, Bei Canal and other projects. Waterfront cycling routes to build a waterfront slow-traveling system. In the junction area of ​​Chaoyang, Shunyi and Changping in Beijing, at the junction of Qinghe, Laohewan and Wenyu Rivers, a 30-square-kilometer Wenyu River Park will be built to become the largest “ecological green lung” in urban Beijing.

Ling Ming, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, shared a set of data during his keynote speech: Since 2020, Beijing has carried out a total of 669 archaeological excavation projects in the seven districts along the Grand Canal, with an excavation area of ​​321,000 square meters. Currently, there are registered museums in the seven districts. 169 homes. Among them, the Beijing Grand Canal Museum (East Branch of the Capital Museum) has been officially named and its facade has been unveiled, and is expected to be open to the public by the end of 2023. He said that in recent years, Beijing has continued to promote the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt and the National Cultural Park, excavating Beijing’s “local” canal cultural characteristics, adhering to archeology first, promoting the restoration of historic sites, strengthening environmental improvement, emphasizing social participation, improving the quality of cultural supply, etc. New breakthroughs and progress have been made in many aspects.

Hou Jianmei, director of the Propaganda Department of the Tongzhou District Committee of Beijing, used the four keywords of “the past and the present together”, “the interweaving of blue and green”, “vital Tongzhou” and “cultural empowerment” to share four pictures of the sub-center: the Randen Buddha Relic Pagoda stands proudly; Pingyuan District won the title of “National Forest City” for the first time, cultural and tourism ecological resources on both sides of the canal were fully released, and three new landmarks of the sub-center are about to be unveiled. She said, “With the Grand Canal Cultural Belt leading urban construction and empowering urban development, the beautiful blueprint of the city’s sub-center is gradually turning into vivid new pictures.”

According to Ying Qiaohua, director of the Propaganda Department of the Gongshu District Committee of Hangzhou City, Gongshu District is famous and prosperous because of the river, and the Grand Canal culture has become the spiritual link that leads to the happy life of the Gongshu people. He said that we must make good use of the golden business card of the canal. Gongshu District is creating a vision for economic development, a beautiful scenery with cultural benefits for the people, and a poetic and picturesque scenery of Jiangnan. The Grand Canal Digital Intelligence Future City is rapidly emerging, and the Grand Canal Asian Games Park has become a “people’s “Park”, green mountains and clear waters blend with urban prosperity, and the happy present is intertwined with rich history.

What are the commonalities and differences between countries around the world in repairing, protecting, and redeveloping canals? Roger Wei, a distinguished professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Architectural Engineering of Zhejiang University who has lived in China for 20 years, has continuously tracked and researched the development of the world’s canals and China’s canals. He conducted a comparative analysis of world canal cities such as Milan, Italy, Toulouse, France, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and proposed a unique strategy for the protection and redevelopment of Hangzhou’s canals. In his opinion, Hangzhou can plan ecological parks connected to water bodies based on a sustainable cultural tourism model.

Zhang Peng, executive director of the Guo Shoujing Memorial Hall in Beijing, said that museums along the canal should focus on exhibitions when promoting the canal culture and inheriting the canal spirit, and use the application of digital technology to bring more unique exhibition experiences. “Exhibitions are the core cultural products of museums. The application of digital technology, from the perspective of exhibits, makes the display of cultural relics and cultural heritage more diverse and more three-dimensional, especially in displaying the value of the living cultural heritage of the Grand Canal, its effect is particularly outstanding.”

Helping the Grand Canal culture “break out of the circle”

In the age of integrated media, images, as a creative carrier with a wide audience, play an indispensable role in the international dissemination of the Grand Canal story. The event featured works from the Second International Grand Canal Image Competition showing international cultural exchanges on the canal, and honors were awarded to the winners from Beijing, Zhejiang and other regions along the line.

The picture shows the awards of the 2nd International Grand Canal Image Competition.Photo provided by the organizer

Civilizations are colorful due to exchanges, and civilizations are enriched due to mutual learning. In the roundtable dialogue, Professor Zhang Kai of the Communication University of China’s Institute of Communication served as the moderator of the dialogue session, and Qu Ru, director of the Beijing Institute of International Studies’ Beijing International Culture Communication Research Base and president of the Capital Institute of International Culture Communication, professor of the China Academy of Art, Deputy Director of the Art Museum and Director of the Folk Art Museum Du Jing, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Newspaper Supplement Research Association, Master Xinran, the Abbot of Zhenguo Temple in Gaoyou City, Jiangsu Province, Liu Shizhao, a well-known photographer, Chairman of the New York Business Media Group in the United States, Guests such as Bing Ling, a humor novelist living in the United States, took “Integration: Strengthening International Communication to Tell the Canal Story” as the theme. Based on the international perspective and the context of new media communication, they deeply discussed how to innovate new expressions of international communication and other related issues.

The guests started from their respective research fields, focusing on the screening and integration of Grand Canal IP, the emotional cultivation of young people’s Grand Canal culture, the key points of promoting the Grand Canal culture to go abroad, as well as the protection of intangible cultural heritage, image recording, and the version of ancient books on the Grand Canal culture. Reconstruction and strengthening overseas communication provide more ideas for telling the story of the Grand Canal and improving the effectiveness of the Grand Canal’s international communication.

The picture shows the roundtable dialogue session of the “Integration of Scenarios and Mutual Learning of Civilizations” China Grand Canal Cultural Belt International Communication Dialogue.Photo provided by the organizer

The 2023 Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue and Canal Culture Festival will be held in Beijing from November 13th to 14th. With the theme of “Inheriting Canal Culture and Empowering a Better Life”, the event highlights cultural, cooperative, international, leading, and mass characteristics, focusing on Beijing. The results of the construction of the National Cultural Center and the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt, the development and changes of the canal, the illustrations of the people’s better life, and the use of the canal as a medium to promote international communication, planned and launched 11 theme activities to promote the co-construction of cities along the canal in the flow of culture and economy. Win-win situation in circulation and sharing in the popular lifestyle will further enhance the influence and communication power of China’s Grand Canal Cultural Belt. (over)