A Lesson from the Forbidden City
2018-05-22

The DSB and HSC, together with Grandrock Eden-Art, hosted a lecture under the title of The World of the Forbidden City – The Forbidden City of the World, delivered by Mr. Shan Jixiang, president of the Palace Museum (Forbidden City), at the function room and meeting room 8 of the Liangmaqiao Diplomatic Office Building at 2:30 p.m., 27 February 2018. Some 600 attendees, including Mr. Yuan Weimin and Ms. Jiang Qi, DSB director general and deputy director general, Ma Guoxin, academician of the China Academy of Science, Xu Wei, administrative counselor from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhang Bing, Grandrock Eden-Art general manager, DSB departmental executives and managerial staff, diplomats of foreign embassies and local dignities took part in the event. 

To the audiences in the fully-packed primary and secondary theaters, Mr. Shan, 64, made a comparative and analytical presentation of the past, present and future of the Palace Museum with numerous examples of how he’d come up with ideas and took action to bring the ancient relics back to life by upgrading the infrastructures, opening up formerly closed areas, establishing relics restoration service, digitalizing museum collection, offering visitor-caring service, designing and marketing peripheral products and presenting diverse cultural and educational events to maximize the impact of the Forbidden City in the world. In the 2.5-hour-long speech, Mr. Shan didn’t even bother to take a sip of water in order to keep the flow of the lecture, which was enlivened with animated and humorous anecdotes. However, his presentation was frequently interrupted by the thunderous applauses from the audiences who were amazed at his power of concentration and persuasive eloquence. 

During the interactive part of the lecture, John Aquilina, the Maltese ambassador to China, stated, “I must say, president Shan’s presentation is the most informative I have heard in Beijing so far, as he presented a totally different Forbidden City to the world. I am going to take more time to visit the Palace Museum to learn more about the Chinese culture from the magnificent relics.” 

Ms. Jiang Qi followed up with an impromptu speech, firstly to thank Mr. Shan for having delivered a thrilling lesson that touched the hearts of all the Chinese persons present, making every one proud. Secondly, she believed that Mr. Shan was an incarnation of true love and fraternity for dedicating caring services to the sightseers. His approaches were so effective that he was able to turn the attitude of the tourists from “one trip is enough” to “keeping a daily watch on the progress in the Forbidden City”, having converted numerous indifferent bystanders to faithful followers. She was particularly impressed and amazed by the fact that Mr. Shan and his team had made all the achievements of restoring the classic architectures, opening up the formerly closed areas and resuscitating the relics in merely 7 short years, to benefit the public and demonstrate the values of the ancient art works with his original managerial skills. Finally, she confessed that she had become Mr. Shan’s admirer particularly because he managed to make an astounding RMB 1 billion with his artistic ingenuity. All those achievements had proved that he was a classical/contemporary art specialist, top-line management talent and marketing grandmaster.

The event came to a close in thunderous applauses of the appreciative audiences.