Experience the charm of culture and share a moment of reunion - Jianwai Department of Property Management and Shanghai Cooperation Organization: the “Chinese traditional culture” event
2016-01-18

      On December 19, 2015, to consolidate the friendship with DRC, spread the Chinese traditional culture, enjoy the charm and appeal of traditional Chinese arts, the Jianwai Property Management Department invited diplomats from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and their families to Fangxing Theater Village in Xuanwumen to visit theme exhibitions on traditional operas and participate in the opera festival. Makhmadsharif Khakdodov, Deputy Secretary General of the SCO, Wang Kaiwen, Ambassador and Special Advisor, and over 40 diplomats and their families attended the event. Tao Lin, Deputy Director General of Aojie Company, and Ren Jianmin, Head of Jianwai Aojie Repair Department, were also invited to attend the event.

      As the first cluster of theaters in China, the Fangxing Theater Village, basically composed of five small theaters, is a concentrated expression of theater culture, whose central theme is the main cultural characteristics of Chinese theater. Through theater performances, exhibitions and fairs, it perpetuates the traditional Chinese culture and arts.

      Derived from the reconstruction of the former Beizifu Courtyard, Fangxing Theater Village is composed of red walls, glazed tiles, and a bamboo forest, giving a deep sense of culture. Foreigners who come to this theater village are attracted by this picturesque courtyard buildings, and all of them took pictures to make them a souvenir. We went to admire the exhibition entitled“Li Wenpei’s Ink Opera Characters” in the Fangxing Art Gallery then. In this gallery, we watched Li Wenpei draw paintings and appreciated his other work introduced by local guides. In front of these paintings full of life and with an eternal charm, foreign visitors, while never ceasing to watch, listened attentively to the story of the characters in the paintings.  Then everyone tried on with great interest the costumes of the characters from the classic play “The Peony Pavilion", and took pictures in front of graceful peony flowers to make the pictures a souvenir.

      After the show, we went to visit the Blood Stone Museum, which presents the famous stone and stone sculptures. Diplomats admired the beauty of this art and the incredible skills. These expressive crafts revealed to us all the charm of traditional Chinese culture, and without the need to use the Chinese language, they broke all the boundaries of nations, allowing visitors to experience the beauty and power of culture.

      At 19:30, we watched a play,designated by the opera festival, named "Chen Liang San" in which excellent actors starred. The foreign guests were particularly attracted by not only the exquisite masks and gorgeous costumes of the actors but also their performance combining the content and the form that was deeply rooted in the heart of the story. Their melodious, mild, skillful and passionate singing as well as the  hesitation, panic and helplessness in their eyes and their expressive footwork, allowed at the same time the guests to be impressed by the story and have a better understanding of the art of Chinese traditional theater.

      On behalf of the Secretariat of the SCO, Ambassador Wang Kaiwen praised the excellent quality and service of the Housing Service Corporation when attending the event. This evening’s event had not only given the diplomats of the SCO the chance to attend a magnificent and exquisite traditional Chinese theater show, enjoy unique cultural services, but also allowed them to relax both physically and spiritually and have an opportunity for ideological and cultural exchanges, so as to deepen friendship and cooperation between the SCO and DRC.