Experience the Culture and Enjoy A Good Time
2016-03-22

    To promote friendship between the DRC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and experience the traditional Chinese culture and art, the Property Management Department of the Jianwai DRC invited the SCO diplomats and their families to the Fanxing Operatic Art Center at Xuanwumen in Beijing for a traditional Chinese opera related art show and performance, as part of the Beijing Peking Opera Festival. Mr. Makhmadsharif Khakdodov, Deputy Secretary General of the SCO, and Ambassador Wang Kaiwen, SCO’s Special Advisor, together with some 40 diplomats and their families, took part in the excursion. Tao Lin, Deputy General Manager, and Ren Jianmin, Manager of Jianwai Maintenance Office, from the Aojie Company, were also invited to the event.

    Composed of five sub-theaters, the Fanxing Operatic Art Center is the first theater-cluster in China which focuses on traditional Chinese operatic art and promote traditional Chinese culture and art through performances, exhibitions and seminars themed on iconic features of Chinese operas.

    Converted from the former Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) “Beizi” (a rank of the Manchu nobility below that of the Prince) mansion, the Fanxing Operatic Art Center is imbued with traditional cultural and architectural features such as scarlet walls and golden glazed tiles and roofs as well as verdant bamboo bushes. Impressed by the traditional quadrangular courtyard, the visitors took out their cameras and recorded the courtyard into their memories. At the exhibition entitled “Li Wenpei’s Water Colors of Peking Opera Personalities” held in the gallery, the visitors witnessed the artist’s working before being shown more of his masterpieces, led by the tour guide. Carefully watching and listening to the guide’s narration, the visitors were overwhelmed by the vivid and realistic depictions before they were invited to try on the Peking Opera costumes of various characters and took pictures of themselves in the costumes.

    Walking out of the gallery, the visitors were ushered into a stone seal carving workshop to admire the art works made from unprocessed stones produced in Changhua, Zhejiang province. The intricately carved seal stones left a deep impression on the diplomats with their fine craftsmanship, and seemed to be introducing to the world the Chinese traditional culture without using any human languages, transcending national boundaries with an astounding splendor.

    At 7:30 pm, the visitors attended a Peking Opera performance given by prominent artists, and were enthralled with the elegantly crafted masks, grandiose costumes, the fully-devoted acting and lyrical arias. Under the impact of the dire expression and hesitant steps of the performers, the visitors experienced further the depth of the traditional Chinese operatic art.

     During the excursion, Ambassador Wang Kaiwen gave his appreciation for the HSC’s quality service and dedication on behalf of the SCO secretariat and his approval of the culture-related event that not only offered a chance for the SCO staff and employees to experience the spectacular Chinese traditional culture but also was in itself a thought-provoking event organized for the enhancement of SCO-DRC solidarity in a relaxed atmosphere.