Nanjing Week opens at UN

Zhang Qiyue (center), Chinese consul general in New York, and Wu Haitao (center left), deputy permanent representative of China to the UN, attend the opening ceremony of Nanjing Week at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday. ZHANG RUINAN / CHINA DAILY.

Nanjing Week kicked off at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Thursday, giving New Yorkers a taste of Nanjing's people, culture, history, art and food – a glimpse of the city from a variety of angles.

Viewers learn of the city's features through the picture exhibition "Splendid Nanjing" on the first floor of the UN, which presents both the ancient and the modern views of the city through six sections, including Cultural Qinhuai, Great Beauty of Qixia and Artistic Nanjing.

"It's very important to improve US and China relations at the sub-national level especially through cultural exchange," said Zhang Qiyue, Chinese consul general in New York, who attended the event. "Many of the events during Nanjing Week are very down to the earth, so ordinary American people can better understand Nanjing and China."

At the Nanjing Promotion Conference, a series of famous Nanjing tourist attractions was vividly presented through a video, giving guests a fresh image of the urban area of Nanjing, as well as Qinhuaihe and Jiangbei, new areas being promoted by the Nanjing Municipal Tourism Commission.

"The mission of Nanjing Week is to promote the image of Nanjing and the city's culture," said Pan Guping, chief of the publicity department of Nanjing Municipal Party Committee and the executive director of Nanjing Week. "As 'the Capital of Six Dynasties and Ten Dynasties', Nanjing has a very rich cultural heritage."

"We hope to showcase Nanjing to people in New York under the image of 'Global, Cultural, Fashionable' by telling the stories of the lives of the people of Nanjing," said Pan. "These stories are also related to Nanjing's contemporary culture, like model Chen Bige's story and ordinary people's lives as well."

The event also brought an authentic taste of the city – 12 Nanjing traditional dishes including May-ling Congee – to the UN.

"Our slogan is to carry on the traditional taste of our hometown food," said Xu Weiwei, the director of marketing of Nanjing Impression, which provided the dishes. "We are representing Nanjing to present traditional Chinese dishes to the United Nations and the US."

Besides Nanjing's history and food, the guests also experienced Nanjing's traditional art, culture and urban scenery by watching "The Magical Journey of Yong Dong: Multi-media Performance of Intangible", a stage drama that integrates intangible cultural heritage with Chinese characteristics like Kun Opera with multi-media technologies.

Nanjing Week has already been launched at the Milan Expo in 2015 and the London Design Festival in 2016. The New York Nanjing Week will last through Sept 13, and be followed by a series of events such as Nanjing Face: One City Ten Faces Images Show at the New York Grand Central Station, the "Golden Phoenix Tree" cultural creativity summit forum and the Sino-US "Ancient Book Repair" international workshop.