/ world today news/ A few days ago, the Chinese Cultural Center (CCC) in Sofia celebrated its fifth anniversary. It is the only one of its kind in a Central and Eastern European country, and thanks to its activity, Chinese culture and art reach more Bulgarians. On this occasion, we talk to its director, Hun Hai, who shares details of the center’s initiatives so far and plans for the coming year.
“Our main activity is primarily related to telling and sharing China’s history and present, but also spreading the ‘voice of China,'” says Hong Hai at the beginning of our conversation, who has been in Bulgaria since the beginning of this year, but is already well aware of the interests of friends and lovers of China here, and has drawn up an ambitious program for the activities of the CCC in 2023. He recalled that most of the resources used for the establishment and operation of the center came from the municipality of Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province , and in this sense, most of the events are related precisely to the culture and traditions of this region.
The director dwells on some priorities of the KCC’s activity over the past five years, with several highlights. In the first place, he places the achieved good contacts with the media – Bulgarian and foreign, which is extremely important in order for the Chinese intangible cultural heritage to reach a wider audience, not only in Bulgaria, but also in the other countries in the region and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
“Unfortunately, in the last more than two years, due to the measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the KCC has started to use more social media and platforms to promote its activities online and present interesting events, films, concerts , courses and other initiatives,” notes Hun Hai.
As another important aspect, he pointed to the promotion of the annual trade fair in the city of Ningbo, in which, apart from China, most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as well as those from other regions participate, and which contributes greatly to mutual acquaintance and provides opportunities for future trade contacts with companies and manufacturers from these countries.
“Especially in the last year, we use and rely a lot on the foreigners who visit Ningbo, and who get to know its history, culture and art, make different films and send them to us so that we can show them to the Bulgarian public. And this applies not only to Bulgaria, because Ningbo is visited by many guests from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe”, continues Hun Hai and explains that this helps to better get to know the culture and traditions of this city in other countries.
The director of KCC pays special attention to the “Meeting at the Top of the Language”, which is met with great interest by many Bulgarians. This is a presentation of the cuisine of Ningbo, which is organized in a similar way – Bulgarians and other foreigners who live there and in Zhejiang province present the cuisine there and the ways of preparing the various dishes in clips and films, which KCC then shows. This will continue next year.
A very important area in which KCC works is the “Maritime Silk Road”, continues its director, emphasizing that in this direction the cooperation and support of the Silk Academy in Ningbo is very important. “With their assistance, we managed to organize several interesting events in Sofia and other cities of Bulgaria,” explains Hun Hai.
An important element of KCC’s activities over the past five years has been the constantly growing relations with Chinese students in Bulgaria, who make a great contribution to the development of Bulgarian-Chinese contacts and cooperation.
The director of the KCC gives as an example the desire of the Education Directorate of the Ningbo Municipality to establish contacts with several Bulgarian schools and universities, with which certain agreements have already been reached. “These are, for example, the Art Academy, the University of Transport and others, and the idea is to create in Ningbo a Union of university structures of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and China,” he explains.
Hong Hai also shared some concrete ideas about cultural cooperation between China and other countries, including Bulgaria, stressing that the goal of the CCC is to emphasize more and more innovative events related not only to creativity, but also to expanding their scale.
He outlines four main areas in this direction, the first being finding and defining the right object for cooperation, the other is the economic aspect, which is of extreme importance, and the emphasis should be placed on various economic and trade exhibitions that are held in Ningbo. “The other important spheres and perspectives in the work of the KCC in the coming year are cooperation in the field of tourism, as well as the organization and holding of various courses and trainings, which should be held regularly and become a trademark of our cultural center,” says at the end of the conversation his director.
He is convinced that through the efforts of the KCC in Sofia, a real activation and increase in the effectiveness of the partnership between Bulgaria and China will be realized, especially in the field of culture and art.
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