On the evening of October 28th, the two oldest civilizations in the world met on the Nile. At 9 o'clock p.m. Cairo local time, the Week of Chinese Culture, the largest of its kind in scale in Africa and Arabic regions, inaugurated amid the cheerful rhythm of the music 'Good News from Beijing to Mountain Fastness'.

Ding Wei, Director of International Liaison Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, said at the ceremony that displaying diversified and exuberant modern China together with introducing China's old civilization is what the activities this time are different from the previous ones.

At 9 o'clock p.m., an audience of nearly 1,200 attended the opening performance given at Cairo's National Opera House on the Nile where all seats were occupied. Each item performed, either in folk music, Peking Opera or acrobatics, won without exception a burst of warm applause. Two Egyptian songs, including 'A Pleasant Journey', sung by Zhu Mingying in Arabic, led some viewers to join in the singing and to dance to the rhythm of the songs in spite of themselves. She is great! Just like an Egyptian singer, a viewer said, thumb up, to the journalists.

Although I cannot follow the actor's lines in Peking Opera, I can nevertheless appreciate the Chinese culture through the costume and acting, said Nifi, an Egyptian Chinese language tour guide who once studied in China, to the journalists after the performance. I have not been to China for the last ten years. Now the cultural week has offered me not only an opportunity to satisfy my passion for drama, but also to meet some old friends to talk about the latest news in China.

To choose to hold the largest Week of Chinese Cultural in Egypt was out of the consideration that China and Egypt are two countries both have built up the oldest civilizations in the world. Sun Jiazheng stressed, as he was interviewing journalists, that the common problem the two countries are confronting is how to keep the independence of their innate culture while moving forward with the times. It is reported that in addition to five performances held during the cultural week, there will be a Show of Chinese Plastic Arts and cultural exchanges such as symposia for experts.

What are Chinese people like today? Why are they so full of vitality? said Ding Wei, Director of International Liaison Bureau. China's rapid development has aroused Egyptians' wish to understand China as they also have a long history. Therefore, they have managed to launch large-scaled, relatively concentrated activities within a short period of time so as to spur the Egyptians to pay more attentions to China and Chinese culture.

By Liang Qi

(Beijing Youth News)

October 30th, 2002