This Is China: Essential Aspects of Chinese Culture,edited and translated by SCBC teachers, published in 10 languages as a tribute to the centenary of the CPC
The brilliant Chinese traditional culture is the most profound cultural soft power that nourishes the development and growth of the Chinese nation. Recently, a series of multilingual books This Is China: Essential Aspects of Chinese Culture, jointly compiled and translated by 25 teachers from South China Business College of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, has been published and launched by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and presented as a tribute to the centenary of the Communist Party of China. The series was edited by Professor Xu Feng, winner of the “chevalier de l’ordre des palmes académiques”, and Professor Yang Jianjun, dean of the School of European Languages and Cultures.
The Chinese version of the series was compiled by Mo Xuqiang, Deng Jiong and Yu Shan from the School of European Languages and Cultures, and translated into 10 foreign languages over a period of nearly five years by 25 teachers from the School of English Language and Culture, the School of Asian Languages and Cultures and the School of European Languages and Cultures. Divided into 24 themes, including folk customs, socializing, culture and leisure, opera and musical instruments, painting and calligraphy, poetry and fiction, and famous cities and monuments, the series presents readers with a real picture of everyday life in China.
With beautiful design and illustrations, the series introduces many aspects of contemporary China in plain language, through which readers can learn about China’s society, economy, and culture. This is indeed a good read for readers to perceive and understand China. The series can be used as a reading material for both foreign readers to understand Chinese culture and Chinese and foreign language learners to get an overview of Chinese culture.
One of the compilers, Professor Mo Xuqiang, said that the series is an introduction to all aspects of Chinese people’s life, with the contemporary Chinese society and people's daily life and culture as the focus, such as clothing, food, housing, transportation, habits, folk customs and other details. The long-standing and brilliant Chinese culture is the embodiment of the spiritual pursuit and the unique spiritual identity of the Chinese nation. As foreign language teachers and scholars, we should be good communicators of Chinese culture and do our bits to help the world better understand China. The publication of the series is one good way to truly achieve the goal of telling Chinese stories and communicating Chinese voice around the world.
The preface of the series was written by Joël Bellassen, general-inspector of Chinese Language Teaching at the French Ministry of Education and professor at the French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures. In the preface, he wrote:
“To understand another culture, one should have an experienced guide, and the series This Is China: Essential Aspects of Chinese Culture can play this role very well. It can help us become familiar with the habits of ordinary Chinese people and China's many tangible and intangible cultural heritages. Only through these concrete manifestations can we truly understand the uniqueness of Chinese culture. From social interaction to employment and income, from folk customs to beliefs and traditional symbols, from family and food to Chinese medicine, opera and poetry, This Is China: Essential Aspects of Chinese Culture is a window into Chinese society. Now let's open it up and read!
Yang Jianjun, one of the editors-in-chief, said that the purpose of the series is to tell the Chinese story and promote China's brilliant culture to the outside world. Its publication has been a victory achieved under the guidance of Xi Jinping's thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era and the principles of the 19th Party Congress. All editors, compilers, and translators have taken on and fulfilled their respective responsibility to help promote Chinese culture, presenting in the book a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China to the world as part of the effort to improve China’s cultural soft power and cultural influence. Published at this time of the year, the series is presented as an ideal gift for the celebration of the centenary of the Communist Party of China.