Traditional crafts, music and art will be shared with Scandinavian audiences later this month

Residents in Finland will have the chance to experience the exotic culture of Hunan at the Central China province's cultural festival in the Scandinavian country's capital Helsinki from June 29 to July 3.

The event is sponsored by the Information Office of the State Council and the Chinese embassy in Finland. It is organized by the Information Office of Hunan, the Hunan Cultural Bureau, as well as other organizations from the province. Hunan's embroidery, porcelain and tea products, as well as shows of acrobatics, handicrafts, folk music, paintings and calligraphy will be featured throughout.

Hunan embroidery is one of the four famous styles of embroidery in China. Photos Provided to China Daily

In addition, there will be a photography show to present vivid images of Hunan's people, daily life, nature and culture, according to the event's organizers.

As one of the four famous styles of embroidery in China, Hunan embroidery will be a highlight of the event.

Hunan embroidery has already won recognition in Europe over the past several decades.

In 1991, a qipao, or cheongsam, designed by Hunan's artists, featuring the embroidery pattern called "the auspicious dragon and phoenix", took part in the 56th Paris Fashion Expo and won a gold prize. This was the first time that a garment from China won a prize in an international fashion show.

According to Fang Jing, an expert from the Hunan Institute of Embroidery, the province's embroidery has gained increasing popularity overseas recently because of the local artists' "creative inheritance" of this centuries-old art form.

"Since 2006, our institute has partnered with the Hunan Arts and Crafts College to train professionals for the sector, making better protection and development of this ancient art possible," she said.

According to Fang, the embroidery to be displayed in Helsinki will cover such subjects as humans, animals and landscapes, embodying both traditional and modern elements.

Porcelain wares

Silks and porcelain wares produced in Hunan have long been the bulk of trade between Hunan and the outside world through the ancient maritime Silk Road.

"On a salvaged ship near Indonesia, more than 67,000 pieces of porcelain, proven to be produced more than 1,000 years ago, were discovered, and more than 80 percent of the goods were from Hunan province," said Zhang Xingguo, an archeologist from Hunan.

He said Hunan's porcelain products traded through the maritime Silk Road were mostly produced in Tongguan, a suburban town in the provincial capital of Changsha, and Liling in Zhuzhou city.

Porcelain production in Tongguan came to its peak during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), according to Li Jianmao, a researcher at the Hunan Provincial Museum.

"Tongguan's porcelain wares have been discovered in 29 countries and regions," Li said. "It's no exaggeration that Tongguan had been an important spot in the ancient maritime Silk Road."

Li said Hunan's porcelain trade has gone beyond the limit of economic activities.

"In recent centuries, it has become a showcase of Hunan's exclusive and innovative culture," Li said.

He noted that porcelain production in Liling, which flourished relatively later than that of Tongguan, embodies more innovative elements.

A prominent innovation made by Liling's porcelain craftsmen is the underglaze five-color technique.

The technique, which was invented in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and matured in the decades that followed, helped porcelain wares from Liling to win the gold prize during the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in the United States.

During this month's Hunan cultural event in Helsinki, a batch of Hunan's porcelain wares from Tongguan and Liling will be displayed, giving local audiences a chance to experience the glory of Hunan's porcelain industry from centuries gone by.

Tea from Hunan, another commodity that was once crucial to the region's Silk Road trade, will also be presented at the Helsinki event.

Dark tea from Anhua county, which was traded through the Silk Road and Tea Horse Road, was popular among the nomadic people in central and northern Asia for many centuries and eventually increased in popularity with consumers in Europe and other parts of the world.

Now, the Finnish people can taste the genuine black tea from Anhua - said to be good for digestion of oily food - during the Hunan cultural event.

Other activities

Folk music, which will be performed at the Helsinki show, will give Finnish audiences a chance to hear music that is typical of Hunan - rustic, but never lacking elegance.

Zhang Yinyue, head of the music delegation to Helsinki, said the visiting Hunan Folk Music Troupe will incorporate both Hunan's traditional and Western elements in their performances to cater to the needs of local audiences.

Zhang herself is a renowned player of erhu - a two-stringed bowed musical instrument - in Hunan. Other musicians expected to perform will present their skills with other Chinese instruments like the qin, ruan and flute.

According to Zhang, the troupe has frequently visited foreign countries in recent years.

Last year, its visit to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Washington DC was well received by audiences in the United States.

A number of publications from Hunan will also be exhibited in Helsinki during the event. One of the major exhibitors will be the China South Publishing and Media Group.

Gong Shuguang, chairman of this top publishing company in Hunan and also chairman of its parent company Hunan Publishing Investment Holdings, said China South Publishing and Media Group has already had successful cooperation with Europe's publication and media companies, including the renowned Pearson Publishing, based in Britain, in the fields of textbooks and online education.

Hunan is an important player in China's publishing industry. A great number of books produced in Hunan will be displayed at a book fair in Helsinki to introduce the culture, arts and people of Hunan as well as the rest of China.

In addition to the book fair, an exhibition of paintings and calligraphy from Hunan will be held.

Two renowned painters from Hunan, Mao Guanghui and Wang Deshui, will interact with Finnish people on site, sharing their ideas and insights in artistic creation.

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(China Daily European Weekly 06/23/2017 page26)