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More than two hundred people attended the opening of a special exhibition on "The Chinese Character" organized by the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) and the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to mark the UN Chinese Language Day (20 April).
Visitors, UN staff, representatives of the Permanent Missions in Vienna as well as numerous special guests attended the event in the Rotunda of the Vienna International Centre (VIC) on 10 May 2011.
In her welcome remarks Sonja Wintersberger, UNIS Officer-in-Charge, thanked the Permanent Mission of China and in particular Ambassador Hu Xiaodi for bringing this exhibition to the VIC with the support of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, the Henan Provincial Cultural Heritage Department of China as well as the National Museum of Chinese Writing.
Chen Peijie, Chargé d'Affaires of the Permanent Mission of China, pointed out in her speech that Chinese is one of the most ancient and most widely spoken languages in the world. Chen Yantang, Deputy Division Chief of the Henan Provincial Cultural Heritage Department, emphasized that the Chinese characters ("Hanzi") are not only a tool of communication, but concurrently also witnesses of Chinese culture and history. Dennis Thatchaichawalit, Director of the Division of Management, who spoke on behalf of the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) Yury Fedotov, told the story of Cangjie, a very important figure in ancient China who is said to be the inventor of Chinese characters. Cangjie tried to capture the unique characteristics of all things in this form of writing.
After an impressive musical performance on the traditional Chinese musical instrument Pipa visitors were invited to a cocktail reception and had the opportunity to have their names or words written in Chinese character by a Chinese calligrapher. The Confucius Institute of the University of Vienna gave an introduction to Chinese language to interested guests. There were also information desks on Chinese Language at the VIC by the Language Training Centre of the IAEA and the Chinese Translation and Text Processing Section of the Conference Service Management of UNOV.
The exhibition also shows how to write Chinese characters with the traditional "four treasures in the study" (Chinese brush, ink, paper and ink-stone) and how the modern typing and printing technology are used for this old language in a computerized era.
UN Chinese Language Day is part of an initiative to raise awareness and respect for the history, culture and achievements of each of the six official languages of the world body.
Language Days at the UN seek to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization.
The exhibition will be on display in the Rotunda/VIC from 10 May to 27 May 2011 and can be seen by visitors as part of the guided tour.
As part of the celebrations, VIC staff and Permanent Missions are invited to attend the Chinese film series from 11 to 26 May 2011 at UNIS Cinema Room (G0575) with selected Chinese movies and documentaries.
