Submitted by cisibiu on
Universities nowadays equally have the mission of acting as a powerful connector of cultures and fostering creativity. In the present age of globalization and intensified interaction – educational, cultural, economic, scientific, and technological – scholars, intellectuals, decision makers and key actors in public policy have become increasingly aware that living in a multipolar world requires thorough understanding of different cultures, civilizations, ethics and ethos as prerequisites for connectivity and continuity.
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Confucius Institutes have undertaken and successfully accomplished the genuine role of pontifex, creating bridges and connecting cultures, enabling a global interaction based on mutual knowledge and understanding. Culture is the essence of humankind, its most powerful and enduring component, facilitating inter-institutional and international cooperation.
Culture shapes individual’s worldviews and the way communities address the changes and challenges of their societies. For this reason, education serves as a critical vehicle for transmitting these value systems as well as for learning from the humanity’s diversity of worldviews, and for inspiring future creativity and innovation. The close nexus between education and culture should be understood as an opportunity to promote human rights, including cultural rights, global citizenship and respect for cultural diversity. Recent mechanisms, large scale projects of international range have been launched in view of bringing into play the strategy of connecting past and future, tradition and modernity, culture and economy, mind and matter, creative imagination and pragmatic output, inexhaustible resource and tangible profit.
The main outcomes of the conference was: identifying new opportunities and avenues for further Chinese cooperation with the whole world, mapping China`s imagine and reception as an instrument of public diplomacy; exploring and tapping on the most recent development in the fields under investigation on the basis of an interdisciplinary academic perspective.
This Conference represented a breakthrough project that aimed to strengthen and support the communication within the newly founded Confucius Institute Partnership Alliance, under the coordination of Beijing Language and Culture University, encouraging scholarly interaction and academic dialogue, in addition to eliciting scholarly debate.
The conference was structured on four panels: Confucius Institutes Forum for Cooperation and Development, Intercultural Communication in Teaching Romanian to Chinese Students, Best Practices in Teaching Chinese to International Students, Student Symposium.
Panel 2 - Intercultural Communication in Teaching Romanian to Chinese Students was aimed to gather professors of Romanian as a second language who discussed the challenges and peculiarities of teaching Romanian to Chinese students and citizens in general. The discussion was structured around the topic:
1. Chinese students` perspective of the best known Romanian traditions and customs
2. Means of overcoming challenges and obstacles in teaching Romanian as a foreign language
3. The significance of drawing up a new textbook for the study of Romanian by Chinese students
4. The project of translating into Romanian Chinese textbooks for primary school students
Panel 4 - Student Symposium was one of the successful achievements of the conference, due to the great number of students involved, who were very excited to learn and research more about China and Chinese culture. The main symposium tracks were:
1. Literary, linguistic and cultural studies
2. Economic growth and bilateral trade relations
3. Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine
4. Scientific and technological development
5. Educational cooperation and international relations