Arabian art festival adds hint of the exotic to Jingdezhen

There was a distinct touch of Arabia in Jingdezhen city, East China's Jiangxi province, in mid-December. At a local festival celebrating Arab arts, an Arab youth was waving exotic products at tourists who looked at them with curiosity. Both sides exchanged their views and opinions with the aid of phone translation.

It was part of the fifth Arabic Arts Festival held last month. The event saw in-depth cultural exchanges between artists from China and Arab countries, and showcased the unique charm of Jingdezhen, also known as China's porcelain capital.

Maimona A.M. Khalid, minister of the Embassy of the Republic of the Sudan in China, said at the event that, although she had just arrived in China, the country was not strange to her.

"Sudan and China have a long history of interaction, the Silk Road binds us together and we have many stories to share with you," Khalid says.

"This is my first time in Jingdezhen, and I have heard that there is a famous ceramic university here that is committed to ceramic design and production. We hope to have more cooperation with this university and do exchange programs such as sending international students to each other," she says, adding that she believes this will be an important contribution to deepening friendship and exchanges between the two countries. "In the future, I also hope to have the opportunity to visit Jingdezhen again and invite my family and friends to travel with me."

The festival is considered an implementation of the results from the first China-Arab States Summit that was held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, earlier last month.

Liu Feng, Party secretary of Jingdezhen, says that, although the city and Arab countries are thousands of kilometers away from each other, the friendship is connected.

Jingdezhen will strive to become an important carrier of cultural exchanges and show the charm of Chinese culture in the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, Liu says.

Hu Pinghua, director of the foreign affairs office of Jingdezhen, says that in recent years, a number of artists from Arab countries have settled in Jingdezhen to learn, exchange and create art. Hu says that she looks forward to welcoming more Arab tourists to China, to Jiangxi and to Jingdezhen, to unveil a new chapter of China-Arab cultural exchange.