What are the main cultural differences between Chinese and Europeans? Designer Liu Yang's pictograms, East Meets West, purports to have the answers.
For example, when faced with a a problem, the footsteps of Germans are shown leading directly to it, while those of the Chinese are shown to make a detour; a German party comprises several, small scattered groups of dots, while a Chinese party is a complete circle of all the dots; for German women, beauty means getting as deep a tan as possible, while for Chinese women, it means to become as white as possible.
Liu has been invited to design a handbook called EU China Cultural Compass, the aim of which is to serve as a practical guide to an understanding of the cultures of Europe and China for those engaged in bilateral cooperation.
The project is one of the outcomes of the second Chinese-European Cultural Dialogue, sponsored by the European National Institutes for Culture and the Chinese National Academy of Arts, held last month in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"Despite the numerous programs and joint ventures between Europe and China in recent years, cooperation is still challenged by intercultural misunderstanding and conflicts," says Uwe Nitschke, managing director of the Goethe Institute Beijing and manager of the EU China Cultural Compass project. "On the positive side, cultural differences also hold huge potential that have not as yet been fully tapped. Cultural differences can be a source of creativity."
The three-day dialogue brought together some 100 people involved in cultural undertakings, including artists, art managers, academics and policy makers, to discuss various issues grouped under the four themes of: state of the arts, cultural diversity, creative industries, and "cultural memory" or heritage protection.
Although cultural exchanges between the two sides can be dated back to the time of Marco Polo (1254-1324) and Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), European culture entered China in a big way only after the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) lost the Opium War (1840-1842) and was forced to open up the nation to the West.
While earlier European countries spread their culture in China through their diplomatic missions, this has been replaced by a more natural and spontaneous cultural exchange, says Barbara Alighiero, director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing.
An example is the newly founded Italian Cultural Center in North China's Tianjin. The area that once housed the former Italian Concession has been redeveloped by the municipal government into an "Italian Tourism Zone".
Located in a trendy area, with its Italian-style restaurants and bars as well as galleries and a cinema, the Italian Cultural Center has held three exhibitions since May this year and also has a library stocked with Italian literature and books on Italy.
"If we want to promote our culture in China, we should first know Chinese people's thoughts and feelings," says Alighiero.
"The Italian concession in Tianjin is part of a history which should not be forgotten, but we can build something new on it."
Alighiero first came to China in 1975 as a student of Chinese language and culture at the Beijing Language Institute. The social environment was totally different then, as ordinary Chinese were not allowed to talk to her, she recalls.
But today, cultural exchanges between China and Europe have become very common. A number of institutes of European culture can be found in China, such as the Cervantes Institute and French Cultural Center, even as 124 Confucius Institutes of China have been established in 28 European countries - the most in any continent.
However, both Chinese and European participants at the Chinese-European Cultural Dialogue admitted that the understanding of one another's culture was still quite shallow.
"I find it quite hard to communicate some Chinese cultural concepts to Westerners, even those who know a lot about China," says Zhang Zikang, director of the Today Art Museum, a non-governmental art organization based in Beijing.
For example, in China painting has traditionally been an intellectual exercise and closely linked with the four sacred arts, including calligraphy and music, but this is often not understood by Western critics, he points out.
"Intercultural understanding can not be achieved in a few days; it takes long-term exchanges," he says.
Zhang believes that the language barrier is hindering Europe from acquiring a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, and can only be overcome when more Chinese books are translated into European languages.
Unlike Chinese art, the creative industry, a term that groups together all those industries that focus on creating and exploiting intellectual property, is much younger in China. Wang Xiaoyun, director and research fellow at the Regional Research Center of the Cultural Industries Institute of Peking University, contends that although the context of the Chinese creative industry is very different from that in Europe, the potential for cooperation is significant.
"Creative industries are a natural demand of the market in the industrialized society of Europe, while in China it is an active tool in the hands of the government to re-structure economic growth, reform the cultural system and develop the nation's soft power," says Wang.
Wang, who also participated in the first Chinese-European Cultural Dialogue, held last year in Beijing, says the European participants this time seemed more aware of China's cultural industry.
"The creative industries in Europe and China have much to share," she says. "Europe can provide considerable knowledge in terms of policy making, education and protection of intellectual property rights, while China is a huge market for the European creative industries."
Much progress has already been made in this regard. For example, many European companies are involved in next year's World Expo in Shanghai, such as Triad Berlin, which has been commissioned to design "Urban Planet", one of the five Chinese themed pavilions at the expo.
The third Chinese-European Cultural Dialogue will also be held in Shanghai next year, as part of the expo.
