Chongqing- With the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chongqing strives to play a more important role in the world's stage of cultural exchange nowadays. On March 10, Marco in Pisa, Italy, and Eiko in Chongqing, China, has connected in the live stream show of iChongqing's YouTube channel. Huang Yunlin, the director of the Confucius Institute in Pisa, joined the show to introduce the institute's work during the last two years.

Facing the severe challenge of the pandemic, teachers and staff of the institute strive to promote Chinese language teaching and cultural exchange in Pisa constantly. As a local in Chongqing, Huang said she hasn't returned to China in three years, and she misses hotpot (a famous Chongqing food with spicy soup base) so much.

Confucius Institute in Pisa hosted the "China's Intangible World Cultural Heritage: Identity, Self-awareness, and Ethnic Minority" forum in October 2021. (Photo: Chongqing University)

Huang said the institute hosted cultural activities like the Chinese film festival, the book exhibition, the ethnic minority experience class, the calligraphy class, etc. Also, it supports the academic project and carries out Chinese language teaching in local high schools. Due to the pandemic, many language lessons turned online, Huang feels kind of pity on this." I believe that language learning requires face-to-face communication." Still, Huang stays positive in their next step of work: promoting more Chinese writers by Italian language versions.

Chongqing University (CQU), one of the top 1% Chinese universities within the framework of the state "double world-class universities project," is on the frontline of oversea cultural promotion. The Institute Confucius in Pisa results from a cooperation agreement between Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies and Chongqing University signed in December 2004.

It is an important cultural, economic and academic project, which, under the direction of a group of scholars and experts, represents a point of reference for the mutual understanding, exchanges, and economic activities between Tuscany and China, as well as for the cultural recognition of the Chinese community in Tuscany.

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