By DPA
Beijing : Germany is kicking off a unique three-year campaign across China, presenting itself through a series of concerts, exhibitions and seminars in the biggest such presentation it has ever undertaken.
“It’s not about showing that Germany is hip and sexy, innovative and just generally really cool because every country does that,” said Michael Kahn-Ackermann, the designer and organiser of the events that are to take place in China’s most important cities.
Instead, the emphasis would lie much more on the future of large cities and sustainable urban development, said the head of Beijing’s Goethe Institute, the international German cultural and language institute.
“We are saying that we have common questions and problems that we are confronting, no matter whether we are German or Chinese,” Kahn-Ackermann said. “We will have to work together in some way to find a solution to such problems.
“Germany has a lot to offer in this regard,” he added, noting that the Sino-German exchange over the environment, culture and life in big cities would also be mixed with promotions for Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to kick off the events Monday during a visit to China when she attends a gala concert with her Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, in Beijing that will mark 35 years of German-Chinese relations.
The performers will be the German-Chinese orchestra young.euro.classics, half of whom are musicians from the Shanghai Conservatory and the other from the Young German Philharmonic.
The next day, Merkel is to open events in Nanjing, the first station in the three-year programme, with a production of Romeo and Juliet by the Stuttgart Ballet that will feature a Romeo from the southwestern German city and a Juliet from Beijing.
Concerts, exhibits, conferences and seminars are to be held in Nanjing through the beginning of November under the motto “Germany and China – Together in Motion”. A German promenade there is also to present a vision of a public square that either does not exist in Chinese cities or is represented only in the form of shopping plazas.
The next stops are to be Guangzhou early next year and Chengdu in autumn 2008.
The concept of the festival is cultural, economic, scientific and political, Kahn-Ackermann said. “A purely cultural programme would not interest the people we are trying to attract,” he said.
There will indeed be a pop music festival and cultural events but they will be mixed with seminars on environmental conservation and urban development, visions of the future, scientific events and dialogues on the law.
The fact that Chinese President and communist party chief Hu Jintao agreed to assume patronage of the events with German President Horst Koehler is being seen as unusual. “It’s a special gesture,” a diplomat said.
The finale of the three-year campaign is to be Germany’s participation in the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 with the motto “Better City, Better Life”.