On June 10, SJTU Global Affairs Office and USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI) successfully co-organized a Han Culture Tour for full-time foreign faculty. A total of 30 foreign experts and their family members from over 10 colleges and schools participated in the event. As a big gathering for them to enjoy a cultural feast and build tighter connections with each other, the event was extremely well-received among the participants.

With the rapid development of internationalization in recent years, SJTU now has an increasing number of full-time foreign experts. In order to improve their understanding of Chinese traditional culture, the event featured Han culture exploration including Confucian Temple visit, Chinese Imperial Examination System Exhibition tour, ancient Chinese architecture learning, as well as a variety of Han Chinese cultural experience activities.

With the darling buds of early summer in drizzle, it provided the participants a gorgeous opportunity to enjoy the harmony between nature and culture. At the first stop of the tour, foreign experts visited Tan Garden, a private residence of Mr. Li, a scholar in Ming Dynasty. They were amazed by the artistic beauty and sophisticated architecture style that have been kept so well after more than one thousand years.

In the Confucian Temple built in the Southern Song Dynasty, they learnt the history and development of Chinese Imperial Examination System. As this year’s National Entrance Examination was just completed a few days ago, it turned out a perfect timing to learn the history of ancient Chinese examination system. There were some original handwriting papers of certain famous Chinese scholars on display, which impressed all the foreign experts a lot.

At the last stop, foreign experts enjoyed a wonderful ancient Han dance show, tried Hanfu (Han Chinese Clothes), learnt Han etiquette, tea art followed by a hand-made jade pendant workshop. They were much impressed by the tenderness of Han dance and the exquisiteness of Chinese jade pendants. And everyone was overwhelmingly excited to have tried on the beautiful Han Chinese clothes- Hanfu.

Han Chinese is a notable ethnic group in China with long history and splendid cultural heritage, which has a deep imprint in Chinese identity. Han Chinese has played a major role in the development of arts, sciences, philosophy, and mathematics throughout the whole history. A better understanding of Han Culture will deeply enhance foreign experts’ knowledge of Chinese Civilization. Prof. Ratiu, Tudor Stefan from School of Mathematical Sciences said gladly, “This is my first time to have seen an actually drawing of the famous philosopher Confucius, who has significant influence on Chinese development”. “It is a great pleasure to have met colleagues from various schools of SJTU,” said Dr. Peyman from School of Mechanical Engineering. And Prof. Ouchul Hwang offered an excellent summary of the tour as “a time travel to the past”. He was so happy to have experienced the splendid heritage of Han Chinese Culture.

Following last year’s Shanghai Local Cultural Exploration Event, this year’s Han Culture Tour is a further step of SJTU Foreign Faculty Culture Enrichment Event Series, co-organized by SJTU Global Affairs Office and ICCI. The event has contributed a lot to build tighter connections among foreign faculty and significantly enriched their life experience in China.