Red Peony: Three Years of Romance with Cultural Dialogue

By Jiang Hongsheng, Rong Jinyi



Red Peony: Three Years of Romance with Cultural Dialogue

By Jiang Hongsheng, Rong Jinyi

We were excited and happy to learn in August, 2015 that a story titled “Fragrance of Blooming Red Peony Reaches Far” about our Red Peony published in the issue of March 2014 had been awarded Golden Dove prize in international communications. This kudos brought us back to the journey of international exchanges we had taken together with Cultural Dialogue.

Founded in October 2012 and situated at the Library of Ningbo University （Yinzhou campus）, Red Peony is a people-to-people organization designed to teach foreigners to learn Chinese calligraphy and painting as well as the regional culture of Ningbo. Every international student starts their learning here by painting a red peony first. In Chinese culture, red peony symbolizes peace, happiness, prosperity. In their lesson one here, they learn something precious about Chinese culture while observing, experiencing, drawing the flower.

美国克利夫兰孔子学院98位师生，2015年7月24日来到红牡丹国际书画社，体验中国书画艺术。图为美国师生对牡丹花的描绘展示频频鼓掌，欣喜不已。A group of 98 teachers and students of Cleveland Confucius Institute, USA, visit Red Peony on July 24, 2015. They were applauding when a Chinese teacher was showing how to paint a peony in the traditional Chinese way.

When the first story about Red Peony appeared in Cultural Dia-logue, our international students took notice. Those who appeared in the photos and story were excited. They photographed the text and pictures and proudly shared with their friends and relatives back home.

非洲友人在宁波乡村寻找最美中国符号。Friends from Africa show off “福” （fortune） in rural Ningbo on a field study of Chinese culture.

David

David from UK was a PhD and history teacher with Ningbo Nottingham University and studied Chinese art at Red Peony. He loved to paint peonies and bamboos. In particular he loved the red bridal sedan and the reception procession, part of the wedding ceremony in Eastern Zhejiang. One day he visited the small library at Red Peony to check whether there were images of these wedding ceremonies so that he could use in his own painting. It was here that he thumbed a copy of Cultural Dialogue and found himself fascinated by a story featuring the red dowry. David and his friend William, a French entrepreneur working in Ningbo and studying art at Red Peony, started a discussion then and there. In the following days, they came to us several times requesting that we organize a trip for the foreigners in Ningbo to visit Ninghai where the red dowry originated.

Then we did organize a trip and David, who had managed to know so much about Ninghai and the red dowry tradition, acted as a tour guide for us. With the Cultural Dialogue magazine as a guidebook, we visited the former residence of Pan Tianshou, the ancient town Qiantong and the Red Dowry Museum. After the visit, David wrote an essay about the Chinese culture based on what he had seen in Ninghai and Ningbo. William painted red peonies as a gift to her sister at her wedding in Europe.

After he returned to Nottingham University in UK, David gave a lecture about Red Peony, the wedding ceremony such as the red dowry, and the Cultural Dialogue monthly. With his recommendation, the art museum of the university has invited us to hold a onemonth lecture, exhibition and art classes at Nottingham University in early 2016 so that people there could learn about Chinese culture. We are looking forward to our upcoming visit.

Leo

Leo was a graduate student at Ningbo University. He was from Romania. To take a class at Red Peony, he needed to travel 60 kilometers to and from his campus of the university. He set up an art and calligraphy club for overseas students at Ningbo University to get better results in their studies of Chinese art and calligraphy. With him as a shiny example, many fellow foreign students came to study art and calligraphy at Red Peony. Leo organized students from 20 some countries to celebrate the Spring Festival in rural Ningbo. Cultural Dialogue in May 2015 covered the celebration. Leo was mentioned in the story. He returned home taking a few copies of the Cultural Dialogue monthly. The media back home reported his romance with China, Red Peony and the Cultural Dialogue.

Arna from Iceland has been in China for a long while with several extensions of her visa. A passionate learner of Chinese calligraphy, she has systematically studied Chinese calligraphy. She has a special liking for Cultural Dialogue and the traditional paintings and calligraphic works in the magazine are something she studies carefully. She has done paintings on the spot whenever we brought our foreign friends to visit local attractions and rural areas. These paintings express her love for local culture and natural beauty.

The students at Red Peony from 30 countries have created a painting of peonies in celebration and appreciation of the magazine on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.