Exhibitions, forums and activities are the centerpieces of the
22-day West Lake Expo 2001, which opened in Hangzhou yesterday to a
frenzy of interest from art lovers and tourists.
The expo will hold 46 international and national events based on
cultural projects such as oil paintings, sculptures and exhibitions
of China's distinctive silk heritage.
Overseas and domestic tourists joined local residents in flocking
into the Hangzhou China Silk Town yesterday to visit the Silk
Fashion Exhibition.
Sculptures featuring the whole production process of silk products,
including raising silkworms and reeling off raw silk from cocoons,
were on display.
The organizers also invited embroidery veterans from South China's
Guangdong Province, Central China's Hunan Province, East China's
Jiangsu Province and Southwest China's Sichuan Province to
demonstrate their superb skills on the spot.
Other cultural events include the National Exhibition of Chinese
Oil Paintings, exhibitions of calligraphy, traditional Chinese
painting and seal art, a stone art show, a tea art show and an
international sculpture exhibition.
Among these, the most important event is the Fifth China
International Folk Art Festival, which will end on Thursday.
Folk art troupes from more than 20 countries and regions including
Russia, the Netherlands, Georgia, Egypt and Brazil will give
performances.
This is the first time the event - sponsored by the China
Federation of Literature and Art Circles - has been held outside
the capital city of Beijing.
Hangzhou has a cultural tradition worth boasting about and its
people have shown greater passion for arts than residents from most
domestic cities.
Statistics reveal that Hangzhou residents spend more on buying
books, newspapers and magazines on average than people in any other
major Chinese city.
This provides a solid foundation for the success of cultural
events.
Art and culture are not the only features of the West Lake
Expo.
The following three weeks will also see an international auto
exhibition, a hardware exhibition, an international forum on
traditional Chinese medicine and a symposium on the development of
the Internet, to which heads of China's top dotcom companies such
as Sohu and Alibaba will attend.
(China Daily October 21,
2001)