3月26日，在亚洲青年领袖论坛闭幕式上，富华国际集团董事、中国紫檀博物馆副馆长赵紫薇发表了主旨演讲。

Vivian Chiu takes GBA as new start for red sandalwood culture's globalizaion

On 26 March, Vivian Chiu, director at Fuwah International Group and deputy curator of China Red Sandalwood Museum, delivered a keynote speech at the Closing Ceremony of the Asia Youth Leaders Forum. Following is the full text of the speech.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear young friends,

Good afternoon. It is an honor to join outstanding youth representatives at this Asia Youth Leaders Forum and discuss driving cooperation among Asian youth for shared development on such am meaningful platform for communication and cooperation.

The speeches and interactions during the forum have brought to my awareness the attention and support from all sectors to Asia youth. As a young person dedicated to the cause of Chinese culture, I am reminded again of the calling of advancing cultural undertakings. They have also infused me with a firmer belief in holding onto our culture, and committing to the inheritance, development, and promotion of excellent traditional Chinese culture.

China Red Sandalwood Museum, where I work, is China’s first and largest thematic museum that collects, studies, displays, and exhibits red sandalwood artworks and traditional Chinese furniture. Since its establishment, the museum has been upholding the concept of spreading traditional Chinese culture and dedicated to the inheritance and promotion of red sandalwood art and Chinese culture. For many years, taking it upon ourselves to protect historical heritage and carry forward traditional national culture, we have been committed to preserving, studying, and passing on traditional Chinese red sandalwood techniques. 

Based on the red sandalwood furniture collected in the Palace Museum, we have produced many exquisite red sandalwood artworks. We have even spent ten years and reproduced ancient Beijing’s 16 city gates: nine inner gates and seven outer ones. It has become a rare work to behold and a valuable reference for the mortise and tenon structure in the field of red sandalwood carving and ancient architecture. With this red sandalwood carving technique, the museum was listed by the State Council in the third cohort of national intangible cultural heritage.

It is ordained by fate for me to be here at the Asia Youth Leaders Forum. Guangdong is a place of rich cultural heritage. In order for red sandalwood culture and carving techniques to gain more ground, we have built the China Red Sandalwood Museum Hengqin Branch in this beautiful Guangdong Province. Together with the Palace Museum, we have curated Glory of the Palace: Exhibition of Furniture and Cultural Relics and Across a Century: Exhibition of Old Photos in the Palace, among other world-class art exhibitions, attracting attention from all sectors of society. Particularly, for the furniture and cultural relics exhibition, 96 items from the Palace Museum were exhibited outside the palace for the first time, presenting people in the Greater Bay Area with a wonderful cultural feast, which garnered a lot of encouragement and praise.

In addition to hosting high-standard exhibitions, the Hengqin Branch, as a forefront of public culture, plays an important role in cultural studies, education, and communication, paying equal attention to exchanges with youth in the Greater Bay Area in the field of culture. Through regular organization of Lectures on Red Sandalwood Culture, we invite reputed industry experts and scholars to give lectures, which has built a platform to understand and learn excellent Chinese traditional culture and played a positive role in advancing cultural exchange and learning among youth in the Great Bay Area.

as an important hub for China’s external interactions, the Greater Bay Area not only serves as the forefront of China’s economic development, but also plays an important role in the spread of Chinese culture globally. The Greater Bay Area used to be the start of introducing Western learning. The cultural background here is open and inclusive, and the cultural attitude here is in favor of interactions and full of confidence. We hope this place will enable the perfect combination of classic and modern and enable cross-strait exchanges to produce brighter sparks.

We also hope that more young people can join us in promoting Chinese culture, so that red sandalwood carving techniques and other intangible cultural heritage can start anew from the Greater Bay Area, to tell the stories of China and promote the global spread of Chinese culture, allowing people around the world to truly understand China and Chinese culture.