A special exhibition on the ancient Liangzhu ruins in China opened in Luxor, Egypt on Thursday, offering audiences an immersive, digital experience of ancient Chinese civilization.
The "Journey Through Civilizations: An Encounter with Liangzhu 2024 World Tour" exhibition was previously held in Cairo, Tokyo, and at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City. Co-hosted by China Media Group (CMG), the Luxor Museum, and the China Cultural Center in Cairo, the Luxor showcase marks the latest stop on the exhibition's global tour.
The archeological ruins of Liangzhu (about 3,300-2,300 BCE), located in the Yangtze River Basin in east China's Zhejiang Province, reveal an early regional state with a unified belief system based on rice cultivation in Late Neolithic China. It has been listed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage sites since 2019.
The month-long exhibition in Luxor showcases key finds at the Liangzhu ruins site, including its extensive water conservation system, agricultural production tools, primitive writing symbols, and exquisite jade artifacts. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the long history of the Liangzhu civilization, which has been recognized as tangible evidence of 5,000 years of Chinese cultural history.
Modern technologies are also on display at the exhibition to demonstrate the developmental trajectories of ancient Chinese and Egyptian civilizations, two of the oldest in the world.
The launch was witnessed by Shen Haixiong, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and president of CMG and Abdel-Mottaleb Emara, the Governor of Luxor. They also held in-depth discussions on mutually beneficial cooperation in areas such as culture, tourism, and media.
Shen praised Luxor for its reputation as the world's largest open-air museum, noting its abundance of cultural relics and heritage sites that symbolize ancient Egyptian civilization.
Shen said that 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Egypt comprehensive strategic partnership, which is also designated as the China-Egypt year of partnership. CMG is willing to deepen cooperation with Luxor in areas such as joint program production, tourism resource promotion, cultural heritage protection and exhibitions, as well as personnel exchanges, and mutual learning to further enhance the friendship between the people of the two countries.
Governor Emara welcomed the CMG delegation and thanked CMG for its efforts in promoting mutual learning and people-to-people friendship between Egypt and China.
Luxor is one of the most important tourist cities in Egypt and has maintained long-term friendly cooperation with many cities in China. Emara said that Luxor hopes to work with CMG in the future, leveraging the group's strong communication capabilities and influence to showcase Luxor's natural scenery, historical heritage, and civilizational stories to more Chinese audiences, thereby furthering the mutual understanding between the people of the two countries.
Luxor is located 700 kilometers south of Cairo on the Nile River, historically known as Thebes. It was the capital of the Middle and New Kingdoms of ancient Egypt, with a history of over 4,000 years. As the political and religious center of the Pharaonic era, Luxor is home to numerous temples and monuments, including the Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings, and Valley of the Queens. Its economy is mainly dependent on the tourism industry, with Chinese visitors making up the largest number of tourists to Luxor from any nation.
Exhibition on China’s ancient Liangzhu ruins opens in Luxor, Egypt
A perseverant mother has been planting trees on the barren mountains in Qufu City, east China's Shandong Province, to realize the last wish of her young daughter who unfortunately passed away over a decade ago. The beloved daughter once told the mother that she aspired to turn their homeland into a greener place during her lifetime.
Shu Ping, a 70-year-old retired teacher, has been planting trees on the barren mountains for 15 years. Covering an area of over 1,300 square kilometers and nicknamed "Norwegian Wood," the bioenergy plantation came from a promise between Shu and her daughter -- Yu Juan.
"After my daughter earned her master's degree, her university selected her for a two-year government-sponsored study program in Norway. She invited me to stay with her for over two months. She asked me, 'What is the best thing here?' and 'Where is the most beautiful place?' Just mother-daughter chitchat. I said, 'Norway's forests are amazing. They are so beautiful.' And she replied, 'If they are so beautiful, let's bring them back to our hometown in Shandong!' 'Great idea!' I said and we high-fived and it was settled," Shu recalled.
Yu Juan, Shu's daughter, had strong interest in botanical research since childhood. After graduating from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, she was admitted to Fudan University's combined master-doctoral program. Upon completing her master's degree, she earned a government-sponsored scholarship to pursue further studies at the University of Oslo in Norway.
Returning to China in 2007 after completing her academic studies in Norway, Yu, driven by her vision to make her homeland more beautiful and improve the lives of local farmers, signed a contract to manage over 1,300 square kilometers of barren hills in Qufu, beginning the program of her oil-bearing bioenergy plantation.
The program will create a specialized forest system designed to produce biodiesel and substitutes for chemicals by exploiting the oils extracted from the trees and their seeds.
Unfortunately, Yu's efforts came to an abrupt halt two years later, when she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer at the age of 31.
After battling with cancer for over one year, Yu passed away in 2011, leaving her unrealized dream to her mother.
"I am doing what my daughter aspired to do and I am doing better than she could have imagined. I think that is what she deserves," Shu said.
In reality, the dream was hard to realize and Shu's first large-scale tree-planting efforts failed, leaving no more than 30 percent of the 400,000 saplings alive.
The perseverant mother was not defeated and after realizing that the soil and water conditions on the barren mountains are harsh, she began consulting experts and studying seedling cultivation techniques. Gradually, the survival rate of the saplings started to rise.
Besides, Shu also confronted challenges like uneven roads and exposure to sharp gravels as she works in mountainous regions.
"One time, the path under my foot was slippery with gravels and pebbles scattered everywhere. I tried to grab anything within the reach, but in the darkness, I grabbed something cold and slippery. It felt like a snake, so I let go of it and tumbled down, twisting my ankle," Shu recalled.
The lack of funding also troubled Shu's program with the costs, including land lease fees, seedlings, and labor, drained her family's savings in just a few years.
"The financial burden is the most challenging problem. If you want to plant more trees, you have to spend hundreds of thousands of yuan (tens of thousands of U.S. dollars). At least, about 200,000 to 300,000 yuan (around 27,500 to 40,000 U.S. dollars) is required a year," she said.
In 2019, when Shu's tree-planting program was on the verge of collapse, a 74-year-old man, who learned about Shu's story by chance, insisted on making donation.
The kindness of Liu Xianggui, who donated a total of over one million yuan (137,300 U.S. dollars) to Shu's program, marked the beginning of Shu's story being known to more and more people, who started to joint her efforts to help realize her daughter's last wish.
"I gradually get to know more and more volunteers through the tree-planting program, and they help me with contacting more people and inviting them to join us. I said I had a pact with Yu Juan, and we wanted to move Norway's forests to Shandong, and they said the program should be named 'Norwegian Wood', the 'Norwegian Wood' in China," Shu said.
Under her persistent efforts, the volunteer group has kept growing. Over the past decade, they have planted over 600,000 saplings on the barren mountains.
"Previously, I planted trees for my daughter and later I planted tree for everyone. There are so many people who have helped me and my daughter with the tree-planting program. I think about how I can give something back in return. I will do more good deeds, plant more trees, and lead the volunteers to plant more trees. Their joy is my joy," Shu said with pride.
Mother plants "Norwegian Wood" in China to realize last wish of her daughter
