Experts and innovators are sharing how the digital age is reshaping cultural exchanges at this year's World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen Town of east China's Zhejiang Province.
From martial arts (or Wushu pronounced in Chinese) to mobile games, emerging technologies are becoming powerful tools to bridge cultures and foster mutual learning.
Fourteen years ago, Jake Pinnick began practicing martial arts at Wudang Mountain in central China's Hubei Province, a sacred site in China's Taoist culture.
Hailing from America, Pinnick is now the 16th-generation disciple of the Wudang Sanfeng martial arts lineage. In recent years, he has embraced the internet to teach Wushu and Taoist culture to a global audience.
During the WIC which took place from Tuesday to Friday, he shared how digital platforms have helped bring Wudang to the world.
"Now we have videos, now we have a more 3D landscape to participate it. So, I feel like when I'm making videos online, I'm developing like a community that people can stay connected with. So, it's actually accelerating the education process. Also, just tools like translating, creating subtitles, video editing, image creation for texts, really so much of the workload can be benefited from AI and from new technology that it just streamlines the process," he said.
AI technologies that Pinnick mentioned are also on full display at the internet conference.
At this year's conference, over 600 tech firms showcased their latest technologies and products. One standout was China's wildly popular video game "Black Myth: Wukong".
In recent years, gaming has increasingly become a powerful medium for cultural exchanges.
This sentiment is echoed by Tian Haibo, a young Chinese game developer.
In 2020, he launched a mobile game called "5th Invention", inspired by traditional Chinese architecture. The game has since achieved 70 million downloads worldwide.
"Since 2018, we have developed three games, but only one has been launched. From the very beginning, true to our company's name, Dongji, pronounced in Chinese, our aim has been to showcase the essence of Eastern culture at its finest. Our original intention was to earn respect, be it for us as individuals, for our company, or for Chinese culture as a whole," said Tian, founder of Chengdu Ebgame Information Technology Co., Ltd.
It's not just young innovators like Tian who are making use of emerging technologies. Even 75-year-old American physicist and sinologist Richard Sears is leveraging the internet to promote cultural understanding.
Known as "Uncle Hanzi," Sears has spent over 30 years tracing the origins and evolution of Chinese characters.
"In my opinion, of course, the most important thing about Chinese culture is Chinese characters. If you don't have them, you don't have Chinese. So, I'm glad that in recent years, my website has been able to teach both Chinese and foreigners the origins of Chinese characters. So, the internet is the main reason why the world is becoming one world. We are globalizing and there's no turning back," said Sears. The guests agree that while technology will greatly facilitate cultural exchanges, it can never replace human creativity, especially in the arts. They hope that ethical AI development will enhance humanity and foster collaboration for a better, more connected world.
New technologies facilitate cultural exchanges, mutual learning between nations: guests at WIC
