A choir concert along the Grand Canal in Beijing's Tongzhou District featured singers from multiple countries on colorfully decorated floating boats, performing before over 10,000 audience members who lined the illuminated riverbanks, creating a vibrant, theatrical atmosphere.
This event brought together 275 singers and 640 community choir members, including professional choirs from Seychelles, Bulgaria, and Russia, as well as top vocal ensembles in China. The three-and-a-half-hour-long concert fostered cross-cultural exchange and mutual enrichment through the universal language of music.
"The kind of mix -- music is universal. It doesn't matter which language you are singing. Different choirs from different region -- from China or from another country -- it shows you the culture and the diversity in the culture itself in China, and all over the world. It's something just beautiful," said Julien Alexis, a tenor of the Seychelles National Choir.
Julian said this was his seventh time performing in China, but his first time doing so on the water in front of such a large audience. Beyond their musical repertoire, the choir also brought along a collection of photographs showcasing the iconic landscapes of Seychelles, hoping to give people in China a closer look at their homeland.
"I expect it to be a very emotional moment, and I expect everybody will unify. We'll be in harmony -- everybody in harmony together. Let this resonate all over Beijing, all over China, all over the world," he said.
Terence Gomme, another tenor of the Seychelles National Choir, said: "With friendship and love, that's the most important part out of it -- getting to know new friends and all that."
The warm hospitality of the Chinese people and the rich cultural diversity left these international artists full of admiration.
"I can say that we felt extremely heartfully welcomed here. We got introduced to the culture, to the new places, and we love to see every day something new about China and learn about their culture, their food. And also by listening to other choirs, we can learn a lot about the music and their traditions," said Niya Stoyanova, a singer of a Bulgarian vocal ensemble "Fortissimo."
The concert is part of Tongzhou's broader strategy to build a weekend cultural tourism brand, and according to local culture and tourism officials, more events of this kind are already being planned.
Moving forward, we will continue to host our signature 'Super Weekend' event series. Leveraging the unique urban landscape formed by the Grand Canal waterways and the contiguous sea of flowers, we aim to create water-and-land integrated experiences that blend culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions for all ages," said Zhang Yan, director of the culture and tourism bureau of Tongzhou District.
Music bridges cultures in Beijing's grand canal open-air waterway concert
For more than 1,000 years, Jingdezhen, the "porcelain capital" in east China's Jiangxi Province, has shaped how the world understands porcelain, with even discarded shards preserving a living tradition.
Weng Yanjun, president of the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute, reflected on the scale and challenge behind Jingdezhen's historic creations.
"When I look at this gigantic dragon jar, I couldn't help going back to 600 years ago, when the emperor had this order to create something bigger than ever before. The failure rate of the dragon jar is so high. It could be nine out of 10. Even making failure products like this takes courage, takes techniques and takes commitment," said Weng.
Those failed attempts, once discarded, now preserve the evidence of how Jingdezhen pursued perfection.
For more than 1,000 years, Jingdezhen's porcelain industry has endured through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties (960-1911). What has survived is not only its porcelain, but also a living heritage of raw materials, workshops, kilns and specialized craftsmanship.
Those firings produced masterpieces as well as failures, with the discarded pieces forming another kind of archive.
At the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute, Weng told archaeology students that fragmented specimens sometimes provide more information than complete artifacts.
Weng leads the development of the world's first Ancient Ceramics Gene Bank, which extracts and catalogs the defining characteristics of each ceramic shard.
"For our institute alone, we have excavated more than 20 million pieces of shards for the past over 1,200 years. Among those shards, we do sorting, we do restoration, and we do scientific tests. And then we find, wow, a small shard can tell us much more information than even a whole piece," said Weng.
Using a standardized sample library and unified data framework, the project records each piece's shape, decoration, body material, glaze, color, firing marks and inscriptions, creating a valuable resource for authentication and research around the world.
"The whole city is a wonderful lab and space range makes Jingdezhen uniquely a wonderful example of how the handicraft ancient industry with porcelain as the focus survived even to today," Weng added.
Jingdezhen once helped establish benchmarks for how porcelain was made. Now, the gene bank is turning fragments into a language that can be read beyond the city. For French artist and researcher Yann Colleu, learning to read that language has also changed the way he creates.
"Since my childhood, my parents had these teapots, tea sets, plates and cups. I was very curious about the pattern, like the meaning, what was behind it? Actually when I discovered in Jingdezhen that it was a bat, because of 'fu' and 'fu' is fortune, but also you have the 'wufu,' like the five blessings. I was like a child with stars in the eyes, discovering the world for the first time," said Colleu, PhD candidate at Jingdezhen Ceramic University.
What once seemed abstract became part of Yann's own visual language. In his work, traditional Jingdezhen motifs and production scenes are reimagined through a contemporary, cross-cultural lens.
"Jingdezhen is a timeless city. The past, the present and even the future are tied together. This is one of illustration of 72 traditional steps developing during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The difference is, instead of using Chinese characters, I use foreigners. I want to use the past to talk about the present and even the future with Jingdezhen," said Colleu.
The Jingdezhen Handicraft Porcelain Industry Sites were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on Saturday. The inscription recognizes not just a single kiln or masterpiece, but an entire production system, from its archaeological remains and traditional craftsmanship to its industrial knowledge and global influence.
Porcelain shards preserve Jingdezhen’s timeless legacy
