SCBC’s This is China series awarded Excellent Work for Popularization of Social Science in Guangdong Province”
Recently, Guangdong Social Sciences Association gave commendation to some experts, practitioners, works, and organizations that had contributed outstandingly to the popularization of social science in Guangdong in the past year. The SCBC sponsored book series This Is China: Essential Aspects of Chinese Culture was awarded Excellent Work for Popularization of Social Science in Guangdong Province”. A total of 19 works received such a commendation, of which only two were from private higher institutions.
The series was edited by Xu Feng and Yang Jianjun, and translated into 10 foreign languages over a period of nearly five years by a team of 55 multilingual experts and translators. The translator team, led by SCBC’s erudite professors such as Mo Xuqiang, Zhan Huahua, He Shifan, Qin Mingwu, Chi Shengnu, Yang Jianrong and Chen Sheng, included 25 teachers from the School of English Language and Culture, the School of Asian Languages and Cultures and the School of European Languages and Cultures.
The book is divided into twenty-four chapters, covering all aspects of the daily life of contemporary Chinese people, such as food, clothing, housing and transportation, culture and leisure, interpersonal communication, education, employment and income, folk customs, beliefs, traditional symbols, family and food, Chinese medicine, martial arts, opera and poetry. With beautiful designs and illustrations, the series introduces many aspects of contemporary China in plain language, through which readers can learn about many of China's tangible and intangible cultural heritages and understand the uniqueness of Chinese culture. It is practically a window into Chinese society for readers at home and abroad.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that storytelling is the best way to communicate internationally. International communication is a good platform for telling China's story and an important channel for foreign readers to understand China. As Chinese we should be more proactive in the agenda setting of international dialogue and gradually improve the competence in international communication. The purpose of the series is to tell Chinese story and promote China's brilliant culture to the outside world. Its publication has been a victory achieved by the whole team under the guidance of Xi Jinping's thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era and the principles of the 19th Party Congress. All editors, compilers, and translators have taken on and fulfilled their respective responsibility to help promote Chinese culture, presenting in the book a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China to the world as part of the effort to improve China’s cultural soft power and cultural influence.