Fang Aiqing

The Goethe-Institut celebrated its 30th anniversary in China earlier this year. And a 30-hour celebration comprising concerts, performances, art installations, film screenings, lectures and events for children was held on Nov 17 and 18 at its base in the 798 art zone in Beijing.

Meanwhile, in 30 events held from September through Dec 9, the Goethe-Institut China held discussions on 30 essential questions about the future as well as human and social development, covering art, technology, language learning and gender studies.

“The celebration is a condensed version of our work,” says Clemens Treter, director of the Goethe-Institut China.

The venue at the 798 art zone, decorated in green, is considered a cultural space where free talks, artistic productions and creative activities using new technologies are frequently held.

Visiting German President FrankWalter Steinmeier says: “Among the many branches of the Goethe-Institut I’ve been to around the world, this is one of the coolest spaces. Congratulations for having such a place filled with creativity.”

Steinmeier made the comments on Sunday in the course of a discussion with scholars from a variety of fields on the challenges brought by the digital revolution.

The cultural arm of the Federal Republic of Germany, which is dedicated to promoting knowledge of the German language and fostering international cultural cooperation, the Goethe-Institut, founded its China chapter in Beijing on Nov 1, 1988, due to the joint efforts of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-97) and then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930-2017).

Michael Kahn-Ackermann, the founding director of the institute, says the founding was a very complicated and difficult process that took more than four years of negotiation.

Ackermann was among the earliest overseas students who came to China in 1975.

A sinologist, he has translated books of Mo Yan, the Nobel laureate; Zhang Jie, a two-time winner of China’s prestigious Maodun Literature Prize; and author Wang Shuo into German in the 1980s.

Ackermann attributes the founding of the Goethe-Institut partly to China’s reform and opening-up and says the Goethe-Institut in Beijing was the only independent foreign cultural institution on the Chinese mainland for 16 years after it was set up.

Currently, the Goethe-Institut China has libraries and language centers in Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shenyang, Qingdao, Nanjing, Chongqing, Xi’an and Wuhan, besides Beijing.

At the opening ceremony of the 30-hour celebration, a number of Chinese scholars and artists shared their experiences of learning and working with the Goethe-Institut China.

Jia Guoping, a composer and a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, attended a German language course there 25 years ago shortly before going to Germany for further studies under the German Academic Exchange Service scholarship.

In 2007, Jia started working with the institute as part of a three-year chamber music program, during which orchestra and piano students from the Central Conservatory of Music got the opportunity to be instructed by principal musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic.

Meanwhile, Jia launched a corresponding chamber music composition competition named Con Tempo — which still runs — so that the winners’ works could be performed by students attending the program.

Later, in 2011, the Central Conservatory of Music set up the Ensemble ConTempo Beijing. The ensemble later made its debut in Europe sponsored by the Goethe-Institut China.

According to Jia, his team is now working with the institute on a “digital concert hall” program that screens recordings of some of the Berlin Philharmonic’s concerts.

“Our cooperation with the Goethe-Institut China has promoted the development of contemporary music in China,” says Jia, adding that the younger generation of Chinese musicians are open-minded, and that the institute is responsible for the change.

A growing number of music students at the Central Conservatory of Music are seeking to do further studies in Germany, a frontier of modern music, and many of them are studying at the Goethe-Institut China.

Clemens von Goetze, Germany’s ambassador to China, says that China and Germany recognize the differences between the two countries and both want further cooperation.

And though there are collisions and setbacks in cultural exchanges, Goetze hopes more people from both countries can master each others’ languages, something which the Goethe-Institut China has helped with over the past 30 years.

According to Treter, the institute also attaches great importance to training German teachers in China.

Marla Stukenberg, the regional director of the Goethe-Institut in East Asia, says: “We firmly believe that the various problems and challenges humanity is facing can be resolved with dialogue and that the talks should not be limited to bilateral exchanges.

“And the cultural and educational programs promoted by the institute around the world are an example of this.”