Under a spring sky of Tunis, a symbolic brush traced Thursday April 24 a new cultural gateway between China and Tunisia.
In the salons of the University of Carthage, Hichem Messaoudi, director of the Higher Institute of Languages in Tunis, exchanged a handful of hands and official documents with a representative of the Normal Beijing University Publishing Group, reports the Xinhua agency. The agreement: Introduce the teaching of Chinese calligraphy in Tunisia.
The gesture was more than a protocol ritual. On the table, a batch of specialized manuals and teaching materials, offered by the prestigious normal university of Beijing, testified to a shared ambition: to make young Tunisians discover the subtle art of line and ink.
“Chinese calligraphy is not only an artistic discipline, it is the very soul of our culture,” said Kang Zhen, vice-president of the Chinese University, who came specially for the occasion. By promoting this millennial art in Tunisia, Beijing hopes to strengthen the bonds of friendship through education and emotion.
Hichem Messaoudi, all smiles, praised an initiative “in line with the growing enthusiasm of Tunisian students for Chinese language and culture”. In the corridors of the Confucius Institute, we are already talking about new vocations and future calligraphs.
Classified intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO since 2009, Chinese calligraphy is not content to cross the centuries. From now on, she also crosses the seas, to write, in Tunisia, a chapter of human and artistic exchanges.
