The 2018 Qufu International Confucius Cultural Festival and the 5th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations was kicked off on September 26 in Qufu of Shandong province, the birthplace of Confucius.

A total of 263 experts and scholars attended the forum, including 91 guests from 25 foreign countries as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan of China. Their research fields cover a variety of disciplines such as Confucianism, international politics, religion and anthropology.

With the theme of “Common destiny, integration and connectivity: the integration of civilizations and a community of common destiny for mankind”, the forum has three sub-topics, which are an exploration of the path of the Belt and Road Initiative and the community of a shared future for mankind, duty and responsibility: embracing the new era of human civilization, and cultural heritage protection and the community of common destiny for mankind.

In addition to the opening and closing ceremonies, there will be 3 high-end dialogues, 4 keynote speeches, one special forum and 21 group dialogues during the forum.

For the first time, the opening ceremony of the forum and the Confucius Cultural Festival was jointly held.

Themed on "telling Chinese story in Confucian culture", the cultural festival consists of the awarding ceremony of the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy which will take place on the night of September 27. The Confucius Prize for Literacy is the first international award named after Chinese people. Educational institutions and projects from over 20 countries and regions in five continents have won this honor including the US, India, South Africa, Spain and Colombia.

Such activities as the Confucius memorial ceremony, international promotion conference on Chinese study tour and UNESCO international symposium on education will highlights the cultural festival.

Source:sdchina.com

Edited by: Xie Tingting