Hungarian Cultural Season in China

Last Sunday, the “Hungarian Cultural Season in China 2007-2008” had its opening festivities in Beijing.

The aim of this event series is to strengthen Chinese-Hungarian relations and popularizing Hungary as a place for Chinese investments in the heart of Europe.
Since 2004 China is the fifth biggest trading partner of Hungary, the Chinese already made bigger investments such as the Asia Center. There was an article about this topic in Monday's issue of the China Daily.

The first event in the scope of the cultural season was the opening of an exhibition on Kodály Zoltán's life and work at the campus of the Beijing Normal University, mainly organized by the Chinese Kodály Association. As for the fact that the “opening” was held in another building than the exhibition has been set up, I would rather call the event two hours of showmanship mixed with some musical part. It was simply the official part with the focus on the big shots, not so much on the culture.
The cultural part of this event was not so impressive. The best part was a Chinese children's choir performing some Kodály songs. They were very sweet and it was a nice gesture from the Chinese party.
The Hungarian appearance was not so great. The renowned pianist Tamás Vásáry performed well, but that was no surprise. The other Hungarian performer, Ági Szalóki was not a good choice. Still, the Csángó songs she has chosen were very nice, a fact which saved her performance.

The speeches were appropriate to the occasion.
Prof. Dr. Zhong Binglin, the president of the Beihing Normal University, was first, Hungary's prime minister followed. Mr Gyurcsány acted like a good prime minister, his speech was well written and better delivered than I expected. He mainly emphasized Kodály's importance in music history and education.

Only one thing in his speech sounded wrong: “This is the biggest Hungarian cultural event in abroad ever”. That's simply not true.

The second programme on the schedule was the vernissage of an exhibition on Hungarian Gypsy art at the Boyi Gallery. I wrote a seperate article on the exhibition itself. They had live “Gipsy” music, which gave the vernissage a big touch of kitsch... I love folk music, so I liked it.

In the evening a concert was held in the Sun Yat-sen Concert Hall. Mister Vásáry played piano again, accompanied by his wife, the ballett dancer Henriett Tunyogi. There were also a few folk dancers, some operetta actors and a bunch of instumentalists. Szalóki and her friend Beáta Palya were nothing extraordinary.

The positive highlights of the concert were Róbert Farkas (violin, accordion) and Antal Kovács (guitar, vocal). They brought authenticity and cheer to the Sun Yat-sen Hall.