Awards Ceremony for 2011 Chinese City Rankings Event Held in Beijing
created: 2011-09-20
CRI, September 19, 2011
The awards ceremony for the 2011 Chinese City Rankings event launched by CRI Online was held on September 16th in Beijing.
The top ten cultural cities, including Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Nanjing, Lhasa, Dali, Guangzhou, Guilin, Pingyao and Qingdao, were honored at the ceremony. They were selected based on the evaluations of an expert panel and the results of votes by people from all over the world.
A number of distinguished guests including officials from the Information Office of China's State Council, China's Ministry of Culture, National Tourism Administration and representatives from the nominated cities, foreign diplomatic missions and international organizations and journalists from domestic and international media, attended the ceremony.
Wang Gengnian, director-general of China Radio International, addressed the 2011 Chinese City Rankings event, introducing Chinese cities to the world again after the "2010 Chinese Cities Ranking -- Top Chinese Tourist Cities" event held last year. This event helps foreigners gain a deeper understanding of the real China and its natural and social attractions and cultural and folk resources. Wang said the event has attracted wide attention from overseas netizens who find Chinese cities with high levels of multiculturalism and uniqueness very charming.
On behalf of resident foreign diplomatic missions, Warawudh Chuwiruch, minister of the Royal Thai Embassy in China, said such a creative event hosted by CRI serves as a channel for people to learn more about China's varied urban culture and promote mutual understanding and blending among different cultures. In a world of diverse cultures, only through cultural collision, exchange and blending can a country's urban culture display its unique charm and draw more inspiration in an open environment.
This event, featuring Chinese multiculturalism and showing the beauty of Chinese cities, was hosted by CRI Online under the guidance of the Information Office of China's State Council, China's Ministry of Culture, and the National Tourism Administration. CRI Online launched the cyber-selection event through its multilingual platform and cooperation with overseas and domestic media organizations. This has provided global netizens with a great stage to make comments on the Chinese cities via online voting and text messages as well as an opportunity to experience China's special cultural resources.
During the selection procedures, 26 CRI Online websites of foreign languages including English, French, Japanese, German, Hindi and Hebrew presented special coverage of the event and solicited votes from netizens.
More than 10 foreign media organizations worked together to promote the event on their websites. Television stations, newspapers and websites, including China Education TV (CETV), Blue Ocean Network (BON TV), "Traveler Magazine”, "China Daily," "West China Metropolis Daily," "Yangtze Evening News," "Chengdu Daily," "Dali Daily," Xinhuanet.com, People.com and Sina's Weibo (microblog), reported the event in various formats. The event received 5.76 million votes among which international votes accounted for nearly 66 percent of the total number since the activity began in April.
The 2011 Chinese City Rankings event was highly acknowledged by people from all walks of life at home and abroad. Foreign diplomats stationed in China including those from Russia, India, Canada, Japan, Poland, Israel, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Croatia and Albania spoke highly of the event. Maciej Gaca, counselor from the Polish embassy, said the Chinese City Rankings event was a very creative idea to introduce China to the world both at home and abroad. He believed that the activity would remind people to rethink the meaning of urban culture and its development in the modern world and that the event's promotion would prompt discussions about urban culture and cultural heritage in China as well as enhance tourism development.
Lauer Deroncaro Pareto, a netizen who participated in the voting on CRI Online, said he was greatly impressed by the beautiful views of Chinese cities and that the beauty of these cities is like fragrance that will never die away, gladdening the heart and refreshing the mind.
After the ceremony, a team of reporters from about a dozen foreign media agencies are scheduled to join in a 10-day tour of Beijing, Chengdu, Nanjing and Suzhou to experience the charms of these cities.
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