The opening-ceremony of 2021 “China-Greece Culture and Tourism Year” was held in Athenian Agora Excavations in the evening of September 16^th.　　

    Li Keqiang, China’s prime minister of the State Council, attended the opening ceremony of 2021 “China-Greece Culture and Tourism Year” online and delivered a speech. Kyriakos Mitsotakis delivered a speech through video.

    Attendees of the opening ceremony was also included Hu Heping, China’s minister of culture and tourism, and Li Qun, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, both of whom participated through video, as well as Mendoni, Greece’s minister of culture and sports, Kikilias, Greece’s minister of tourism and other representatives form political, cultural and tourism fields.

    On the opening ceremony, Wang Qiang, charge d’affaires of China’s embassy in Greece, and curator of Greece National Archaeological Museum jointly started a digital exhibition named “Parallel Space: Meet the Terracotta Warriors in Greece”. Li Qun said in his speech that the exhibition was the first stop of the a global digital tour exhibition of Chinese terracotta horses and warriors. It’s an online encounter of the two ancient civilizations of China and Greece as well as a new attempt of cultural heritage communication and cooperation pattern in the post-pandemic era.

    There were three online exhibition halls, namely, “panorama trip”, “the beauty of true color” and “the light of technology”. The exhibition was presented to the public on the websites of National Archaeological Museum of Greece and Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum of China at the same time. There would also be a visual exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum of Greece to interpret terracotta warriors and horses as a symbol of Chinese civilization. The exhibition lasted from September 16^th, 2021 to February 28^th, 2022.

    Later, Wang Qiang, Mendoni and Kikilias revealed the sculpture named “Socrates and Confucius: An Encounter” made by Wu Weishan, curator of National Art Museum of China. The sculpture depicted a dialogue between Socrates and Confucius, both of whom were two sages, and showed the wishes that a human community with shared future would be built and that China and Greece would learn from each others’ civilizations and seek win-win cooperation.

    At the opening ceremony, audience admired an amazing performance by artists from Greece National Opera Theater.