In the evening of the December 7th, the year of Shaoxing, China of the 2021 “Culture City of East China” closed. Zhang Xu, vice cultural and tourism minister, delivered a speech and announced the closing. Chu Ziyu, director of the culture and tourism department of Zhejiang province, and Sheng Yuechun, secretary of the party committee of Shaoxing city, attended the ceremony and gave speeches. Video speeches were given by mayors of other 3 cities elected in the 2021 “Culture City of East China”, including Zhu Jianjun, mayor of Dunhuang, きたはしけんじ, mayor of the Kitakyushu of Japan, and the mayor of the Suncheon of ROK. During the event, Zhang Xu gave prizing letter to Shaoxing, Xi’an and Jinan, three elected cities of the “Culture Cities of East China”.
Zhang Xu said in his speech that the “Culture Cities of East China” is an important result of the meeting mechanism of China, Japan and Korea. It was seen as a platform to improve cooperation, to promote cultural construction of cities, to improve cities’ development level and to contribute to cultural and tourism communication and cooperation. In the last year, Shaoxing had been overcoming all kinds of difficulties due to the pandemic, continuing the close connection with cities in Japan and Korea and launching innovative and flexible international communication and cooperation. He hoped that Shaoxing could contribute more in the exchanges between itself and cultures in East Asia.
In 2021, Shaoxing held a series of color cultural event with the theme of “thousands of years of cultural history and realizing dreams in Shaoxing” and with cultural features of Da Yu, Wang Yangming, Lu Xun, huangjiu (local yellow rice wine), calligraphy and so on.