China and India look to extend the tradition of cultural exchange

As two neighboring powers, India and China are routinely compared in such categories as population, economic development and complex history. Now with their equally envious ancient cultures and rich traditions, cultural exchanges between the countries have begun to take center stage.

Symbols of the two countries' tradition of cultural exchanges are numerous: Buddhism, Xuanzang, silk, tea, porcelains, annalistic writing style, Nalanda and Yoga. As testimonies of their cultural links, these symbols have also changed with time, from the Buddhism of ancient times to Bollywood films in the 1960s and 1970s. And in recent years, Chinese have begun to watch Indian musicals.

Modern impression

This month two Indian musicals will begin touring China: Taj Express and The Merchants of Bollywood. Both shows feature Bollywood-related themes. "Bollywood is really helping us go out into the world … our costumes, energy and expression need a stage," said Shruti Merchant, producer of Taj Express.

"China and India have many similarities, with both having a long history and rich cultural heritage, but now in India only the Bollywood culture is well known to the world," said Shruti. "I want to show Chinese audiences a diverse Indian culture through singing and dancing," she told the Global Times.

Gearing up for the China tour at the beginning of this year, Indian musicals are trying to gain the momentum that Bollywood films once gathered in the country. Some of them were so popular at that time that even today Chinese people can still remember the lines and hum the music in them.

"Whenever I speak to Chinese people and they know I'm from India, they always tell me how much they like Bollywood films," said Vinayak Chavan, first secretary from the Indian embassy in Beijing. "I have met several people who still vividly remember those movies from 20 years back. They still remember the artists who performed in the movies like Awara (1954) and Caravan (1971)," Vinayak told the Global Times.

Actually, Indian films have left deep impressions in Chinese people's minds; their popularity can even be compared to today's Hollywood blockbusters. When China was undergoing its Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and only a limited number of foreign films could be imported to the country, Indian films like Awara and Caravan were very popular. Later in the 1980s, dozens of Indian films including Two Acres of Land, Song of the Road, and Sargam were introduced to China.

Besides the older films, new entries like Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Three Idiots (2009) have won a wide fan base in China.

"I notice video websites like youku.com and tudou.com have several Bollywood films that people are watching. We also notice that people evaluate them very highly and give them a very good rating," said Vinayak.

Ancient links

As to ancient cultural exchanges between the two countries, the introduction of Buddhism from India to China was certainly the most significant, but it spurred other exchanges as well. Starting from the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), cultural exchanges and trade grew over time, peaking during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), with Xuanzang embarking on his Buddhist pilgrimage to India in the year 629. Staying there for 16 years, he not only brought in and translated lots of Buddhist scriptures, but he also built a cultural link for the two countries to learn more about each other.

Cultural similarities were also obvious for the two ancient civilizations. The philosophy of Confucius in China about the relations between the king and his people, family members, and fathers and sons bore much resemblance with that of The Laws of Manu, a Hindu book of ethical norms.

Also, the philosophy of Lao Zi in his Tao Te Ching about the nature and rules of the universe was very similar to that in the Upanishad, a classic book of Hinduism. In his book India and China, Indian sinologist Prabodh Chandra Bagchi wrote that the cultural and philosophical similarities between the two ancient civilizations didn't illustrate who influenced who, but only a normal and natural result.

Future exchanges

"China and India should cooperate and learn from each other in cultural exchanges and popularization, not just because of their identities as BRICS countries or their economic development, but because of Asia's development as a whole in this era of globalization," said Liu Chen, director of the Center for Intercultural Studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University.

"Currently all Asian countries are facing the task of sending their culture out, and so far few have done it successfully," said Liu.

According to her, India is more experienced in promoting its cultural products and in this regard China should learn from it.

"Take its national propaganda film Incredible India in 2008 as an example, comprising Indian Buddhism, music and others, the film was broadcast on those entertainment channels (instead of news channels like CNN) in Western media, and captioned the producer as India's Ministry of Tourism," said Liu.

"They successfully popularized Indian culture abroad while downplaying the role of government in the process," she analyzed.

Now developing in parallel, China and India have great potential to extend future exchanges. Because both civilizations founded their new countries in late 1940s, the cultural exchanges began in a somewhat scattered and flat way, dominated by simple introductions of art troupes and films.

The situation began to change in 1988 when the two sides signed the Agreement on Cultural Cooperation, under which an executive Cultural Exchange Program (CEP) was made ready for implementation.

In December 2010 during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India, the CEP was expanded to encompass a complete range of cultural fields including exchanges and visits by performing artists, writers, archivists and archaeologists, and the organizing of cultural and film festivals.

"As two civilizations whose cultures have been independently developed with little influence from outside, India and China must cooperate with each other in introducing their culture since we can't rely on Western media to report on a fast-changing Asia," said Liu, adding that the usual Western methods of spreading culture should not be the only model.