EVENTS

Abstract

China and India are two great civilizations with remarkable ethnic diversities. The two countries have had uninterrupted cultural interactions for over two thousand years in which Yunnan stands out as one of the important hubs on China-India cultural exchange. A road linking Sichuan and Yunnan with India via Myanmar, known to the world as Southern Silk Road existed since ancient times. Though modern infrastructure and transportation facilities have changed the historic Southern Silk Road, it is still an international corridor of cultural interactions between the two countries and the ethnic communities living in this area have been instrumental in facilitating this process. The presentation emphasizes the importance of an extended research on this cultural corridor and need for generating understanding among the people of the two countries. It also suggests that a joint research team should be dispatched to study history and culture along the Southern Silk Road.

About the Speaker

Prof. Wang Qinghua is the director and professor at the Institute of Ethnology of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS). In 1983, he graduated with major in ethnic history from the Department of History, Yunnan University. Wang has been working at the Institute of Ethnology at YASS since then. The scope of his research mainly covers ethnology and visual anthropology. So far, he has published 15 books, 90 theses and has made more than 40 television programs. His book titled On Terraced Farming Land – Ethnic Hani People’s Ecological Agriculture won him prestigious award for social science studies from the Yunnan government. His bookThe Sculptured Mountains published in Taiwan has been highly appreciated by scholars and researchers of the relevant fields.

Note : Prof. Wang Qinghua, is part of a visiting YASS delegation to the Institute.