On August 14, New York's Rockefeller Building brimmed with festive cheer. Colorful banners from the News and Culture Center's Taipei Theater, Taipei Art Gallery, libraries and information center festooned the first-floor windows off of Sixth Avenue, while across the way McGraw Hill Square hummed with the activity of Chinese craft booths demonstrating Chinese paper-cutting, sugar-candy figures, origami, dough sculpting and Peking opera makeup.
Ten o'clock arrived with a crash of firecrackers. Amid lion dancers, music and applause, the broad red ribbon was cut. Passersby drawn to the activity stopped to catch a glimpse of the celebration, swelling the crowd to near capacity. Up on the second floor of the Rockefeller Building, an open buffet served a five-hour stream of hungry guests.
It was a festive occasion, hosted by the ROC government, and jointly organized by the ROC Government Information Office (GIO), Council for Cultural Planning and Development (CCPD), and the Ministry of Education. The Republic of China's first large-scale overseas cultural facility, the New York-ROC News and Culture Center, had opened its doors.
A New Image for China: The News and Culture Center, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is a proud addition to a prestigious address on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue between 48th and 49th Street. Inside, the Center is divided into two sections: On the second floor, directly facing Sixth Avenue is the News Center, housing a library, Chinese culture classroom, computer center and AV briefing room; located on the McGraw Hill sublevel, the Culture Center holds the just-completed Taipei Theater and Gallery. The functions of the two parts differ but their goal is one and the same--the promotion of Chinese culture.
It was four years ago that Director-General of the GIO Shaw Yu-ming noted how most people's perceptions of China's culture scarcely went beyond the Chinese movie celebrities Fu Manchu and Bruce Lee, or the dining establishments in local Chinatowns. Economic development and the growth of democracy in the Taiwan region have indeed raised some eyebrows around the world, but we are, after all, no more than another NIC in terms of our economy, and our democratic politics have only just begun to gain ground. The true fascination lies in our culture.
"The culture of China springs from a long rich history. It is second to no other nation in the world," says Shaw Yu-ming. Disseminating the finest in Chinese culture through this overseas base is the best and most effective means of carrying out a diplomacy of the people.
The Center held to this central concept throughout the process of finding and selecting a site, deciding on New York, laying out a budget, starting construction and finallyreparing the interior. "It was an incredibly complex, painstaking task that is actually of little interest to anyone who wasn't directly involved," as Director of the New York News and Culture Center Chang Min-chih puts it. For instance, Chang spent fifteen months casting about for site in potentially suitable locations before finally turning to the present structure in the nerve center of Manhattan.
New York City land prices are notoriously high in any borough or district, and the Rockefeller Building stands on some of the some of the city's most hallowed real estate.
Director Chang recalls that at the time people told him, "Don't be ridiculous. Forget about Manhattan. The costs are more than we can bear, and this sort of grandiose ambition is simply unrealistic." Chang, however, stuck to his guns: "They came up with some exorbitant figures, but I just kept talking them down." After lengthy negotiations, the price was set at US$100,000 a month.
Information, Education, Culture: Next came the planning. Several sessions of deliberation produced a tripart goal for the Center: provide information, cultural exchange, and education. Three facilities, a library, the Taipei Theater and the Taipei Gallery, were drawn up to meet these aims.
The library includes a Collection Department, an Audio-Visual Department, and a Computer Center. Of the 30,000 volumes in the New York News and Culture Center, 22,000 are Chinese language books, and 5000 are in English. Three thousand more are government publications. Rounding off the collection are 200 Chinese and English periodicals, twenty English and Chinese newspapers, and about 400 rolls of microfilm from the ROC papers Central Daily News, the United Daily News and the China Times.
The Audio-Visual Department lends to the public a collection of videotapes and slides introducing ROC national affairs and culture, as well as over 1000 movies and other films. A fully-equipped audio-visual Chinese culture classroom is available for teaching, and the AV briefing room can be used for academic conferences and small lectures.
Of special note is the Computer Center, a facility that receives daily English-language and Taipei Central News Agency news reports. The Computer Center also provides free, on-line services to people of any nationality who have IBM compatible computers. "The evening news from Taipei arrives here in the morning, instantly," Chang Min-chih informs us. The Center has been approached for direct-line wire service from various Chinese-language media organizations, Associated Press, United Press International, Time magazine, ABC and CBS.
The Taipei Theater and the art gallery provide arenas for Chinese cultural performances and exhibitions.
Cultural Promotion--A Sworn Duty: "I would have to say that the New York News and Culture Center is basically the best of its kind from any nation," boasts Chang Min-chih. The scale of its facilities aside, the location of the Center puts it beside the liveliest area in Manhattan, only one street away from the theater-lined thoroughfare Broadway. Finding space for a cultural center here, as CCPD Chairman Kuo Wei-pan describes it, was "just plain good luck."
Future directions for the Center, says Chang Min-chih, shall be innovative, multi-directional exchange. For instance, for November the Taipei Gallery has scheduled a joint exhibition by renowned Chinese artists from New York's SoHo and from Taipei. The Taipei Theater has also begun to contact internationally-known Chinese performing artists like Lin Chao-liang.
A half year of programming, set to begin in August, has already been lined up. Events include "Chan Chiao-miao's Leather Sculpture Exhibition," "Chen Wan-neng's Tin Art Exhibition," the "Joint Taipei-New York Artists Exhibition," Chinese classical music concerts, the Iwanjan puppet troupe, the Hsin Fu Hsuan Marionette Troupe, New Music Studio, and recitals by Rolf-Peter Wille and pianist Lina Yeh.
The News and Culture Center faces a formidable task in trying to make a name for itself in New York, a city bristling with art galleries and theaters of all description. To overcome this challenge, CCPD Chairman Kuo Wei-pan notes that apart from the traditional Chinese cultural arts, the Center will also focus on the achievements of the regional arts and artists of Taiwan. A review of the upcoming sixmonth array of events shows a pronounced leaning toward folk performance programs.
Calling All Schoolkids: Drawing audiences to these performances is another major problem. The Center, aware of the established tradition of "field trips" in American schools, has sent out letters of invitation to over 1000 primary and high schools in the New York City area. Hoping to attract the younger generation of Americans, Chang Min-chih has asked the head of the New York City Department of Education to pen a letter recommending the Center to every school in the city. "We'll start off with children," says Chang Min-chih. Many schools have already expressed interest in the Center, and tours are already being organized.
Shortages of skilled staff, raising money for future expenses, toning down propagandistic biases, and devising methods for presenting folk culture events are all problems which the Center has yet to overcome. Nevertheless, the first and most arduous step has already been taken--establishing a cultural center where once there was none.
One of the founders, GIO head Shaw Yu-ming relates a dream that formed during his college days when he first started using the information at the Nanhai Road American Cultural Center, that some day the ROC too could erect an overseas cultural center, one with a full range of functions and on a scale even larger than the American Cultural Center in Taipei. That dream is now a reality. With an eye on the future, the ROC government is now racing to catch up to more advanced nations with plans to establish similar cultural centers in Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The New York News and Culture Center has taken the lead in spreading the seeds of Chinese culture around the world. Its achievements to date and the grand scale of the opening ceremonies have earned rousing applause from every quarter. Winning the whole game, though, calls for steady success and a lot of plain hard work.
[Picture Caption]
A crowd of passersby stops to gape at an exhibition of aerial stunts inMcGraw Hill Square during the grand opening festivities for the New York Cultural Center. (photo courtesy of the New York Cultural Center)
The Heavenly General sends his blessings. Two grinning gods steal the show on opening day. (photo by Huang Lei)
The elevator up to the China News Center. Pictured from left to right are Political Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education Chao Chin-chi, Director-General of the GIO Shaw Yu ming, Representative of the Coordination Council for North American Affa irs Ding Mou-shih, and Director of the New York Cultural Center Chang Min-chih. (photo by H uang Lei)
The cozy periodicals reading room in the Center library serves the dual purpose of education and relaxation. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)
The Taipei Theater's first performance, the prelude to a Peking opera, adds color and culture to the opening ceremony.(photo by Pu Hua-chih)
A plate-spinner mesmerizes the crowd during the rousing opening ceremonies.(photo courtesy of the New York Cultural Center)
Sugar-candy figures have long been a favorite of children all over the world. (photo courtesy of the New York Cultural Center)
The Heavenly General sends his blessings. Two grinning gods steal the show on opening day. （photo by Huang Lei）
The elevator up to the China News Center. Pictured from left to right are Political Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education Chao Chin-chi, Director-General of the GIO Shaw Yu ming, Representative of the Coordination Council for North American Affa irs Ding Mou-shih, and Director of the New York Cultural Center Chang Min-chih. （photo by H uang Lei）
The cozy periodicals reading room in the Center library serves the dual purpose of education and relaxation. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）
The Taipei Theater's first performance, the prelude to a Peking opera, adds color and culture to the opening ceremony.（photo by Pu Hua-chih）
A plate-spinner mesmerizes the crowd during the rousing opening ceremonies.（photo courtesy of the New York Cultural Center）
Sugar-candy figures have long been a favorite of children all over the world. （photo courtesy of the New York Cultural Center）
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