30% of Shanghai's national intangible cultural heritage is traditional medicine, which will help traditional Chinese medicine "go global"

On December 4th, the forum on "Promoting the Best Practice of Xi Jinping's Cultural Thought and Building Innovative Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture International Communication" was held at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Image provided by Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

According to Chen Ping, Director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, there are currently 63 national level intangible cultural heritage projects in Shanghai, including 19 traditional medicine projects. Shanghai will continuously strengthen the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, and promote the brilliant display of excellent traditional culture on the international stage.

Yang Jing, Director of the Business Development Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee's External Propaganda Office (Municipal Government Information Office), revealed that the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee's External Propaganda Office takes the selection of the Shanghai "Silver Dove Award" and the Shanghai "International Communication of Chinese Culture" special project as the starting point to continuously explore and gather demonstration and leading projects in the international communication of traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine culture, and strives to create a "going global" model for traditional Chinese medicine in Shanghai.

At this forum, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine held cooperation signing and launching ceremonies with multiple units, including increasing the dissemination of traditional Chinese medicine culture to the outside world, promoting the health of Shanghai style traditional Chinese medicine, promoting traditional Chinese medicine intangible cultural heritage brands, and reporting on Chinese medicine in multiple languages for international students studying in Shanghai. It also launched an overseas publishing project for traditional Chinese medicine culture themed books and planned to showcase more stories of traditional Chinese medicine on the "global bookshelf".

Shen Guolin, professor of the School of Journalism of Fudan University and director of the Institute of International Communication of the "the Belt and Road" and the Institute of Global Governance, believes that the global communication of traditional Chinese medicine should be more subjective and self-conscious. Traditional Chinese medicine needs to keep talking with western medicine, and improve the global audience's awareness and reputation of traditional Chinese medicine with the help of mass media and the Internet.

Cao Xikang, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, introduced that the school will gather the joint efforts of the school system to create an international brand with distinctive characteristics of Shanghai style traditional Chinese medicine culture, promote extensive cross-border cooperation, accelerate the cultivation of a group of talents with international communication vision and cross-cultural exchange ability, improve the effectiveness of international communication of traditional Chinese medicine culture, and promote more excellent cultures with Chinese characteristics, reflecting Chinese spirit, and containing Chinese wisdom to the world.