Shanxi province creates connections with people across the world via its rich culture

The year 2025 comes to an end on Wednesday. Over the past year, the North China province of Shanxi continued to open wider to the world. Stories related to international exchanges took place every month, or even more frequently. The following are the typical cases of Shanxi's interactions with the world.

January

The 2025 Spring Festival – or Chinese New Year – was the first to be celebrated after it was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2024.

Foreigners living in or visiting Shanxi were impressed by the unique traditions, customs and lifestyles relating to the festival.

Gojayeva Bagul from Turkmenistan and Mutangay Jesteben Beni from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are students at Shanxi University, celebrated the Little New Year – a week before the Chinese New Year's Day and part of the Spring Festival – by attending a workshop for making woodblock-printed Chinese New Year paintings at Shanxi Museum to experience this ancient technique with a history of more than 1,000 years.

February

The fourth season of A Bite of China – the reputed CCTV documentary featuring Chinese cuisine – went viral in February. The seventh episode of the season featured Guo Zhanglong and his mother-in-law Sun Shenglin – both from Shanxi – making knife-cut noodles in France.

In the documentary, the making of the Shanxi snack constituted a big show to draw a long queue of French patrons. "People are curious about the scene,"Sun said. "Some asked me if this is a kind of Chinese kung fu."

"Keeping the original taste of Shanxi, our noodles are still favored by many," Guo said. "That means there are no borders among foodies."

March

On March 31, Yingze Park in Taiyuan welcomed a group of new guests – European robins. This was the first time that the bird species commonly seen in the United Kingdom, Europe, North Africa and West Asia were discovered in Shanxi. Local bird researchers said the good environment of the park and its adjacent areas – featuring wetlands and lush vegetation – has offered an ideal temporary habitat for the migratory birds.

That was not the first time that a foreign bird species was discovered in Shanxi. Flamingos, for instance, were found on the Salt Lake of Yuncheng in 2014 and they have arrived almost every winter since then.

Researchers said the discovery of these rare birds is a sign of biodiversity recovery and shows the steady improvement of Shanxi's ecological environment.

April

The fourth National Conference on Reading – an event for promoting a national reading campaign – was held from April 23-25 in Taiyuan. This event also included the participation of foreign readers and writers.

Prior to the event, a news video produced by the Shanxi International Communication Center was broadcast online. It featured Russian Sinologist Kornilyeva Tatiana talking about her readings related to the Jinshang, or Shanxi merchants.

The Shanxi merchants, known for trading Chinese products in North Asia, Russia and Europe, are said to have dominated China's foreign trade during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

Tatiana focuses her studies on the Sino-Russian Tea Route operated by the Shanxi merchants between the 17th and early 20th centuries. A core part of her job is to translate Chinese history documents into Russian.

"Precise translation is crucial for Russian readers to understand the Chinese culture, which requires the translator to read intensively and extensively," Tatiana said.

May

On May 19, Spokesperson for Ancient Buildings, a documentary produced by the Shanxi International Communication Center went online.

The documentary, consisting of five episodes, features tours of ancient architectural sites throughout the province.

One episode of the documentary featured two foreign visitors – Gojayeva Bagul from Turkmenistan and Ryan Michael Wagner from the United States – on adventure in Zezhou county in Jincheng. They planned their tour of Zezhou by randomly selecting sites on the map.

The plan proved to offer surprises, when, according to Bagul, they saw "ancient castles and ancient trees stand tall and ancient towns buzz with the warmth of human life".

They arrived at a village called Yedi, where they found a huge ginkgo tree. A local resident said the tree is about 6,200 years old. "I never found a tree that old in my home country. Old as it is, it's full of vitality," Bagul told Wagner, who was recording the scene with his smartphone camera.

June

In early June, grade 12 students in Shanxi's senior middle schools were busy preparing for the national college entrance examination scheduled from June 6-8.

At the Middle School Affiliated with Taiyuan Normal University, students were taking a mock English listening test on one of those days. In the middle of the test, students heard words of best wishes in English, from teachers of all disciplines.

Later, a student said it was a surprise that so many teachers in non-English disciplines are so fluent in spoken English.

A school official said at the middle school, which has featured frequent global exchanges in recent years, mastering English as an international language is a basic requirement for teachers.

July

On July 9, a train loaded with 1,159 metric tons of locally produced photovoltaic components left the Zhongding Logistics Park in Jinzhong city for Baku, Azerbaijan. That was the first train to Azerbaijan under Shanxi's China-Europe (Central Asia) freight train service. It was also the first time for Shanxi to use the rail-sea multimodal shipping operation when it crossed the Caspian Sea.

By September, the number of freight trains from Shanxi to Europe and Central Asia reached 1,000. Shanxi is positioned as a highland for the opening-up of China's inland region using its location, resources and industrial advantages. It is developing a new pattern of opening-up by integrating with the Belt and Road Initiative.

August

The seventh Shanxi Cultural Industries Fair opened on Aug 21 in Taiyuan. The event attracted the participation of more than 2,000 enterprises from China and 36 foreign countries.

The international exhibition hall featured a great number of exhibits with distinctive cultural characteristics of various countries, such as handmade copper utensils from Pakistan and silk carpets from Iran.

A Pakistani exhibitor, who calls himself Mr Tea, is a fourth-time participant in this fair. "I'm glad that my mink coats are favored by many," he said. "I love the people here, who are friendly, talkative and have a strong will to purchase."

He added that he was amazed by the event's scale. "There are so many exhibitors here," Mr Tea said. "I like to visit other booths if I'm not busy. It's a great chance to learn from each other."

September

The 2025 Taiyuan Energy Low Carbon Development Forum opened in the city on Sept 27.

Ramiro Cruz, Nicaragua's ambassador to China, attended the forum. He praised China's progress in the use of renewable energy resources.

"China's recent investment in power projects using renewable energy accounts for more than 80 percent of its total investment in power generation," Cruz said. "This achievement is closely related to the contribution of Chinese enterprises."

He said four large projects in renewable energy are under construction in Nicaragua. He expected the two countries to deepen cooperation in this sector. He said he also hopes Nicaragua and Shanxi can collaborate in the cultural field as it is a crucial part of Nicaragua-China relations.

October

The Discovering Shanxi's Ancient Chinese Architecture – Overseas Media and Students Tour was held from Oct 14-18, giving people a chance to explore more than 1,000 years of the province's history.

Shanxi is known as a treasure trove of ancient Chinese architecture. It boasts 82.84 percent of China's old buildings built before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

Karyna Kovalevska, a Ukrainian who got married to a Shanxi man, was on the tour. She said she was interested in the stories behind these ancient buildings. "There are a lot of stories related to the Guandi Temple, the Stork Tower, the Pingyao Ancient City and many others," she said. "I'd like to share the stories with my friends across the world."

November

In November, World Youth Meet Ancient Chinese Architecture, a documentary made by the Shanxi International Communication Center, gained popularity overseas. It garnered a total of 50 million views that month.

The documentary was based on a volunteers' workshop for repairing cultural relics in Pingyao, Shanxi province, in August. The team included 17 members from France, Mexico and China. Over a 13-day period, the members tried their hand at repairing a gate belonging to a Ming Dynasty residence in Dongquan village and the Guandi Temple in Houji village.

The experience of the volunteers has been shared with the world via the documentary as well as the members' own accounts on social media platforms.

Rempart, a French non-governmental organization for cultural heritage protection, showed interest in this documentary. In an email sent to the documentary's producer and forwarded to the French embassy in China, it says: "The film is very well done. The visuals are beautiful, the interviews are constructive and the messages it conveys about building bridges between culture, people and generations are definitely the ones we share."

December

On Dec 11, an exhibition of Shanxi's silver artworks was launched at the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico, with more than 140 silver artworks on display.

Mexico is known as the "country of silver" with a long history of silver mining and production. In the country, silver has been traditionally used to make coins and household utensils. In contrast, silver is mostly used in making ornamental items that are designed to convey the aesthetics of owners in China, especially in Shanxi.

"The event is a meeting of aesthetics and functionality in the silver industry," said a Shanxi official."We hope it can add a new significance to Sino-Mexican relations."

Zhang Qi contributed to this story.