On May 22, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, paid a special visit to “ Zhou Bin Calligraphy Institute” during his stay in Shanghai for the 4th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Founded in 2012 with the support of Ban, Zhou Bin Calligraphy Institute, an institute named after Ban’s calligraphy teacher Prof. Zhou Bin, is an international exchange institute for calligraphy culture. "When I proposed to Mr. Ban Ki-moon to found the institute, he fully supported it and insisted that calligraphy has a profound and lasting influence on peace, "recalled Zhou.
During the visit, Ban listened carefully to Zhou’s introduction of the Shanghai Secretariat of Calligraphy United Nations and personally unveiled the plaque of the Secretariat.
To promote mutual understanding and friendship among the youth of the world, the Calligraphy United Nations, an international institution of calligraphy, was established on April 18 at the headquarter of the United Nations.
As a successful case of public diplomacy, the institute has received strong support from the Permanent Mission of China to the UN. Prof. Zhou Bin, founder of the institute, has also made great efforts to develop it.
Since the establishment of the institute, Chinese calligraphy has become a zest among many UN diplomats and their kids. Statistics show that more than 100 children of UN diplomats from over 40 countries, as well as some diplomats themselves have attended the Chinese calligraphy training courses at the institute in the past two months.
Zhou Bin, a famous Chinese calligrapher and a professor of ECNU, began his psychology research of Chinese calligraphy and created the first Chinese Calligraphy Education and Psychology Research Center in China. In 2011, Zhou went to the United States as a visiting scholar and set up Chinese Calligraphy Training Courses in several U.S. universities and later in the United States. It was during that time that he first met Mr. Ban and became Ban’s calligraphy teacher.
Written by: Liu Jinyu
