Jilin attends Beijing Int'l Cultural and Creative Industry Expo

To promote itself as a tourist destination with lucid waters, lush mountains and ice and snow fun, Jilin province set up a booth at the 14th Beijing International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo that opened in Beijing on May 29.

At 9:00 sharp on May 29, the big LED screen on the stage of the booth began to play Jilin's provincial video featuring the province's four distinct seasons and colorful culture. Many professional visitors stopped at the booth to take a look at the beautiful sceneries shown in the video.

At 10:00 sharp, as non-professional visitors started to come in, the promotional video stopped at "Tianchi Lake in Sea of Clouds," a famous photo of Tianchi Lake on Mount Changbai. Two female performers dressed in ancient-style white gauze dresses came on stage and began to play famous old tunes with pipa, a stringed Chinese musical instrument, attracting a big crowd of local visitors.

The booth also featured a snowflake-shaped business talks section where professional visitors could get promotional materials and exchange name cards.

Around the business talks section were four sections showcasing different kinds of Jilin's most typical and recent cultural and tourism commodities - cultural and creative commodities, intangible cultural heritages-inspired commodities, creative commodities, and tourism commodities.

The commodities were all presented by seven of Jilin's leading suppliers of cultural and tourism commodities, namely Jilin Provincial Museum, Dingrun Culture, Craftsmanship Culture, Kachui Online Marketplace, Yingzi Knife Painting, i Future, Chang Bai Song Bo Diao.

Dingrun Culture, an innovative promoter of the Chagan Lake fishing culture, brought fish skin-made hanging ornaments, including ones composed of the Chinese characters“年年有鱼 (having fish to eat every year)”or“年年有余(enjoying abundance ever year)”as“鱼”and“余”have the same pronunciation in Chinese and are both used to mean abundance in this context. There were also ornaments resembling the 12 zodiac animals. Besides, the company brought two of its best skin fish works, Butterflies and Flowers and Carps and Lotus Flowers to show the fine techniques in this trade. The company's exhibition area was packed with visitors posing for pictures, making price inquiries and doing livestreaming reports.

Jilin Provincial Museum brought throw pillows, silk and satin fans, and notebooks that are inspired by the works of renowned painter Zhang Daqian and available at very affordable prices. The museum also brought replicas of a Ding kiln white porcelain kettle, one of the museum's best collections. The plump and easy-to-hold replicas are not only pleasant to look at but also make good containers for wine.

In recent years, Jilin's ice and snow and summer tourism industry has witnessed rapid development, inspiring the creation of art works.

Craftsmanship Culture presented ice and snowflake-shaped ornamental knots made of blue and white threads with diameters less than 0.1 millimeter. Yingzi Knife Painting presented a knife painting work, Ice and Snow Scenery in Jilin, that cost painter Wang Ying three years to complete. Kachuo Online Marketplace presented a master porcelain bottle with Mount Changbai scenery painted on it.

Cultural and tourism commodities are a major driver of cultural and tourism consumption, said an official from Jilin Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.

By participating in the 14th Beijing International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo, the department hoped to seek exchanges and cooperation, promote Jilin as a cultural and tourist destination, and expand corporate access to marketing channels so that more brands can emerge, the official said.