YICC Pu'er Branch inaugurated on August 18

Along with launch of the "Belt and Road" Global International Communication Program, the Pu'er Branch of Yunnan International Communication Center for South and Southeast Asia (YICC) was inaugurated on August 18 in southwest Yunnan’s Pu’er city.

Around 60 senior media professionals, youth representatives and cultural-tourism ambassadors from China, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Palestine and Vietnam attended the inauguration.

The Pu'er branch is the fifth of its kind in Yunnan for YICC. By joining hands with Pu'er, YICC will make the Many-splendored Yunnan Life more international and life-oriented with the Pu'er elements, bridging the gaps between Pu'er and the world.

The inauguration was highlighted by a story-sharing session on the Many-splendored Yunnan Life, where local cultural-tourism ambassadors briefed on the Pu'er lifestyle featuring Coffee at dawn and Tea at dusk.

They welcomed the international friends to Yunnan for the provincial beauty in openness, diversity and ecology. And the Pu'er healthy-living practitioners depicted the Many-splendored Yunnan Life like this.

Su Qiwu, deputy director of Pu'er Culture and Tourism Bureau

Pu'er is either a city, a tea or a coffee. Pu’er gains worldwide fame from tea and citywide aroma from coffee. There is a Pu'er lifestyle called “Coffee at dawn and Tea at dusk”. That is, folks in Pu'er are used to drinking coffee in the morning and tasting tea in the evening.

In Pu'er, visitors can enjoy sights of tea gardens and tastes of Pu'er tea, while looking into the tea-related stories in days gone by. They can also sip the romance in coffee, and with lovely coffee beans in hand, they can sense the aroma of Pu'er coffee from the hills and woods afar.

Shi Yixin, founder of the Xinyi Coffee Brand

For me, Pu'er coffee represents a way of life. That's why I want to speak for the coffee. By having “coffee-seedling” classes, we have enabled over 4,000 children in Pu'er to learn about their homeland, nurture their cultural confidence and better understand the city’s development.

SUHAIL ASAD, Pakistani lecturer at Pu’er University

Pu'er boasts diverse produces, flora, fauna, and microorganisms, while my studies focus on the biological prevention and control of plant diseases, thus granting me a role to play here.

Pu'er tea and coffee are my favorite drinks, as well as my first choices of gifts for international friends. The city’s biodiversity has invited in quite a few international peers to me for joint research, thus contributing to the coffee and tea industrial development in Pu'er.

Xu Yanting, general manager of the Huotangzhushui(boiling fire pit) Tea Company in Simao district, Pu'er

Pu'er tea is a traditional culture, a primitive way of drinking, and a daily routine for those living in the mountains of Yunnan.

Our aspiration is to mould traditional Pu'er tea culture into a caring and humane "culture symbol", so that the millennium-old tea heritages could be a cultural bond linking up peoples worldwide.

Zhao Yi, general manager of the Nakeli Xinyuan Restaurant

Pu'er enjoys an unparalleled advantages in location, organic foods and cultural allure. The tales of the Ancient Tea-Horse Road are woven into the daily routines for generations, while the caravan cuisine showcases the city’s diverse ethnic culture.

KHOUNSAVATH PHETSAMONE, Laotian lecturer at Pu’er University

Pu'er captivates healthy-living connoisseurs with its tea, coffee, cuisine, biodiversity, arts, and unique lifestyles. As a Laotian teacher living in a city near the China-Laos railway, I can see the railway’s opening has facilitated the lives of the two peoples.

In Pu'er, a multicultural city, my Chinese students and I jointly conduct studies on Yunnan folk customs. The cultural exchanges allowed us to increase mutual understanding and forge stronger friendship.

By Gateway reporters