Acting Consul-General Xu Haiyuan Attends Events at 23rd New Zealand Chinese Culture Festival

Summary

Two concerts marking the 23rd New Zealand Chinese Culture Festival were held in Christchurch on 12 September. Acting Consul-General Xu Haiyuan, Yin Ji, director of the Bilateral Division, Consul Gong Ping and more than 300 members of the Chinese community, overseas Chinese and friends from various sectors attended the performances. After the concerts, Xu Haiyuan gave an on-site speech in which he spoke highly of both performances.

He said music is a language that transcends borders and expressed the hope that it could serve as a bond to deepen China-New Zealand people-to-people and cultural exchanges and promote mutual learning and integration among diverse cultures. The festival was co-hosted by the New Zealand-China Cultural Exchange Association, the Canterbury Chinese Teachers Association, Datang Yuefu, the Chinese Art Troupe and others. Among the events, the 'Huayun Xingguang' Xu Hongying solo concert featured classic Chinese folk songs, popular film and television songs, songs set to classical poetry, selections from Western opera and Māori music, while the 'When Music Meets Film and Television' Chinese and Western instrumental themed concert presented classic soundtracks from Chinese and foreign film, television and animation, along with animation medley songs.

The two performances were splendid and gave the audience an audio-visual feast blending the beauty of Eastern and Western art.

Commentary

The New Zealand Chinese Culture Festival has now run for 23 consecutive years and has become a significant cultural brand for the Chinese community in the Canterbury region. The two concerts in Christchurch drew more than 300 audience members, showcasing a fusion of Eastern and Western music while signalling a vibrant multicultural market in New Zealand. For local SMEs — particularly food and beverage, retail and tourism operators targeting Chinese consumers — the festival is a window onto a highly loyal customer group in concentrated form.

Many New Zealand SMEs overlook the spending potential of the Chinese community, yet that community has sustained demand for China-New Zealand cultural products and is more willing to support businesses that take part in community activities. From an international trade perspective, cultural diplomacy is often seen as the advance guard of economic and commercial cooperation. Since the upgrade of the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, barriers to trade in services and digital trade have come down further, but SMEs generally lack the trust endorsement needed to enter the Chinese market.

Cultural events backed by embassies and consulates give local businesses the chance to build informal connections with Chinese institutions and cultural groups. The organisers this time included the Canterbury Chinese Language Teachers Association, for example, reflecting growth in New Zealand's Chinese-language education market. SMEs that develop textbooks, digital tools or cultural experience products for Chinese learners may gain early seed users through the platform the Chinese Culture Festival provides.

The performance programme also included Māori music, indicating that China-New Zealand cultural fusion is producing localised content — potential material for creative industry exports. Both concerts showed that a community festival can serve as just this kind of platform.

Keywords: The 23rd New Zealand Chinese Culture Festival, Acting Consul-General Xu Haiyuan, Christchurch concerts, China-New Zealand people-to-people and cultural exchanges, Huayun Xingguang, When Music Meets Film and Television, New Zealand-China Cultural Exchange Association, Canterbury Chinese Language Teachers Association

Source: Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch – Consulate-General News