On the afternoon of January 30, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his delegation visited Yu Garden in Shanghai. At the Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse, they admired themed lanterns designed by students from Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation (SCF), DHU and engaged in a warm exchange with the students. This cultural interaction not only served as a vivid illustration of Sino-UK educational and cultural exchange but also highlighted the vibrancy of DHU students as youth ambassadors of cultural exchange.
(Prime Minister Starmer engaging in a friendly conversation with a student representative)
During the exchange, DHU student representatives provided Prime Minister Starmer with a detailed introduction to the design concepts and creative intricacies of their lantern works. The lanterns ingeniously incorporated British cultural elements such as London's red double-decker buses, the Glenfinnan Viaduct in Scotland, and Larry the Cat, the Chief Mouser of Downing Street, while also integrating horse-head shapes adorned with Scottish tartan patterns. This creative combination represents an innovative fusion of traditional Chinese lantern craftsmanship with British cultural icons, embodying the resulting works with creativity, artistic warmth, and cultural resonance.
(Student-designed lantern works on display)
Throughout the interaction, Prime Minister Starmer showed keen interest in the students' creative designs that blended Chinese and British cultures. He humorously remarked, I wish I could take these beautiful works back to the UK, and highly commended the pieces for their artistic quality and their profound significance in facilitating cultural communication. He fully recognized the creativity demonstrated by the younger generation in cross-cultural exchange. The lanterns in the visit to the Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse showed DHU students as vibrant carriers of Sino-UK cultural exchange, reflecting the effective outcomes of DHU's international talent cultivation and further promoting dialogue between China and the UK in the fields of fashion creativity education and culture.
(Group photo of faculty and students at the event)
Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation is a Sino-foreign cooperative institution jointly established by Donghua University and the University of Edinburgh, focusing on the field of fashion creativity. The college has previously received the China-Scotland Education Innovation Award, setting a benchmark for in-depth cooperation in the education sector between China and the UK. Donghua University will continue to leverage the advantages of such Sino-foreign cooperative education models, deepen collaboration and exchanges with British universities, and nurture more young talents equipped with an international perspective and profound cultural literacy, thereby consistently injecting youthful vitality into Sino-UK cultural exchange and practical cooperation.
