On Friday, March 31, Jinyin Street (The Golden and Silver Street) next to the HNC reopened as Jinyin Street International Youth Art District. This day coincided with the opening of the Nanjing University International Culture and Art Festival. Jinyin Street is about 200 meters long and is known as “A Back Street with the Culture Rich, Hundred Steps with Everything Nice.” And on one side is HNC, Institute for International Students of Nanjing University, and Nanjing University Business School. Jinyin Street is organically combined with Nanjing University Gulou Campus, where Chinese and foreign students live and study. There are nearly 500 small shops around Nanjing University: bookstores, flower shops, tearooms, restaurants, cafés, and so much more.. This is one of the most internationalized places in Nanjing and is one of the centers of face-to-face communication. Jinyin Street in Nanjing serves a similar purpose to Chinatowns abroad, hosting an enclave of international cuisines and shops. Walking down Jinyin Street, people can experience the fusion of cultures from all over the world, granting residents and visitors of Gulou District access to the entire world.

The opening ceremony of Jinyin Street International Youth Art District and the Nanjing University International Culture and Art Festival

Students from the HNC participated in the opening ceremony. I initiated a dancing group at HNC and invited everyone to dance together. At the opening ceremony, we showed the Chinese classical dance “Golden Wind, Silver Sea, Singing Fishing Boat.” Wan Rongrong, who performed with us, said, “That day, Jinyin Street was full of foreign faces as if this was not Nanjing but abroad. Jinyin Street becomes a center of international exchange, and people are closer to each other. We can’t really understand a country or culture through any medium, but we can feel the warmth of culture through on-site visits or exchanges with local people.” Liang Xiao, another performer, added, “Communication is a shallow mutual recognition and understanding, but also a deep outpouring of true feelings and spiritual connection. People are constantly seeking to communicate with each other to create new and diverse connections and stories. I feel that Jinyin Street is driven by commerce which generates new vitality and enlivens cultural and social life.”

“Golden Wind, Silver Sea, Singing Fishing Boat” (Photo courtesy of Dr. Song Jing)

Chad Higgenbottom, a fellow HNC student, co-founded the Shanghai Composers Workshop, whose goal was to achieve structured musical improvisation. While at the HNC, he launched the “Innovation Band” which pursues “symbiotic improvisation” including music, dancing, painting, poetry, and so on. The band co-creates by focusing on a theme, such as “A Day in the Xuanwu Lake.” The band performed an improvisation of “Friday Jam” at the opening ceremony, using a keyboard, an electric guitar, and a Chinese drum. Jinyin Street makes Chad feel at home, he said, “When you dwell abroad, you require a range of new and improved aptitudes to make the most of the experience. The ability to speak Chinese is an example of a new aptitude I attained — and am still working each day to improve — to provide a basis for stronger relationships with Chinese people. I had practiced intercultural communication in the US before coming here, particularly during undergrad, but participating in group meetings at Starbucks with friends from other countries is a very different matter than living in these friends’ countries! A vastly improved ability to communicate interculturally, which often shows itself as patience or building common context with someone before arriving at conclusions, is one of the pillars of my present life in China. Without it, I could learn little when outside of an academic environment.”

The other two performers of the band are Alexander Rosas and Nathan Rose. Alexander has been playing bass guitar for 18 years, and his nickname is Alexander Bassist. He said, “When I came to Nanjing in 2018, there were shops around HNC such as Ivory Fruit Café & Bar, Old Friends Restaurant, Skyways Bakery, Taiwanese Style Rice, The Uncle Pizza, etc. I went back to Nanjing at the beginning of this year and they are still open. The owner of Ivory Fruit Café is a friend of many foreign students, and we often chat with him when we pick up coffee, and the coffee he makes can be said to be an art. The day after I arrived in Nanjing, I went to eat at The Uncle Pizza, and although three years passed, the female owner immediately recognized me. HNC and Jinyin Street are a community where we create our daily life. I participated in this opening ceremony and worked with everyone to build our community and make the street come alive. Face-to-face conversations and people-to-people exchanges are important, and it is difficult for us to understand each other without communication. I was asked, ‘Why did you come back to China?’ I say that half of my life is in China, and Nanjing is my second hometown. As long as you have a Chinese friend, you are more willing to connect with China. This is true for any country.”

Nathan loves to perform with a big smile. As for his experience in Nanjing, he says, “Before I came to China, it was actually difficult to communicate with people online. After coming to the HNC, people-to-people communication occurs naturally. You can have a chat after class or during meals. If I wasn’t in China, maybe I could easily have a negative impression of China. Because if you’re not in the local area, you’re easily influenced by other people’s opinions, such as those experts who can’t speak Chinese. We need to focus on real people, flesh-and-blood people. When faced with real people and environments, we will form individual experiences. After coming to the HNC, I realized many possibilities that I never expected. I tried the Chinese drum, Erhu, Guzheng, Guqin, and calligraphy. I use Western rhythms to play the Chinese drum, and music knows no borders.”

“Friday Jam”（Photo courtesy of Dr. Song Jing）

Dr. Song Jing, a visiting scholar at the HNC, brought a camera to record the grandeur of the opening ceremony as an audience. He believed that globalization is not only economic globalization but also cultural globalization. “Jinyin Street is a window for the world to see China. International students from all over the world gather here and constantly shine with the culture. This is especially valuable in the context of anti-globalization. The sustainable development of cultural globalization requires the support of cultural platforms, the participation of international contacts, and grounded exchanges. The HNC has innate advantages and is the leader of Jinyin Street international culture. In the process of creating a new form of human civilization, Jinyin Street is a new space for the coordinated development of multi-dimensional civilization and a new driving force for the development of civilization itself. Civilizational exchanges, mutual learning, and coexistence transcend civilizational barriers, conflicts, and superiority. Every day of living in Jinyin Street, we all feel, enjoy, and create culture, and spread culture in people-to-people communication, and we are all practitioners of the mission of civilization.”