The Confucius Institute bilingual magazine Spanish-Chinese has received, from the president of the Valencian government, Ximo Puig, the prize of the newspaper La Razón-Comunitat Valenciana to the best cultural newsletter recognizing its role during its 10 years of existence.
The Confucius Institute bilingual magazine Spanish-Chinese has received today, 2 March, the prize of the newspaper La Razón-Comunitat Valenciana to the best cultural newsletter. The editor of this magazine, Vicente Andreu, has received the award accompanied by the principal of the Universitat de València, Mavi Mestre. The honour has been granted by the president of the Valencian Government, Ximo Puig, who has led the award ceremony of these prizes to the excellence on its third edition this 2020. Since its first issue in July 2010, the Confucius Institute magazine published from Valencia for the entire Hispanic linguistic space, has served as a bridge between Ibero-American and Chinese cultures.
In turn, this unique cultural publication establishes a link and a dialogue of civilizations that brings together both traditions of thought and develops a story that identifies the commonalities of both. In these ten years since its inception, it has become a cultural and communicative reference space with a long continuity over time. It has received the prize for its continuing work of spreading the Chinese language, history, culture and society. Its contents are elaborated by academic specialists in Sinology, and its translations are checked by a complete team of Chinese and Spanish professionals. The magazine is supported by Hanban, the Confucius Institute Headquarters of the Chinese Ministry of Education.
According to its head, Vicente Andreu, also director of Confucius Institute of the Universitat de València, "one of my obsessions, as editor of the magazine during these ten years, has been to transmit as faithfully as possible what we could call 'the idea of China' to our Ibero-American cultural space in the Spanish language. And I must admit that it has not always been easy because we have had to make many linguistic and cultural 'leaps'. But this challenge, which will be with us for many more years, is one of the spurs of the work of all our great team of professionals, both on the Chinese and Hispanic side.
The principal Mª Vicenta Mestre highlighted "the pride I feel in having a Confucius Institute like the one we have at the Universitat de València". In this sense, Mestre has highlighted the fact that this institute is "one of the best Confucius institutes in the world, according to the Chinese government, and a reference in the internationalization strategy and in the consolidation of our institution as a world reference not only in research, training or knowledge transfer, but also in the mobility of people and the interconnection between languages and cultures".
6,000 paper copies of each issue of the magazine are printed and sent to all the Confucius Institutes in Spanish and Portuguese, the main universities in Ibero-America, including those in Brazil and Portugal, as well as Chinese universities with teaching programs in Spanish. It also reaches the embassies of Ibero-American countries in China and diplomatic headquarters in the Spanish-speaking world. Their articles compare cultural and social aspects of both languages, which bring both traditions of thought closer together. And all this analysed from the perspective of history and in terms of respect and dialogue between two civilizations, the Ibero-American and the Chinese, which are not so far apart.
The Spanish edition was a pioneer in offering complete online accessibility to the magazine from any mobile platform (Google Play or iTunes). Applications were created in Valencia to manage, from the Internet, the complete repository of the 11 bilingual editions in digital format ready for free download and consultation on the website https://confuciomag.com/
Since 2017 the Spanish-Chinese edition has launched the Club de Lectores, an initiative that gives value to the magazine and through which more than 33,000 followers read and comment on outstanding articles of the issue in social networks. Finally, last year a personalized podcast channel was launched to listen to selected articles from the latest magazines in Chinese and Spanish. In this case, with voices from different countries in the Spanish linguistic area due to their different accents: Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Spain or Mexico.
