Classical Chinese look – with a few modern comforts – for G20 leaders
Summit organisers spare no expense on offering visitors a sample of the country’s culture and traditions
Hangzhou, the host city of the G20 summit, has also been given responsibility for making visible the full palette of Chinese colours at the grand diplomatic event, in keeping with President Xi Jinping’s frequent calls for a revival of traditional Chinese culture and lifestyle.
Luckily, the world leaders attending the first day of meetings yesterday did not need to place their presidential bottoms directly on hard, cold and expensive rosewood.
At least on the classic Ming Dynasty style tai-shi chairs – “the seats for imperial grand masters” – the hosts had kindly prepared pleasant soft grey cushions.
The Hangzhou Olympic and International Expo Centre, the summit’s splendid venue, provides an eyeful of symbolic Chinese cultural elements, which were further emphasised by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s and South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s bright red outfits.
In the centre’s grand meeting hall, where chairs and desks are arranged into a round table, paper scrolls unfold in front of each leader’s seat, with green jade paperweights at either end.
On each table, a pottery plate containing a pen is in the top right corner, near a porcelain cup that has a lid with a gold-plated knob. And the square-shaped “seal”, almost as large as an imperial seal on the top left corner, is in fact the switch for the microphone.
