The Yunus Emre Institute is hosting famous social media figures and journalists from China as part of its “Be Our Guest” project initiated within the framework of its cultural diplomacy. 

The “Be Our Guest” project is one of Yunus Emre Institute’s important projects designed to promote the Turkish language, culture and history in the world. The Yunus Emre Institute has added new guests to its list of guests hosted in Turkey under the said project and will host 11 Chinese journalists and social media representatives in Istanbul until 3 July.         

The Chinese delegation, which will visit Istanbul, Cappadocia, Izmir and Fethiye regions in Turkey, began its Istanbul tour with the Pera Museum and continued with the Blue Mosque, St. Hagia Sophia Museum, Yerebatan Cistern, Dikilitas, Covered Bazaar and the Istanbul Modern Arts Museum. 

Having been informed about the mosques, museums and monuments, the next stop of the delegation was the Istanbul Technopark. The delegation also examined Turkey’s capacity to develop technology in a program that allowed its members to observe on site the development level of Turkey in the economic, social, cultural and scientific fields in addition to discovering the historical, cultural and touristic riches of our country.      

President of the Yunus Emre Institute Prof. Dr. Şeref Ateş also accompanied the delegation in its visit to the Istanbul Technopark which has carried out successful works especially in the fields of local and national defense industry,  innovative production of technology-based communication and transport systems and aviation and space technologies. 

“Be our Guest and Let’s Promote Turkey Together”

In his statement to the AA correspondent, Prof. Dr. Ateş assessed the visit and reminded the decision, taken during the visit of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to China, to develop the existing relations between Turkey and China. Having realized that there was no positive Turkey perception in China, he said, Chinese media representatives were invited to Turkey as part of the Yunus Emre Institute’s mission and the guests, who were invited under the slogan “Be our Guests and Let’s Promote Turkey Together”, were given an opportunity to learn on site about Turkey and the Turkish culture.  This way, he added, a positive Turkey perception was created in the Chinese press, which is evidenced by the increase in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Cappadocia, the Aegean Coast and Fethiye regions. He emphasized that such visits allowed Chinese media members to generate their own news stories on site and share them in the main news or video news outlets instead of depending translated news based on American or European sources, and contributed to a positive Turkey perception and the development of relations between the two countries.         

President of the Institute Ateş noted that one of the projects developed to better promote Turkey abroad and contribute to a positive Turkey perception is TABIP. He continued:  

“The only purpose of TABIP (Academic and Scientific Cooperation Project of Turkey) is to demonstrate the development level of Turkey in science, technology and innovation, and share the technological advances in Turkey with the outside world. Especially young people are not satisfied with culture, art and history alone. The level of your technological development is also very important for the perception about you. TABIP is a project of the Yunus Emre Institute designed for this purpose. Especially technoparks, innovative productions, new technologies, information technologies developed by the youth in Turkey and defense industry are important in this regard. When we show how advanced we are in these areas, then the Turkey perception becomes positive.”        

The Chinese delegation included, in particular, the representative of the most effective and second biggest social media platform Lu Fei and the international finance program director of  the China’s national television channel CCTV 2 Hu Yuann as well as social media figures and opinion leaders followed by millions of people. The delegation thanked the Institute President for contributing to the development of relations between the two countries and offered as a gift a special piece of woven textile having an image of the Forbidden City on it.