Mr Xiaojian Cui (Deputy Director-General of the National Marine Data and Information Service, China - NMDIS) and Dr Miao Sun from the same service, participating in the EMODnet conference in Brussels on the 29 November (EMODnet Open Conference 2023), brought a special gift for DG MARE.
The gift, which you can see in the attached photo, is a calligraphy presenting an extract from the poem ‘Wang Yue Huai Yuan’, which literally means ‘Gazing at the Moon, Yearning for the far horizon’, written by the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Jiuling. It translates as:
“A pristine, luminous moon ascends above the sea,
Across the distance, we are now sharing the enchanting beauty of this moonlit moment.”
which we understand to symbolise the good cooperation between EU and China during the EMOD-PACE project on Marine Data (https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/events/emod-pace), where NMDIS was involved.
The calligraphy is currently displayed in DG MARE.