Assalam ul alaikum Everyone!

My name is Abdul Fatah Qureshi, and these are my friends

Vinakshi Lohana and Muhammad Abdullah Panhwar. So, Ladies & Gentlemen, today we are
going to talk about some cultural things, or to be exact, Exchange of Cultures.

What is a culture? A culture is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or
society. Culture is the thing which represent us in the whole World. On a broad level, sociteies
are judged on the basis of their cultures. From the beginning of Humans on Earth, differnet
cultures have merged and introduced new cultures.

Among hundreds of cultures of world, let's talk about our culture, as a Pakistani we experience
multiple cultures in our daily lives. We get to see the hospitality of Sindh and Balochistan, the
foods of Punjab and Loyalty of Pashtuns etcetra etcetra on daily basis. In fact, our cultures are
reputed worldwidely and no doubt we respect them with the core of our hearts.

Similarly, our neighbour country China, also has some ancient and beautiful culture and
traditions. But they have been very dominating throughout the history. Chinese culture impacts
alot on other nations slowly but effectively. If we review history in a cultural perspective, we will
get to know that Chinese culture has consumed many cultures in itself.

Liang Chengxi who is the deputy director at the Chinese Ministry of Culture, disclosed that China
currently has thirteen cultural centers internationally and holds high-level meetings for cultural
exchange every year. In addition, Confucius Institutes, which spread cultural and language
awareness, play a significant role in Chinese cultural exchanges. Confucius Institute is a non-
profit public educational organization affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's
Republic of China, whose aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese
teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges. Liang estimated that there will be fifty
cultural centers around the world by 2020, with an overall goal to have a center in every single
major city and country.

Here comes the question, how much Pakistan will be effected from Chinese cultural impacts? On
that now Vinakshi will speak.

As Abdul Fatah told us all about the Chinese cultural influences and future plans, now let's have
a look on Pak-China relations. Pakistan and China are very old and good friends and both have
very strong cultural foundations. Well, it is good to adopt friend's habits but on society levels, it
could be harmful. No matter how much strong Pakistan's relations are with China, but we can't
let China to replace our cultures with its own.
We have a genuine example of it, that is Indonesia. Chinese people have been living in Indonesia
for centuries and sometimes you can’t tell the difference that it is Indonesians or not. Certain
Chinese language slangs has been merged into Indonesian language, more exactly Jakarta slang.
Chinese people have been influencing Indonesia’s politics whether it is direct or indirect. Due to
Chinese people arrivals to Indonesia for centuries, Chinese culture is now a big and
indispensable part of Indonesian culture. For the past 2000 years, many foreign people got
influenced by China, but unfortunately most of these people have been absorbed into Chinese
population and lost their own identities, such as Southern Xiongnu, Xianbei, Dangxiang, Khitan,
Jurchen, Eastern Mongolians, Manchu, etc. The descendants of these people have became
Chinese citizens. Even Korea and Japan are supposed to be influenced by old Chinese civilization.

So, it is certainly possible that our culture may be on risk. Because, due to China-Pak Economical
Corridor, Chinese people and their cultures have came very close to us and our cultures. If they
infulenced our people and merged their language with our national and native languages, then it
seems as a nightmare that one day Pakistan would be just a state of People's Republic of China.

Well, it's not too late yet, we can still handle the situations. But how? Abdullah will share with
us.

Thank You Vinakshi! Well, ladies & gentlmen, my dear friends have already explained you about
the influences of Chinese culture on other nations. And it is more probable that our culture
could be axchanged with the Chinese culture. So, what things can impact on a culture?

Language, attire and customs etc. Right? Now, let's have few examples of that, Shan Biryani Ad!
Everyone have seen it right? Well, it's funny but how can a Chinese make Biryani so tasty for the
fisrt time? Well it is a humorous example but rather than that, in Pakistan, there are many
institutes offering you to learn Chinese language optionally and rumours are that it can be
mandatory soon, officially by the government.

Well, now we have two options, whether we can rebel the cultural imperialism and weak our
economy and diplomacy just because of our cultures or we have a better and smart option! That
is we can learn Chinese language and traditions with the intentions of adding our traditions and
cultures in their culture.

Dozens of jobs are being offered in China for Pakistanis, on daily basis and Chinese language skill
is the key to success for these jobs, we can simply learn the language, get the job, live in their
country and make our roots there. If China is a nuclear-power country with such ancient
traditions, so are we! We are not equal in numbers but we can be a tough rival for them. And
there is nothing bad in making yourself strong and long lasting. This is our right and duty to save
our cultures, traditions, customs and motherland from external forces. And we should be
inspired, learned and motivated from foreign countries and later make them to get inspired from
us.

We can excercise many other things for exchanges of cultures such as social media. Social media
is above all the media sources in present times. We can promote our culture in outer world
through social media and save it from amendments. If do so, our children will get to learn our
core cultures instead of fancy versions of our respectful cultures.

So, save your cultures, save your nation. Be smart and live long!