At 18 o’colock, October 24, local time in Germany,the keynote speech ----“ China and India：Hu Xiang Zhi Zi——Who Will ‘lead’ the Future World?”,was held successfully by the Erfurt Confucius Institute in theComcenter Brühl which belongs to the economic development center of Thuringia. Dr. Manuel Vermeer，who is the sinologist and corporate consultant, was the main speaker for this speech. There were almost more than 50 audiences attending this speech, including a lot of students from Erfurt college.
Dr. Manuel Vermeerwas born in Iserlohn of Germany in 1961 and studied inChinain 1982. He has studied ancient and modern Chinese for a long term. When Chinese leaders met the German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1985 and 1986, he was appointed as the interpreter. Besides, he was also in charge of the training of the interpreter for Chinese and German. He has been a teacher in a German college from 1988, giving classes about the east Asia marketing and Chinese language. In 2013, he founded his own company, providing a lot of company in China,Germany and India with information, helping pull strings for their cooperation and supplying teaching recourses about cross-cultural communication.
Different from the previous speeches generally with the theme of language and culture, this speech mainly talked about the economy.Dr. Manuel Vermeerintroduced the history and geography of both countries firstly, and then told us about the basic information of their social conditions and economic development. He regarded the development of modern Chinese economy as a flying tiger and that of Indian a huge elephant. With the raise of their international status,China and India were no long insignificant as they used to be. Dr. Manuel Vermeer used humorous word in the report. During the question time, Dr. Manuel Vermeer answered our questions one by one patiently. This speech was ended successfully with the audiences’ applause.
This speech began with the economic problem, guided foreign audiences to know about China, widened their horizon and helped them realize new international status of both countries. Many audiences expressed their deep interests in China, including Chinese culture and Chinese language. Some students even choose China as one of their countries that they want to study in the future.
