Exhibitions, forums and activities are the centerpieces of the 22-day West Lake Expo 2001, which opened in Hangzhou yesterday to a frenzy of interest from art lovers and tourists.

The expo will hold 46 international and national events based on cultural projects such as oil paintings, sculptures and exhibitions of China's distinctive silk heritage.

Overseas and domestic tourists joined local residents in flocking into the Hangzhou China Silk Town yesterday to visit the Silk Fashion Exhibition.

Sculptures featuring the whole production process of silk products, including raising silkworms and reeling off raw silk from cocoons, were on display.

The organizers also invited embroidery veterans from South China's Guangdong Province, Central China's Hunan Province, East China's Jiangsu Province and Southwest China's Sichuan Province to demonstrate their superb skills on the spot.

Other cultural events include the National Exhibition of Chinese Oil Paintings, exhibitions of calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting and seal art, a stone art show, a tea art show and an international sculpture exhibition.

Among these, the most important event is the Fifth China International Folk Art Festival, which will end on Thursday.

Folk art troupes from more than 20 countries and regions including Russia, the Netherlands, Georgia, Egypt and Brazil will give performances.

This is the first time the event - sponsored by the China Federation of Literature and Art Circles - has been held outside the capital city of Beijing.

Hangzhou has a cultural tradition worth boasting about and its people have shown greater passion for arts than residents from most domestic cities.

Statistics reveal that Hangzhou residents spend more on buying books, newspapers and magazines on average than people in any other major Chinese city.

This provides a solid foundation for the success of cultural events.

Art and culture are not the only features of the West Lake Expo.

The following three weeks will also see an international auto exhibition, a hardware exhibition, an international forum on traditional Chinese medicine and a symposium on the development of the Internet, to which heads of China's top dotcom companies such as Sohu and Alibaba will attend.

(China Daily October 21, 2001)