The first China Culture Center (CCC) in Asia was inaugurated here on Tuesday, which will provide South Koreans with Chinese language teaching service and information about China and Chinese culture.

The CCC in Seoul, the sixth of its kind in the world set by the Chinese government, will also introduce China to South Koreans through holding exhibitions, seminars and other activities, said visiting Chinese Vice Cultural Minister Meng Xiaosi who inaugurated the Seoul CCC together with South Korean National Assembly Vice Speaker Park Hee-tae, Culture and Tourism Minister Chung Dong-chae and other Chinese and South Korean officials.

"The setting up of CCC in Seoul is an important outcome of cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and South Korea," Meng said in her inauguration speech, "It will become a stage, whose curtains never fall, for people, especially the young, of both countries to contact and know more about each other."

Chung told dozens of guests who attended the inauguration ceremony that he believed the Seoul CCC will be a bridge for bilateral relations and the friendship between South Korean and Chinese people.

The six-floor CCC building, located near the building of South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has a library, several classrooms and rooms for exhibitions and function activities. Telephone inquiries flooded in since the CCC's setting up was announced in February, asking when it would be opened to public and the services would begin.

"More and more South Koreans are eager to study Chinese and learn more about China," Chinese Ambassador Li Bin told Xinhua Monday in an interview, "It is not only because that Chinese and South Korean cultures are very close, for the long history of bilateral cultural exchanges and geographic closeness, but the full-scale development of bilateral relations in recent years."

He said China became South Korea's top investment and travel destination, as well as the biggest trade partner this year. Chinese language and culture studies are also getting popular in South Korea. It is called "a blow of Chinese Wind" in South Korea, in parallel with the Chinese saying "the flow of South Korean Stream" which shows the influence of South Korean culture in China.

"The setting up of CCC in Seoul meets the needs of many South Koreans to study Chinese and learn Chinese culture," Li said, "It is also helpful for Chinese culture to be introduced to other countries in the world, including South Korea."

China has set up two CCCs in Mauritius and Benin in 1980s and another three in France, Egypt and Malta during the past three years. Around 100,000 people attended activities held by CCCs in these five countries in 2004, according to a press release from Chinese Culture Ministry.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2004)