Opening and Welcome Speech by Chao Gejin at The 1st Meeting of CIPSH Executive Committee

Opening and Welcome Speech by Chao Gejin
The 1st Meeting of CIPSH Executive Committee
April 16, 2018, Xiamen University

Mr. Zhang Rong, president of the Xiamen University,
Mr, Qin Changwei, Secretary General of the National Commission for UNESCO,

Distinguished participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me a great pleasure to welcome all of you to the Executive Committee meeting of CIPSH today, jointly organized by CIPSH and Xiamen University.
Xiamen is a beautiful city, and her history can be traced back to about 600 years ago. You may love to know that the weather would be comfortable during your stay, and the local cuisine is highly appreciated by many epicureans.

As you know, we received financial, moral, academic and other supports from the Xiamen University. I would like to take this opportunity to formally express my sincere thanks to the local organizers, and the President Zhang and Prof. Xiong Bingzhen in particular, they have been working with us since the beginning of the planning stage of this meeting, dedicated a lot to make this event possible. Now we know that we are having the executive meeting, dealing with our council’s internal affairs, and it comes with scholarly event, as well as the Global Humanities Festival, an exciting event we are about to attend in one way or another. And above all, we will have an local office aiming at stimulating the Humanities in Xiamen University and beyond. The proposal of setting up this office got many positive responses among our board and it seems our council will have a local office in this beautiful campus very soon. I should say that this in an important step for CIPSH, because to move towards a more GLOCAL [ global+local ] direction is one of our goals in coming days. Here I encourage you, either on behalf of your member organizations, or your own home institutions, to build up academic linkage with Xiamen University, and with this linkage, you will have more chance to come and stay.
Finally, I wish the meeting goes smoothly, and all of you have a pleasant stay in Xiamen city.

I warmly welcome you again.