The thousand-year-old Yuelu Academy, which blends traditional and modern cultures and bears witness to a convergence of eastern and western wisdom, is making its contribution to the world civilization.

Yuelu Academy, dubbed a cradle of talents, is a prestigious ancient academy that was founded in 976 during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) at the foot of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan province.
The academy, where the cream of Chinese culture, including Confucian classics, social etiquette, writing and calligraphy skills, are taught, was among the four most prestigious ancient academies in China, and later became part of Hunan University.
Peter B. Ditmanson, professor at the History Department at Yuelu Academy, said that studying Chinese tradition and culture enriches life, and shared his insight on disseminating Chinese traditions to the rest of the world in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).
"I think studying Chinese tradition, studying Chinese culture adds richness to life, adds a certain other dimension to life. And also thinking about it in terms of world tradition, and thinking about how we represent Chinese traditions to the rest of the world? How do we think comparatively?" said Ditmanson.
Lamenting that Chinese Kunqu masterpiece "The Peony Pavilion", a shining example of splendid Chinese culture, is not as well known to the world as the Western classics of the same period, the professor then stressed the academy's efforts to further spread Chinese tradition and culture globally.
"I was just teaching a class yesterday in which we were talking about a very famous play, Mudan Ting, Peony Pavilion, which is written at almost exactly the same time as Romeo and Juliet in England. And so we should be thinking the whole world knows Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. The whole world does not know about Mudan Ting, which is, in my opinion, a much better play. And we can think that we are sort of, on the one hand, we are enriching people's lives in China. On the other hand, we are presenting more of Chinese tradition to the world," he said.
Written by Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), "The Peony Pavilion" tells the story of the romance between a daughter of a wealthy official and a talented but poor young scholar.
Ditmanson's colleague Zhan Beibei pointed out that a rich study on humanities in the Chinese tradition can contribute to the world civilization.
"Because we are trying to somehow make a division between tradition and modern, and sometimes east and west. But actually I'm trying to argue that is that division that clear? And also especially sometimes we even make it equivalent between western and modern. But this is not actually the case. And also as I said earlier, I think modern higher education emphasizes less on humanities, which I think is a global problem. And this is what I'm thinking. I think we have a rich study on humanities in Chinese tradition. And I do think this is definitely something we can really contribute to the world civilization, to at least offer a very important alternative view of humanities," said Zhan Beibei, associate professor of the Yuelu Academy.