In order to help students better understand the Grand Canal Culture and strengthen contacts between second-year graduates and freshmen, the Silk Road School organized teachers and students to visit the 3rd Grand Canal Culture and Tourism Expo on September 24. The visit was led by Professor Jiang Xiaoli, the Deputy Dean of Silk Road School, Zheng Lu, the assistant for student affairs of Silk Road School, and Jiang Luqiang, financial assistant of Silk Road School. All students of grade 2020 and 2021 in Suzhou participated.

Focusing on the theme of "integration, innovation and sharing", the 3rd Grand Canal Culture and Tourism Expo is held in the form of online and offline integration and linkage inside and outside the museum in the form of exhibition, theme forum and characteristic activities. The Expo has six themed exhibition areas, the canal city cultural and tourism exhibition, the canal intangible cultural heritage exhibition, the canal characteristic tourism product exhibition, "the encounter between the Silk Road and the canal" international exhibition, the canal food exhibition, and the canal cultural creative industry exhibition.

Various culture and countless historical relics flow in the 3200-kilometer Grand Canal, singing wonderful chapters of civilization. Teachers and students walked along the Grand Canal, taking the node cities of the canal as the unit, to deeply understand the fruitful achievements of cultural protection and inheritance of the Grand Canal from different angles, and felt the broad and profound Chinese traditional culture along the canal and the canal friendship between cities.

In addition to the canal city culture and tourism boutique exhibition, the exotic "encounter between the Silk Road and the canal" international exhibition also deeply attracted the attention of the students. Centered around the Belt and Road Initiative, this Expo invited 31 countries, and 21 exhibition booths as well as 18 national cultural exhibition areas were set up. All the exhibits were organized by the embassies and consulates and tourism bureaus, with high level and high specifications. The exhibits exhibited strong regional characteristics and national style, making the visitors fully understand the achievements of international canal city cultural exchanges and cooperation.

The exhibition also set up interactive activities such as "canal treasure Pavilion" and "canal voice", so that everyone can experience culture while walking. The students' strong interest in canal culture and their unique insights impressed the on-site staff. During the visit, students also received distinctive souvenirs from the booth.

Through the visit to the Expo, the students closely appreciated the beauty of the intangible cultural heritage of the canal, comprehensively understood the historical changes, life emotion, life spirit and era value of the Grand Canal. They also further understood the achievements of the integrated development of city culture and tourism along the Grand Canal. This direct visiting experience show them the achievements of the high-quality development of Chinese culture and Tourism under the normalized prevention and control of epidemic situation. Next, Silk Road School will continue to organize a series of visits to help students understand "real, three-dimensional and comprehensive" China.