Chinese actor helps Sino-Italian cultural integration in Italy

Shi Yang Shi has a mission of friendship in Italy, with his challenging story of a Chinese-born boy who grew up abroad and became an actor as well as a symbol of cultural integration.

"I celebrate my Chinese roots in Italy," Shi told Xinhua in an interview shortly before participating in a renowned talk show on LA7 television earlier this week.

"What my life goal is? I try to build mutual trust between Chinese and Italians by seeking common ground on major questions while reserving differences on minor ones," the 35-year-old actor said.

The latest project promoted by Shi is an exhibition featuring photographs and short films each portraying an Italian and a foreigner doing something together in an everyday moment of their real life in Prato.

The Tuscan town in central Italy counts around 200,000 inhabitants belonging to as many as 118 different ethnic groups. Chinese have a massive presence out of the total number of foreigners living in Prato.

The Facewall Prato exhibition is inspired by a project launched last year by Compost Prato, a group of artists with different cultural roots based in Prato.

"We met with local authorities and professionals to address the issue of cultural integration. After a year of research, we were aware of the key role played by Chinese activities in tackling the economic crisis and the need to further improve collaboration," Shi recalled.

The result was a total of 100 couples pictured together by Ilaria Costanzo, an Italian photographer, in different areas of city life: school, trade, culture, industry, politics, sport and outdoor activities.

The photographs, of which 60 out of 100 represent an Italian and a Chinese, were reproduced on flags distributed free of charge to Prato citizens willing to hang them outside their home. Later they became the Facewall Prato exhibition, which will run from March 22 to June 31 in Prato.

Shi told Xinhua he was in talks with Italian authorities to also present Facewall Prato as one of the side events at Expo Milano 2015, the world exposition running in Milan, in northern Italy, from May 1 to Oct. 31.

Besides learning how to cohabitate peacefully in today's society, knowing our ancient roots is equally important, Shi went on saying. This was the reason behind the success of Tong Men-g, the first theatrical play ever to take place in Italian and Chinese simultaneously.

The actor retraced the stories of his ancestors to "make Italians aware of the profoundness of Chinese culture" but also "help second-generation Chinese rediscover their roots."

The play presents Shi's great-grand-father Li Zhuru, who was killed in fighting against the Japanese and declared a national hero, to pass to the experience of an 11-year-old boy uprooted from China's Shandong province and sent with his mother to his new country.

In Italy, Shi was a dishwasher and a door to door salesman, but also a student at Bocconi University of Milan and an interpreter for ministers and high-level meetings, before realizing his dream to become a theatre and cinema actor, but especially a bridge for dialogue.