French Ambassador Yves Carmona announced in a press conference today the participation of two Nepali restaurants in the Gout de France/Good France event celebrating French gastronomy. “Diplomacy, at all times, has been more effective around a good meal accompanied with fine wines; that creates a more conducive atmosphere for tough discussion,” said Carmona. 

In 2009, the author and food historian Andrew Coe published the book Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. From the first Americans to travel to China in 1784 through widespread anti-Chinese sentiment in the 19th century, Coe traced how it took the United States quite some time to develop a taste for Chinese cuisine.

Director of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA), Majid Mollanoroozi, said “the first edition of Tehran Art Fair will be held internationally with the attendance and cooperation of the private sector as well as prominent world art galleries in the next Iranian calendar year (to begin on March 20)." 

After spending his Friday morning shadowing a Lompoc High School student, Tyrick Takara said he quickly noticed some major differences between the Lompoc campus and the schools that he has attended back home in Okinawa Island, Japan.

Leading Chinese performing artists who included opera singers, acrobats, dancers and instrumentalists on Sunday entertained a mammoth crowd in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. [...] In his opening remarks, Liu said the music concert was part of a series of activities that have been lined up to promote Sino-Kenya cultural cooperation.

The 21st Francophonie Festival is going to launch in more than 200 cities across China in March. A variety of cultural events featuring French music, films, literature, sports, gastronomy and art will show the French language and culture.

Sometime in March last year Kenya’s diplomatic corps, attending the 17th Biennial Ambassadors and High Commissioners’ conference in Mombasa, bemoaned negative press reports and said this was frustrating their diplomatic initiatives in missions. The envoys noted that the local media’s fascination with “negative” narratives of insecurity, crime and corruption painted a bad image of the country abroad. 

Pakistan's literary scene is seeing a spirited revival, with packed festivals attracting tens of thousands in a rock concert-like atmosphere that defies security threats in a growing cultural renaissance.  Events such as the raucous Lahore Literary Festival [...] are reclaiming the “cultural space” that has shrunk significantly in the conservative Muslim nation in recent years amid a raging Islamist insurgency.