Recently, a Yantai youth delegation participated in the International Sister City Youth Summer Camp in Miskolc, Hungary, Yantai's international sister city. During the event, the "Yantai Memories" series of city-themed cultural creative gift boxes, originally designed by the institute's School of Art and Design, were brought to Hungary along with the delegation. Featuring creative designs uniquely characteristic of Yantai, the products showcased Yantai's urban culture and the landscapes of the Jiaodong region to overseas youth. This initiative served as a vivid demonstration of the institute leveraging its professional strengths to serve local international exchanges and bring vocational education outcomes to the global stage.
The International Sister City Youth Summer Camp brought together youth representatives from Yantai, Miskolc, and other countries and regions. During the event, young participants enhanced mutual understanding through seminars, cultural and sports activities, and cultural exhibitions. As distinctive carriers of Yantai's urban cultural communication, the "Yantai Memories" series of cultural creative gift boxes designed by the institute were also featured at the event and presented as cultural gifts to foreign teachers and students.
The "Yantai Memories" series is rooted in Yantai's regional culture for its creative design. It integrates representative urban landmarks, historical culture, and coastal-mountain elements such as Penglai Pavilion, Yantai Hill Lighthouse, Yangma Island, and Suochengli into the product designs. Through youthful and visual design language, the series encapsulates Yantai's coastal scenery, historical heritage, and urban memories into individual creative pieces.
During the event, the distinctly Yantai-featured cultural products drew considerable attention from foreign teachers and students. Through the patterns and design elements on the products, they gained insights into Yantai's cityscape and Jiaodong culture, showing strong interest in the regional characteristics and creative designs on display. These small yet exquisite cultural products traveled thousands of miles, transforming from classroom teaching and professional practice outcomes into cultural tokens of Sino-foreign people-to-people exchange. They allowed overseas youth to learn about and experience Yantai through design, while also providing a more vivid showcase of the professional achievements of vocational college teachers and students in international exchange activities.
In recent years, the institute has been committed to serving local economic and social development as well as opening-up efforts. It has actively leveraged its professional strengths, particularly in art and design, to integrate professional teaching, cultural heritage, and international exchange. The institute's School of International Education (Office of International Exchange) has been proactive in aligning internal professional resources with international exchange activities based on local foreign engagement and people-to-people exchange needs. It has facilitated the use of original works by teachers and students from the School of Art and Design in sister city interactions, foreign guest visits, cultural exchange events, and other international activities, enabling professional development outcomes to be applied and demonstrated in real-world international exchange scenarios.
In this process, the institute has placed emphasis on exploring Yantai's regional cultural resources, guiding teachers and students to combine professional learning with urban cultural dissemination. It transforms regional cultural elements into design works with distinct identity and communication impact, providing students with practice platforms closely aligned with real-world needs while continuously exploring new pathways for vocational education to serve local cultural communication and international exchange.
The introduction of the "Yantai Memories" series to Hungary represents a concrete effort by the institute to leverage its professional features in serving Yantai's international sister city exchanges. It also marks another achievement in the institute's exploration of an integrated development model combining "professional talent cultivation + cultural communication + international exchange." Through the international sister city youth exchange platform, original design works by the institute's teachers and students reached Central and Eastern Europe, using cultural creativity as a medium to introduce Yantai's urban culture to overseas youth while showcasing the talent cultivation and creative design outcomes of Shandong's vocational education. This initiative has further enriched the content and forms of local international people-to-people exchanges.
Looking ahead, the institute will continue to build on its educational characteristics and professional strengths, deepen the integration of regional cultural resources with professional talent development, and continue to produce cultural creative outcomes that embody Yantai's unique character and contemporary spirit. Leveraging its international exchange cooperation platforms, the institute will actively serve local foreign engagement and Sino-foreign people-to-people exchanges, using distinctive vocational education achievements to tell Yantai's stories and promote Qilu culture. In doing so, it aims to contribute vocational education's strength to Yantai's efforts in expanding international exchanges and deepening sister city cooperation.
