（Beijing） Following the remarkable success of the 2008 "BMW China Culture Journey", BMW China, BMW Brilliance and the Chinese National Academy of Arts • Protection Center of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China (PCICH), will join hands again to launch the "Leisurely Charm of the Grand Canal - 2008 ‘BMW China Culture Journey' Achievement Exhibition" between February 17th and March 8th, 2009, at the Capital Museum in Beijing. The Exhibition will be free to the public to engage them in an up-close experience of the essence of various cultural heritage items discovered along the Grand Canal throughout the journey, in addition to a vivid record of the BMW fleet activities en route. It is also the very first exhibition of its kind in the capital city to provide such a comprehensive and vivid display of the intangible cultural items along the Canal.

The Grand Canal has been flowing for more than 2000 years and is one of the world's oldest canals. As a stunning engineering project in the history of China's water conservancy, the Grand Canal has been widely recognized for its historical value and contribution to economic growth in ancient China. For generations, people from different walks of life have been thriving along the Canal, thus the history of the Grand Canal also portrays a live painting scroll of the folk-customs. And 2008 "BMW China Culture Journey" Achievement Exhibition will roll out such a vivid and diverse picture of the cultural highlights of the Grand Canal to the public.

As an important component of the 2008 "BMW China Culture Journey", the achievement exhibition will demonstrate photos, video and exhibits of Chinese cultural heritage relics collected during the journey. Visitors to the show will be able to marvel at the charm of folk arts including the Yang Liu Qing Woodblock New-Year Painting, the three Gaomi folk art forms, the Pizhou Paper Lion Head, Calico Blue Dyeing Skill, Woodblock Printing and the Hui Ink-Stick, and be enthralled by fine Chinese ancient embroidery interpreted by Nanjing Yunjin brocade, Songjin brocade and Suzhou embroidery; performance of Chinese Guqin and Suzhou Pintan will indulge the audience in the rich and elegant sounds of the Grand Canal.

In addition to the exhibits being displayed on-site, some inheritors and successors of intangible cultural heritage items will also be invited to deliver live demonstrations of their handicrafts. Zhou Mei Hong, the national inheritor of the Hui Ink-stick, will unveil the secret skill of how to make a genuine Hui Ink-stick. Known as a lustrous example of the four treasures of study, the Hui Ink-stick is praised for its pervasive elegance, jade-like firmness, paint-like fastness and duration of trueness. Visitors are expected to experience demonstrations of the exquisite and scrupulous production process of China's intangible cultural heritage presented in an animated and lavish fashion, to acquire a more direct and deeper understanding of the essence carried by such cultural heritage.

"BMW China Culture Journey" is an important component of BMW China Corporate Social Contribution Activities. And as one of the key cooperated project between BMW and the Protection Center of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China, 2008 "BMW China Culture Journey" has been listed as one of the official events of China's "Cultural Heritage Day". The culture journey fleet of 22 BMW vehicles embarked on a journey from Beijing Capital Museum on Oct.14 through Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu and Hangzhou city in Zhejiang, the starting point of the Canal, and finally reached the destination "Ancient Huizhou" (Currently knowns as Huangshan city), China's second Cultually Ecological Reserve Area – piont of origin for the "Four Scholarly Treasures" that contain the essence of Chinese civilization. Along the 2,600-kilometers journey, the fleet has explored more than 40 intangible and 10 tangible cultural heritages, and has contributed donations of totaling 1 million RMB to 12 cultural heritages, namely the Ancient Zither, the Three Unique Handicrafts in Gaomi—Gaomi paper-cutting, Nie Jia Zhuang Clay Sculpture and Puhui New Year paintings, Wood Block Printing, Suzhou Ping-tan, Jiangnan Si-zhu, Hangzhou Ping-ci, the Grand Canal Museum, Hui Ink-Stick, She Ink-Slab and Hui Opera.