Sino-western cultural exchange envoy Rose Oliver: Traditional Chinese culture adds special glamour to the city

Based on such pure love for Tai Chi and Chinese culture, while an English teacher at Shanghai University, Rose Oliver used her spare time and her own money to found the Double Dragon Alliance Cultural Centre in 2005. The center aims to celebrate the Yang Family style Tai Chi and creates a platform for martial arts exchange. She goes to her bases at Caoyang Park and Changfeng Park when off work to teach Tai Chi together with another Tai Chi master, Wang Mingbo. She has also offered help to foreigners coming to Shanghai to learn martial arts in many other ways, including introducing other skilled masters.

The Celebration of Culture event held by the Double Dragon Alliance

Apart from teaching Tai Chi, she has also used her own money to organize various cultural activities. The biennially held Double Dragon Alliance Celebration of Culture, for example, features not only such martial arts as Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Form and Will Boxing, but also such arts as Kun Opera, Peking Opera, musical instrument performance, calligraphy and dancing. Rose is a fan of Peking Opera herself and was once invited to perform Peking Opera on the stage in an event held in Pudong. She had to perform with all the heavy head makeup while holding a long fan, which was “very painful. You had to show your artistic quality and spirit,” smiled Rose. The Double Dragon Alliance once partnered with the British Consulate-General in Shanghai to host a Summer Camp for British Students to introduce the characters in Peking Opera including the male lead, the female lead, the painted face and the clown; Back in the UK, Rose once taught Tai Chi to kids in a special needs school. The laughter those activities have brought to those students is the most rewarding thing to Rose.

Rose Oliver received the MBE honor from the British Queen on June 28, 2011

Rose Oliver has been well recognized for her love for traditional Chinese culture as well as for her contributions to Sino-Western cultural exchange. Rose was awarded one of Britain’s highest honors, an MBE, by the British Queen at Buckingham Palace on June 28, 2011; and received a Shanghai City Municipal Government’s Magnolia Award in 2013. In 2014, she, among 50 foreign experts, met with President Xi Jinping at Xijiao State Guest Hotel in Shanghai. In December 2017, Rose was awarded the title of "Emissary of Chinese Martial Arts" by Shanghai Media Group (SMG).