HR Minister Balog Starts Shanghai Visit

Budapest, November 3 (MTI) – Zoltan Balog, Hungary’s minister for human resources, started a visit to Shanghai on Monday, and unveiled a plaque in honour of Hungarian-born businessman Pal Komor, the former head of the Hungarian colony in Shanghai.

Balog noted that Komor, a Hungarian Jew, lived in Shanghai from 1898 to 1948. He had helped some 16,000 Jewish refugees during World War Two to obtain new documents and travel on to the United States, Canada or Australia.

After the unveiling of Komor’s plaque, Balog told a press conference that Hungary has founded a scholarship programme for Chinese university students. The scholarships will bear the name of Hungarian-born architect Laszlo Hudec, who designed some 65 buildings in Shanghai, including the Art-Deco Peace Hotel, where the press conference was held.

To commemorate the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Hungary, 65 scholarships will be offered to Chinese students to study architecture, urban planning and design and visual arts at Hungarian universities, Cecilia Szilas, the Hungarian ambassador to Beijing, said. The Hudec scholarship will welcome students from February 2015.

Balog will open the exhibition “Mihaly Munkacsy and His Times — Hungarian Arts at the Turn of the Century” at the China pavilion on Monday afternoon. As parts of the 16th China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the exhibition will display 95 paintings from the collections of the Hungarian National Gallery, including masterpieces by the late 19th century realist master Munkacsy and other contemporary Hungarian masters.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters