China has never been so present in Switzerland as in 2010. China is a big topic of various cultural institutions - as the programme, as the main subject, as the focus, as the dossier. Innumerable events and projects based on the idea that exchange and approach and understanding is needed when people from different cultures meet. Quite often there is only a vague understanding of what is really needed, which kind of processes have to take place and which competencies are to be applied. Communication is the central theme and translation becomes a crucial point when "different languages are spoken" or people are "talking at cross purposes". In the same language there are also different kinds of languages spoken (and understood!), which shows that translating is also a necessity in the same linguistic community, even if it is often a very unconsciously implied tool, and very often exceeds the linguistic level. But what has to be translated when people from different cultures meet? On which level does the process of translating take place and how much culture is to be considered? These and further questions will be discussed in thematically interwoven, but independent events within the framework of CULTURESCAPES 2010, with the goal of creating time and space for analysing the complex translation processes between the (kn)own and the foreign.
