Foreigners\r\n visit the Memorial for the Site of the First National Congress of the \r\nCommunist Party of China in Shanghai on Monday. GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY

Twenty expatriates who work in Shanghai were given a tour of the \r\nmemorial hall that commemorates the site of the First National Congress \r\nof the Communist Party of China on Monday.

The new memorial hall was officially opened to the public on June 3 \r\nto mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of \r\nChina, which falls on July 1.

The 20 foreigners were taking part in the Shanghai Through Our Eyes \r\nvideo series, which comprises 100 short videos produced by Xinmin \r\nEvening News to mark the centenary. The videos share the thoughts that \r\n100 foreign residents of Shanghai have about the city.

Located in the bustling Xintiandi area in downtown Shanghai, the \r\nmemorial hall is located near the original site of the first CPC \r\nNational Congress. The venue features an oath-taking hall and a \r\nsprawling exhibition area of more than 3,000 square meters that \r\nshowcases over 1,000 items related to Party history.

Key exhibits cover 72 translated versions of The Communist Manifesto \r\nby the great German thinkers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and medals \r\ncommemorating the 1911 Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen, which ended \r\nChina's last imperial dynasty.

The expatriates were impressed by the tour, with some of them \r\npraising the use of multimedia content and high-tech devices such as \r\nholographic projections and 3D displays to enhance the viewing \r\nexperience.

"I'm from the art industry, so I always believe that visuals help a \r\nlot with telling a story. I think this exhibition is quite different \r\nfrom the usual ones because it has many visuals, which makes the Party \r\nhistory easier to understand," said Astrid Poghosyan, an Armenian \r\nviolinist and a management staff member at the Shanghai Symphony \r\nOrchestra.

"I especially liked the short movie we got to watch. It made it \r\nreally easy for visitors to understand the things that have happened in \r\nhistory compared with just using text and pictures."

After the tour, the group gathered for a two-hour roundtable session \r\nwhere they shared their thoughts on the development of China and \r\nShanghai in recent decades. While most of them spoke English, some took \r\nthe opportunity to show off their Chinese-language fluency.

Among those who expressed admiration for China's rapid development \r\nwas Diego Benedetto, an Italian who works for China Eastern Airlines.

"I admire the way China has been managed in the last few decades. I \r\nfirst visited China in 1984 and returned to this country 10 years later \r\nand saw how much it had developed. Today, I live in China and I can say \r\nthat this is akin to living in the future," Benedetto said.

"Every day, I see evidence of the successful management of China. \r\nJust yesterday, I was in Chengdu to celebrate the development of a poor \r\narea that has been lifted out of poverty. I flew the first flight from \r\nthe new Chengdu Tianfu International Airport to Shanghai. This giant new\r\n airport is another indication of the success China has achieved.… I \r\nlove Shanghai because it best represents the development of China－quick \r\nand incredible," he added.