Chinese and Latin American Young Scholars: China and Latin America Need More Exchanges and Dialogues
CRI Online (journalist Song Chen): In the middle of June, over 20 young scholars from ten Latin American countries gathered in Beijing with Chinese experts and scholars to attend the first China-Latin America Young Scholars Forum, conducting full dialogues to build up trust and overcome suspicion.
Recent years have seen growing exchanges and cooperation between China and Latin America in the areas of politics and economy, however, the distance in time and space and huge gap in culture results in insufficient opportunities for people of China and Latin American countries to have in-depth understanding of each other. At the Forum, young scholars of the two sides spoke up their minds on the problems of "mistrust", "bias" and "misunderstanding" existing between China and Latin America. Ou zhanming, fellow of the Argentina National Tango Research Institute, said that the unfair reports by western media about China are not helpful to Latin America people's understanding of China. "I used to search for news related to China by googling China and Chinese in Argentina, but most of the news I got were negative reports, very few positive ones. This leads to serious mistrust of the Latin American people over China."
Federico Conditi (transliteration), director of the traffic department of Complaints Agency of Buenos Aires of Argentina, believes that stereotype thinking and old mindset are a big obstacle affecting mutual understanding of the two peoples. If one wants to understand China, he must come to China. "Some western media claim that the Chinese are very conservative, difficult to get along and pay little attention to hygiene, and such a view is accepted by many Latin American people because they have no other access. But if they come to China they will find what has been described by the western media is not true. China is very modern and the Chinese people are very open and passionate. They have many ideas for future development. Long geographical distance hinders many Latin American people's acquisition of correct information about China, which leads to a lot of misunderstanding."
The most direct impression of people of Latin American countries about China comes from the Chinese working and living there. What they say and do represent the Chinese. Zhang Yuanpei, deputy director of the Spanish editing office of Xinhua News Agency who used to work in Mexico, Argentina and Costa Rica, said, "I believe for the Chinese living there as well as the Chinese students and staff of Chinese businesses, each of them represents China through their words and deeds. If anyone or group did something bad such as breaking local laws and selling some fake goods in violation of local order, the local media will report on that. The media won't mention the specific name of the person. Instead, they will say it is a Chinese, thus harming greatly the image of China."
Whether for biased media reports or lack of good manner of some Chinese there, lack of communication with local people is the biggest problem. Ou Zhanming said that for sound exchanges, one needs to put himself in the position of the other side, and start from the topic that can get the understanding and response from the other side. Mutual trust is the basis for mutual understanding. "I once brought several friends from Argentina to the Great Wall and Hutong. Before explaining to them the history of the Great Wall, we talk about Tango. Since I understand Tango, I want to use Tango as a starting point to tell them that I understand them and what they need. This generates their trust on me. When they trust me, they will believe in what I said."
At the Forum, experts of the two sides had frank exchanges on the differences between China and Latin America in ideology, way of life, language and culture, and raised many constructive suggestions for enhancing mutual understanding of the two sides. Thanks to the "Future Bridge" 1000 Latin American-people leadership training program, more and more scholars will have the opportunity to come to China to feel and understand China. Patricia Casteroso (transliteration), a scholar from Peru who has been living in China for 12 years, said, "the best way to understand a country is to come here to see it by yourself. It is no easy to ask foreigners to listen to China's voice. But once we start exchanges, we open a new path of mutual understanding."
