Feature: Three French people share their China stories

PARIS, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France. Mutual understanding between peoples is the cornerstone of this enduring friendship, and here are three China stories shared by the French.

AN UNFORGETTABLE ENCOUNTER

Sonia Bressler is a writer. After obtaining her philosophy doctorate in 2005, she felt a bit lost in her life.

"Like any young doctor, I was a little lost. My academic research was complete, yet thousands of questions remained unanswered," she said. The young epistemologist ultimately decided to break with all "certainties" and she gazed at the map: Paris, Moscow... Beijing! This is how her China story unfolded.

In Moscow, Bressler boarded a train alone and headed to Beijing. She rarely ate during the journey. "One Russian borscht is enough to last three days," she said.

Sharing the cabin were two Chinese women. "One day, they gave me a beautiful tomato, beckoned me to sit with them and eat," Bressler said, fondly remembering this gesture of friendship, and they became travel companions for a while.

In Harbin, the two Chinese women "disappeared in the vapors from the dumpling vendors on the quay, and they opened the doors of their culture to me," said Bressler.

After her first trip to China, "China has been in my heart," Bressler said. She returned to China several times to travel.

Today, as a member of the editorial board of the Dialogue Chine-France, a French magazine, she said that France and China need to find more common ground and that more dialogue is needed between the two countries.

A PASSION FOR PANDAS

Jerome Pouille, who works for the French Ministry of Ecology, is a big fan of giant pandas. "It all started in childhood when my parents gave me a stuffed panda," he said. Pouille fell in love with the toy as he walked past a toy store, and having a plush panda was his Christmas wish.

As he grew older, Pouille began collecting "everything to do with pandas." At 17, he saw a real panda for the first time. It was Yen Yen. In 1973, China had offered two pandas, Yen Yen and Li Li, to the people of France.

Unfortunately, Li Li died of a tumor the following year. Aware of Yen Yen's old age and fearing he might not have another opportunity to see the panda, Pouille persuaded his family to embark on a 400 km journey to Vincennes Zoo in Paris.

In 2002, in the early days of the Internet, Pouille set up a panda information website (panda.fr), which has accumulated over 1 million views. In 2012, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China launched a competition for a panda ambassador, or "Pambassador." Pouille and two others won the title among over 1 million applicants from around the world. He believes this was partly due to his experience in creating and managing the website.

Pouille's passion for pandas sparked his interest in China; he had spent a significant amount in China. "The Chinese always opened their arms to me," said Pouille.

Pouille once traveled in Sichuan's Baoxing County, where giant pandas were first discovered, with his interpreter and driver. All three were hungry on the way, but there were no restaurants. Finally, a local lady welcomed them, preparing a yak hot pot that turned out to be "really good."

Baoxing holds historical significance as the "scientific discovery" site of pandas, where French missionary Armand David first recorded the existence of the animal in 1869.

"The ties that bind France and China around the panda go back much further than you might imagine," said Pouille, calling the pandas "an ambassador of Franco-Chinese friendship."

REDISCOVERING CHINA

Norbert Rouland, a professor at the Faculty of Law of Aix-Marseille University, first visited China in 1997. Invited to Hong Kong and then to the Chinese mainland, his brief stays made him realize that China knows the West much better than the West knows China.

Rouland said that many French news reports on China are biased and inaccurate. He pointed out that while French media criticize China's surveillance cameras, labeling them as a "privacy violation," they overlook the positive impact on public safety in China and the increasing installation of surveillance cameras on the streets of France.

Last autumn, Rouland revisited China. A month of re-discovery gave him a sense of the country's rich culture and significant technological advances. In Shanghai, he enjoyed Kunqu, a kind of centuries-old Chinese opera, and while on a visit to a traditional Miao ethnic village in Guizhou, he rode in a hyper-modern Chinese electric vehicle that was "powerful and comfortable."

Rouland has already planned to return to China in 2024. As an anthropologist, he champions a peaceful coexistence of different cultures. He believes that when the West sees China more objectively, they could see the potential for mutual inspiration. He often encourages people around him to find out more about China and, if possible, to go and "see for themselves."