Three views of China from French experts
PARIS — 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.
A remarkable encounter
Sonia Bressler is a writer. After obtaining her philosophy doctorate in 2005, she wasn’t sure what to do with her life.
“Like any young doctoral graduate, I was a little lost. My academic research was complete, yet thousands of questions remained unanswered,” she says. The young epistemologist ultimately decided to break with all certainties and gazed at the map.
In Moscow, Bressler boarded a train alone, bound for Beijing. She rarely ate during the journey. Sharing the cabin were two Chinese women. “One day, they gave me a beautiful tomato, beckoned me to sit with them and eat,” Bressler says, fondly remembering this gesture of friendship. They became travel companions for a while.
In Harbin, the two Chinese women “disappeared in the vapors from the dumpling vendors on the quay, but they opened the doors of their culture to me”, she says.
Since that first trip, Bressler says that China has been in her heart and she has returned several times to travel.
Today, as a member of the editorial board of the French magazine, Dialogue Chine-France, she says 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 says. Pouille fell in love with the toy as he walked past a toy store, and having a panda plushy was his Christmas wish.
As he grew older, Pouille began collecting everything to do with the animal. At 17, he saw a real panda for the first time. It was Yen Yen, one of two pandas China gifted to the people of France in 1973.
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 was one of three to win the title from among over 1 million applicants from around the world. He believes this was partly due to his experience in creating and managing the website.
His passion for pandas sparked an interest in China, and he has spent much time in the country. “The Chinese have always opened their arms to me,” he says.
Once, on a trip with his interpreter and driver to Sichuan’s Baoxing county, where giant pandas were first scientifically discovered, the three of them found themselves hungry, but there were no restaurants to stop at along the way. Finally, a woman welcomed them, and prepared a yak hot pot that Pouille says turned out to be really good.
Baoxing is historically significant for being the site of the scientific discovery of pandas. It is 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,” says Pouille, who calls pandas “ambassadors of Franco-Chinese friendship”.
Rediscovering the images
Norbert Rouland, a professor at the Faculty of Law of Aix-Marseille University, first visited China in 1997. During his stay, he realized that China knows the West much better than the West knows China.
Rouland says that many French news reports on China are biased and inaccurate.
Last autumn, Rouland revisited China. A month of rediscovery gave him a sense of the country’s rich culture and significant technological advances. In Shanghai, he enjoyed Kunqu Opera. And while on a visit to a traditional Miao ethnic village in Guizhou province, he rode in a hypermodern Chinese electric vehicle that he says was powerful and comfortable.
As an anthropologist, Rouland champions the peaceful coexistence of different cultures. He believes that when the West sees China more objectively, it might 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.