China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Photo event collects Sino-US memories
Sarah Daley, a student at the University of Virginia in the United States, has deep connections with China. She spent the summer of 2018 teaching English in Hebei province and has a younger sister who was adopted from China in 2009.
Both experiences left her with positive impressions of Chinese people and long-lasting friendships.
Those connections led to Daley being honored by the Chinese embassy in the US during an award ceremony in Washington on Saturday, after she shared her stories with the world through an event hosted by the embassy and China Daily.
“The overall stability of China-US relations over the past four decades has been a blessing to not only our two countries, but the whole world,” said Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the US, during the awards presentation.
“And the essence of the (over) 40-year story is amity between the peoples, which lays the foundation for and shapes the future of our relations,” he said, adding that the stories shared by peoples from the two countries through the My China Album series will, as part of the two countries’ decadeslong friendship, always “be a source of inspiration and motivation for us”.
Hundreds of US citizens participated in the series from Feb 6 to April 19, sharing their personal stories about China through photos and captions. Ten of the participants were recognized for their genuine and touching stories.
“I was so honored to win first place in this year’s My China Album,” said Max Horne, an incoming Harvard University freshman who visited Yunnan province years ago and studied the culture of the Naxi, a local ethnic group.
“There’s endless culture for us to appreciate,” Horne told China Daily. He speaks fluent Mandarin and plans to continue his study of Chinese history and religious traditions in college.
Horne’s journey of studying Chinese started in his fourth year of elementary school, and it’s “both a personal journey and an intellectual journey” he said.
“That diversity — another way to see the world, another way to look at things — has brought so much into my life. It’s been a great adventure,” said Horne.
Charlotte Christensen, vice-president of the Oregon China Council, has worked for years with Chinese people and organizations.
Christensen, who won second prize, also witnessed friendships going beyond the personal level. The state of Oregon developed a sister-state/province relationship with Fujian province 35 years ago and a state/municipality relationship with Tianjin in 2014.
“I have had great respect for China over many decades and watched as China raised 800 million of her people from poverty and made it a priority to restore her natural environment to become an ecological civilization,” she said.
All contest participants will receive souvenirs for their contributions to the event. Some of the stories and photos will be featured in a book to be published by China Daily later this year.