From confusion to connection: An Italian's journey of discovery in China

"Rather than a well-thought-out plan, my coming to China was the result of confusion." — This is how the Italian young man Alessandro Ceschi wrote in his book.

In 2014, Ceschi, born in 1993 in Italy, was sent to China as a sports reporter to cover the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.

"During the reporting period at the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games, I would wander around the Olympic Village during my breaks and after work, meeting many volunteers there. They left a very vivid impression on me. I felt that they were very interested in the world. Suddenly, I felt that they were a lot like me, that we were not so different after all," Ceschi said.

To Ceschi, these volunteers presented a picture of China, as he later wrote in his book: "People all over the world are seeking happiness in different ways. Despite cultural differences, we can understand each other, share personal experiences, and grow together. What made me most optimistic was a number: over one hundred and three thousand people applied to volunteer and build bridges with the world. Interacting with the volunteers made me feel that China is a society eager to connect with the world, part of the global village. I seemed to see the future in the eyes of the volunteers: we would come closer together".

This encounter in Nanjing sparked his fascination with China. In the summer of 2016, shortly after graduating university, Ceschi was fascinated by a report on the Chinese film market, and decided to move from Rome to Beijing to study Chinese and film from scratch. He quickly learned Chinese and began writing about his experiences in the new land. During his time in China, he studied film, worked as an extra and shot commercials. By 2022, he could communicate fluently in Chinese, and even in his dreams, his old friends from Italy spoke to him in Chinese. This was also the inspiration for the title of his later published book written in Chinese, "Dreaming in Chinese".

"The headlines about China always focus on political logic and systems, rarely mentioning the people on a micro level. In a country with such a large population, why do news reports about China never talk about the people there?" Ceschi said.

Therefore, Ceschi's book includes his various experiences of learning Chinese, learning filmmaking, acting and recording scenes of interacting and chatting with people from all walks of life.

"People often ask me why I came to China, but I think it's more important why I stayed," Ceschi said.

In the vast land of China, Ceschi has gained many life experiences. In Beijing, he learned how to cut vegetables with a dorm aunt; in Guangzhou, he shot commercials and drank morning tea before starting work; in Shanghai, he joined a Chinese writing club; in rural Sichuan, he overcame the freezing winter and dialects. He even took a high-speed train from Beijing to Shenzhen to watch the sunset in a park.

"I love the vastness of this country. It is so vast that I can disappear within it, drifting along thousands of miles of railways. I set off with no purpose or need, ready for all the encounters on the way. After spending my first two years mostly in school activities, I longed to see the broader China. I finally understood what people were saying. They seemed to have endless energy, and I was drawn and moved by this force. In my lack of direction, they showed me different possibilities in life, even if their lives had nothing to do with mine. On the roads, every interaction made me feel I belonged to this mixed, imperfect, love-hate world." Ceschi wrote in his book.

As a "post-90s" young man, when asked what advice he would give to young people in China, Ceschi smiled and said, "Giving advice is always tricky because everyone's life is actually different. What I can share is that when we are dominated by more urgent feelings like insecurity and uncertainty about the future, we might not realize that we are experiencing life and growing. These are things we might only realize many years later."