China's culture permeates int'l book fair in Peru

The Chinese embassy, together with the Peru-China Friendship Foundation, organized a seminar on Xi's book, inviting four young Peruvian intellectuals to exchange their interpretations of the ideas presented in the book.

Just as Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has many admirers in China, China's Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan has his fans in Peru. At the fair, they had the opportunity to discuss his works of "hallucinatory realism," as the Swedish Academy described them.

Peruvian-born China expert and translator Guillermo Danino, who began to study Chinese at the age of 50, has published more than 20 books on the Asian country, including the "Encyclopedia of Chinese Culture," which was available at the fair.

Danino, now 85, has lived in China for some 30 years.

The tome can serve as a cultural bridge between China and Latin America, he said, adding that he hoped "all Spanish-speaking readers can get to know Chinese culture through this encyclopedia.

"I consider it the most important work I have done, in a sense that it contains great wealth, which is not mine, but from Chinese culture," Danino said.

In a garden next to the fair venue, fair-goers even got a chance to learn Chen-style Tai Chi from martial art expert Juan Vasquez, director of the Latin American Association of Chen-style Tai Chi.

Vasquez, 60, is the only person in Peru who has studied under the great Chinese master Chen Zhenglei.

Vasquez said the martial art is increasingly popular in Latin America, but it is often practiced incorrectly, which was why he was keen on promoting the "authentic" form at the fair.

All these activities turned this year's fair into a unique experience that brings distant China closer to Latin America.