A talk entitled “My China Journey In 30 Objects” took place yesterday at the University of Saint Joseph’s (USJ) Ilha Verde Campus, with the event being part of the celebrations commemorating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China.
The around one-hour long packed event featured Jaime Adriano FlorCruz*, ambassador of the Philippines to China, who, according to yesterday’s introduction, has lived in China for over 50 years and was a foreign correspondent who covered China for over four decades.
FlorCruz started off his career in China as a reporter for Newsweek magazine. He went on to join Time magazine’s Beijing bureau in 1982 and was bureau chief from 1990 to 2000. He later joined CNN as correspondent and bureau chief from 2001 to 2014, according to the event introduction.
FlorCruz spoke about his life and experiences alongside China’s development over the past 50 years, while also presenting representative objects that he collected over that period.
“I’ve kept them because I feel like they’re not just objects. They’re stories. Around these objects are actually people, stories of people, places, incidents”, FlorCruz remarked.
FlorCruz said that he arrived in China on August 21, 1971 with a group of 14 other Filipino youth leaders for a study tour. It was a time when, due to the political situation back home, it was not possible to enter mainland China, though they had found a way. However, the situation had changed abruptly in the Philippines and what was meant to be a three-week stay became indefinite.
Choosing to learn more, FlorCruz went on to detail his time in China, from days working on a farm and a fishing boat, his time at Peking University, to some of the memorable stories he had witnessed and covered as a journalist. He noted that it was also his time on the farm and on the fishing boat that he started learning Putonghua, later enrolling in Beijing Language and Culture University (then the “Beijing Language Institute”) where he spent two years intensively learning the language.
Yesterday’s attendees were not only able to learn more about FlorCruz, but how much China has changed, offering an account of what China was like back then to what it is today.
*FlorCruz was also the first non-American journalist chosen for the Edward R. Morrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and, among other roles, was a professor at Peking University’s School of Journalism and Communication. – Source: event introduction
His full title is His Excellency Jaime Adriano FlorCruz, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Philippines to the People’s Republic of China
Jaime Adriano FlorCruz, ambassador of the Philippines to China, delivers his talk “My China Journey In 30 Objects” at the University of Saint Joseph’s (USJ) Ilha Verde Campus. – Photo: Rui Pastorin
