“You can’t learn China in a week or a month”, when asking about why the people in the US gets wrong about China, Stephon Marbury, ex NBA player and All-star who has lived in China since 2011, shared his thoughts with GDToday. “I think people need to come to China, experience China more, to be able to understand China so that they can immerse themselves into the culture”.

How to better understand China? Starting from December 1, global thinkers including representatives from political, academic, and business circles to carry out profound discussions in Guangzhou, in a bid to enhance mutual understanding between China and the rest of the world.

Chen Jin, member of Chinese National People's Congress Foreign Affairs Committee and former Council Member of the CPC Central Committee Party History and Documentation Research Institute, pointed out that the Chinese mode is different from the western mode. “China's modernization is to ensure the population of 1.4 billion crosses the threshold of modernity. China’s goal of social development is to achieve common prosperity. And China’s development path at the global stage is peaceful”. Chen stressed that the path for China’s development is to change itself rather than change others.

Although Chen Jin and Stephon Marbury met reporters at different times, they might have some common ideas.

According to Marbury, the great understanding gap between China and the US may come from the way how people live in two different places. He said that when he came to China, somebody at home just told him be careful because in China the cops always carry the guns. “Why did they tell me to be careful? I’m a Black man in a black neighborhood. A white cop comes into a black neighborhood. But when I'm in China, I don't have that same type of fear”. He added that “Sometimes that's hard for people to be able to come together to have the understand, but not all places are like that in America.”

The cover page of Stephon Marbury’s Weibo

Since last year, the outbreak of COVID-19, Marbury has changed the cover page of his Weibo (Chinese Twitter-like social media) to a photo of Chinese top medical expert Dr. Zhong Nanshan.

“I was watching a lot of broadcasts that he was doing. He was speaking English. He talked to everyone on the planet, not just the Chinese people to get insights about what he felt we needed to do in order to combat this virus”, said Marbury. He felt it would be incredible to meet him and to know what he thinks every day and how he’s taking the steps to try to figure out how to continue to help others.

Now, China has become a place Marbury calls home. “As my mom said, I never went to a place and felt so at peace and was treated so nice and hospitable as I was in China”, he said.

Reported by Keane, Jasmine

Edited by Jerry

Poster designed by Mia