“Food is the quietest and most elegant ambassador a country can have,” Li Xueqing, our media ambassador from China Daily, said during the 2026 Belt and Road Journalists Forum.
Taking roast duck as an example, Li showed how the same dish can tell two very different stories about China. In Beijing, roast duck is carefully sliced, wrapped in pancakes and served at formal banquets. In Nanjing, people casually pick up chopped roast duck from neighborhood shops and take it home in plastic bags. One dish, two distinct ways of life.
Through this simple contrast, Li offered fellow journalists a fresh perspective on cross-cultural storytelling: starting with everyday experiences like food to uncover the culture, history and human stories behind them, and helping people from different countries better understand one another.
Source: “Home of Journalists” Facebook