Films, TV dramas enter China's state gift list

Several contemporary Chinese films and TV dramas were sent as China's gift to Argentina during Chinese President Xi Jinping's latest trip to the South American country, in return for a No. 10 shirt of Argentina's national football team. The shirt, which Diego Maradona once wore, is now associated with Lionel Messi.

The Argentinean news agency Télam called the gifts a "highlight" because the selections of gifts by the two countries are moving with the times.

Chinese people tend to be careful in selecting gifts, a habit in line with Chinese culture. For a long time in the past, the Chinese government chose silk and porcelain as state gifts, in order to showcase China's traditional culture. However, these gifts have gradually been replaced by items that represent China's development.

Xi Jinping's package to Argentina included disks of the TV dramas "Bejing Youth," "To Elderly With Love," and "Love is Not Blind," in Chinese, with subtitles in Chinese, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

In presenting these Chinese TV dramas to Argentina, China hopes that the international community, especially the general public in other countries, can find out more about China.

As Xi said during his last trip to Europe, introducing China to the world is a huge undertaking, because the rest of the world still tends to regard China as a "mysterious" and "conservative" place.

But films and TV dramas are an opportunity to show more people in other countries the lives of average Chinese people, which would change their stereotypes about China.