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Author relishes China story
2021-11-30 
Pablo Rovetta in Beihai Park in Beijing.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Speaking authentic Chinese with a Beijing accent, Uruguayan writer Pablo Rovetta likes his Chinese friends to call him Lao Luo meaning "old Luo", a traditional Chinese address for seniors or longtime friends.

"When I came to China with my parents in 1975, I was only 17. And now, I have gone from a young Uruguayan boy to 'Lao Luo', and China has become my second home," Rovetta says.

For most Uruguayans, China is a distant and mysterious country. But for Rovetta, he has learned a lot about Chinese culture since childhood, as his father Vicente Rovetta opened a bookstore in Uruguay in the early 1950s, introducing books on China in Uruguay and Latin America. Vicente Rovetta visited China twice in 1966 and 1967.

Coming to China in 1975, Pablo Rovetta studied for seven years at Beijing Language and Culture University and Tsinghua University. He soon fell in love with the country, getting on well with his Chinese classmates and making many friends.

Over the past 40 years of China's reform and opening-up, Rovetta has witnessed the fast development of China, rising from a poor country to the world's second-largest economy.

"Back in the 1970s, there was rationing for food and clothing. The main concern for most Chinese families was how to get enough to eat every day, and the only real holiday of the year in China was Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year. If you had a watch, a radio and a bicycle, perhaps with a sewing machine or a small black and white television, you must be the richest and would be the envy of the neighborhood at that time," says Pablo Rovetta. "Now, there are tremendous changes in my Chinese friends' attitudes toward lifestyles, consumption and so on."

Pablo Rovetta (right, back) with other Latin American students at the graduation party of the Beijing Language and Culture Institute in 1977.[Photo provided to China Daily]

In his view, it is an arduous achievement that China, with 1.4 billion people, had realized the goal of eradicating extreme poverty in 2020, 10 years ahead of the UN's sustainable development deadline. China's victory over poverty should be a historic development in the 21st century, not only for China, but also for the world.

He says the most important factor is the leadership of the Chinese government and its leaders by taking a series of effective and long-term policies and measures. "Fighting against poverty is a long-term task with a clear vision. The Communist Party of China has proved itself capable of leading the Chinese people to live a better life."

Fighting against poverty and inequality is also crucial to Latin American countries although they couldn't easily copy China's experiences, and there is a lot for Latin America to learn from China, he says.

After graduating from Tsinghua University, Pablo Rovetta worked at the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, the Spanish news agency EFE and Spain's commercial office in China, allowing him to have more opportunities to observe China from different angles.

"Interestingly, my son always asked me when he was young, 'Dad, some of my classmates' parents are teachers, some are doctors, but when people ask me what your father does for a living, I don't know what to say'," he says. "Up to now, I couldn't answer my son, as I have always had a second job, writing articles about China for newspapers and magazines in Spanish. I like to be a sort of cultural exchange envoy, to build the bridge between China and Spanish-speaking countries."

During the past years, he kept writing no matter how busy he was. He has translated many works of Chinese literature and has written a book about his life in China in the 1970s. He also launched a personal website to publish his original articles in Spanish about Chinese history, culture and other fields.

Rovetta (left) with the former president of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch (center) and the former Spanish ambassador to China Eugenio Bregolat in Beijing in 2003.[Photo provided to China Daily]

After reading the book Stories Told by President Xi Jinping earlier in 2017, which includes 109 stories that Xi told in speeches and articles, Pablo Rovetta wrote three articles for his website, saying that "the book is very helpful for me to understand Chinese President Xi Jinping. I learned some of his personal life experiences, as well as his conviction to eradicate absolute poverty and realize the Chinese dream, alongside with his views and thoughts on many big issues".

Pablo Revetta was awarded the National Achievement Medal of the Kingdom of Spain in 2016 for his contributions to promoting cultural exchanges between China and Spanish-speaking countries.

According to him, China has so many cultures of its own and a history of 5,000 years. Some people have misunderstandings and stereotypes about China as they know little about the country. Even now, some foreign media have no idea that the Chinese people put their surnames first.

With the fast development of China, he says the world is increasingly paying attention to China, and the relationship between China and the rest of the world is undergoing profound changes. "The West often lacks some basic understanding about China. It is important for the country to improve its ability of telling stories about China to the world, not simply translating some materials into different languages, but making use of thousands of years of Chinese culture to tell the Chinese stories."

At present, he is writing his next book about China, focusing on the dramatic changes and fast development of Chinese society since the 1980s. He says he hopes the book will help more international readers understand how Chinese people realized their Chinese dream by working hard in the past four decades.

The close ties of his family with China across two generations has lasted over half a century, which has greatly promoted cultural exchanges between China and Latin America. He says he will continue to write stories about China in Spanish.

Rovetta (fourth right, last row) in a graduation photo with his classmates from Tsinghua University in 1982.[Photo provided to China Daily]

 

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