A French Chinese or a Chinese Frenchman?

After more than 200 trips to China since 1973, Joel Bellassen speaks Mandarin fluently and has visited 24 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Fascination with Sino culture started more than four decades ago.

A pair of worn black shoes has accompanied Joel Bellassen all over the world.

Sitting at the window in the hostel at the Beijing International Studies University, the 64-year-old Frenchman says he doesn't recognize where he is, although he has been to 24 provinces and autonomous regions of China more than 200 times and speaks Mandarin like one born in China. "It's easy to find skyscrapers in almost any large city in this country," he says, "but it's hard to distinguish one from another."

Bellassan is general inspector of Chinese language at France's Ministry of National Education. He traveled to Beijing this time with an academic tour and to give a speech on "Current difficulties of teaching Chinese as a foreign language".

His bag always contains the Xinhua Dictionary and a Contemporary Chinese Dictionary. His favorite Chinese story is "Kong Yiji", written by Lu Xun.

"I love the ending of the story: Kong Yiji may have been dead," Bellassen says. He is obsessed by this kind of uncertainty.

Bellassen has been fascinated by the Chinese for 45 years. In 1969, he chose Chinese as his major at the Universit Paris 8. "I was interested in Chinese ideographs and had a burning curiosity about this remote, mysterious, eastern country."

In 1973 the two countries restored the cultural exchange programs which had been halted by China's "cultural revolution". This gave him a chance and he started his first China journey with other 29 college students.

"It was like going to the moon," Bellassen recalls. "My grandmother tried to persuade me to stay at Paris because China was comparatively underdeveloped."

"But I did not change my decision," he says. "Who would give up an opportunity to go to the moon just because of the harsh conditions?"