Philippine Ambassador to Beijing Jaime Florcruz over the weekend welcomed 23 Chinese students at the embassy there to explore Philippine culture, art, and tradition as part of the celebration of the jubilee year in the Philippines-China relations.

Philippine Ambassador Jaime Florcruz and Wu Yun Art School students (Photo from the Philippine Embassy in China via Facebook)

The program “Ni Hao Philippines” is a cultural outreach program that aims to fill the cultural gaps in the two countries’ relations.

The students, aged six to 13, were from the Wu Yun Art School, which trains them in painting, sculpture, music, and dance.

As they came with their canvases and easels, the embassy noted how the art students were “geared to paint something about the Philippines.”

“For Filipinos, arts have been a powerful tool to tell our stories, our identities and our aspirations,” Florcruz said, speaking in Mandarin.

He added that, “It (Art) is an important part of Philippine life and culture.”

The ambassador shared with the students how Philippine art “is influenced by the myriad images of the Filipino people’s lifestyle and nature—the azure skies, green forests, fruits and flowers, the blue waters and white sand, the birds and fishes.”

He also showed samples of the colorful jeepney, banig and balangay, as well as the barong Tagalog shirts.

The envoy then gamely answered questions from the students, while the embassy treated the students to famous Filipino snacks, such as the palabok and buko (coconut) pie, though the ambassador told them he thinks the best Filipino foods are the lechon and grilled seafood.

Curious about the Philippine art scene, the students asked him about the most common painting style in the country, to which Florcruz replied, “a wide range, classical and modern.”

They were also curious about the weather in the Philippines and whether the country experiences winter, but the envoy told them it is mostly “warm weather” in the country with a dry and wet season.

When asked about his job as a diplomat and what he thinks makes a good one, the ambassador said a diplomat should be “curious, loves to meet people and travel places, good at communication and analysis; genuine not fake or pretender.”

By the end of the program, one of the students proclaimed interest in visiting the Philippines.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China.

“The embassy plans to host more people-to-people engagements like this one as part of the celebration of 50 years of Philippine-Chinese relations,” it said.