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While speaking of his bond with Chinese culture, 69-year-old British translator David Ferguson hummed a passage from the Peking Opera classic Dingjun Mountain, recalling how Chinese art has profoundly transformed his life.

Ferguson, the honorary chief English editor of China's Foreign Languages Press, has lived and worked in China for nearly two decades. Over the years, his engagement with Chinese culture has deepened both professionally and personally -- his son, who came to China with him as a toddler, has studied Peking Opera for many years and can now perform a range of opera pieces.

He said he is proud of what his son has achieved, noting that his son's experiences have strengthened his belief that cultural exchange is his life's mission.

Ferguson was a recipient of the inaugural Orchid Awards in 2023. The awards were established to honor international friends who have contributed to fostering cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world.

From July 11 to 14, Ferguson joined dozens of global scholars, cultural experts and awardees of this year's Orchid Awards on a visit to Harbin, the capital city of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province famous for its unique music and cultural offerings.

To Ferguson, meaningful dialogue between civilizations often takes place not on grand stages, but during ordinary encounters -- much like his bond with Peking Opera. "We tend to associate cultural exchange first with fine arts, but ordinary people are in fact the protagonists of most cultural interactions," he said.

He recalled a visit years ago to rural areas in northwest China's Gansu Province to learn about local poverty alleviation efforts. In a village inhabited by the Dongxiang ethnic group, children welcomed him in a modest classroom by performing "Auld Lang Syne" -- a memory that remains vivid to this day.

"As a Scotsman, hearing the melody of my homeland in a Chinese village thousands of miles away brought tears to my eyes. It was the most precious gift I've received in China," he said, noting that such moments of cultural exchange are more important than ever in a world troubled by conflicts and tensions.

For German medical scientist Thomas Rabe, who also participated in the Harbin tour, cultural exchange has been consolidating his family's long-standing friendship with China and will continue to contribute to international peace and friendship.

Rabe is the chairman of the John Rabe Communication Center, which is dedicated to commemorating his grandfather John Rabe for his role in protecting civilians during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, an atrocity committed during Japan's war of aggression against China.

Over the years, Thomas Rabe has dedicated himself to compiling over 20 volumes of wartime diaries written by his grandfather. He has donated thousands of pages of the original manuscripts to Chinese authorities and UNESCO. These diaries have become invaluable historical resources for research on the Nanjing Massacre.

Rabe also shared with Xinhua how a China-German medical cooperation project he helped launch at Capital Medical University in Beijing enabled a Chinese cancer patient to give birth to two healthy children.

For his contributions to cultural and scientific exchanges, Rabe was awarded the Friendship Envoy Award at the second Orchid Awards earlier this month.

"For my family, China has been, is, and will always remain our second homeland," he said.

Guo Weimin, president of the China Public Relations Association and deputy chair of this year's Orchid Awards expert committee, emphasized that cultural exchange is a vital force for connecting civilizations and advancing the development of human society.

"Visionary individuals from around the world, including the Orchid Awards honorees and nominees, have made outstanding contributions to international cultural dialogue and mutual learning among civilizations," Guo said. "Their efforts inspire confidence in our shared pursuit of peace and common development."