I work as sales promoter of a special product -- Yantai City along China's east coast. My job is to connect Yantai with the outside world, and to initiate and cultivate cooperative working relationships. Every week I receive two or three foreign delegations and show them around Yantai, answering their questions, and making suggestions as to possible investment and cooperative partnerships. I also liaise with various European chambers of commerce, and business connections from my previous work. My Chinese colleagues and I have successfully initiated several investment projects and business ventures that will further Yantai's and China's development.

Before I came to Yantai, I worked as chief market inspector for a transnational company, a 40-year-long business career that led to my current position as senior consultant at the Yantai Investment Development Board (IDB). My committed, conscientious Chinese colleagues are a joy to work with, and I find their dedication to work and to China inspiring. Their European counterparts could learn a lot from them.

There are 100,000 or so college students in Yantai and more than 100 teachers from Britain and Canada. Most of the foreigners living here are investors from South Korea, Japan, Europe and America, and are doing so nicely that more and more foreign investors are being drawn to Yantai.

The Yantaishang Hospital was founded by French Jesuits in 1860. Today this 860-bed hospital is impressively equipped with advanced equipment and skilled management. It is still known locally as the French hospital. The dean once approached me and asked whether I could help set up a cooperative arrangement with a French hospital of a similar scale and level. I contacted the dean of the G. Pompidou Hospital in Paris, who was delighted at the prospect of an exchange with a Chinese hospital. This cooperative arrangement is now operating smoothly.

My wife and I love the life in Yantai. We naturally appreciate good food and fine wines, and agree that Chinese food is French cuisine's only equal. A particular favorite of ours is the superb Yantai seafood, and its abundant fruits and vegetables make healthy eating a gastronomic delight. For breakfast I eat crisp, sweet Yantai apples, and drink its refreshing mineral water throughout the day, sometimes in accompaniment to a glass or two of Yantai's deliciously claret-like Changyu wine.

Yantai's fresh air, clear blue sea, golden sanded beaches bounded by forested soaring mountains and green environment make it a magnificent resort, perfect for fishing, trekking, or just luxuriating in the sunny weather. It is definitely one of the best places in China!

We lead a life much the same as longstanding residents of Yantai. We travel by public bus, shop at the supermarket, go for walks along the beach, and trek through the mountains. I feel completely integrated into Chinese society, and at one with the Chinese culture, life style and way of thinking.

It is my privilege to be an honorary citizen of Yantai and winner of the Qilu Friendship Award.

There is a French proverb that the sailor who goes out on a long voyage never returns, because the sea changes him. I have been changed by China, and feel destined to spend the rest of my life here.

About the author

--Michel Humbert is an honorary citizen of Yantai City, and the senior consultant at the Yantai Investment Development Board.

(China Today Dec 10, 2003)