Seeing is believing to truly understand China

My neighbor, Claire, is a friendly lady, likely in her late 70s, and a polyglot who can speak Dutch, English, French and German. We chatted from time to time and I was happy to offer her a helping hand, such as carrying her groceries up and garbage down the stairway when the building elevator was under repair for three months, and driving her to her relative to get the spare key when she locked the key inside one rainy evening.

Yet the daunting task was to explain China to her and her friends when she invited me for afternoon tea at her home. Claire asked if China is still like what it was in Herge's comic books The Adventures of Tintin.

Of course not. I have visited the Herge Museum in Louvain-la-Neuve, and I have his book The Blue Lotus on my bookshelf. It was about old China, a totally different China in the 1930s.