The Chinese people have always admired the enterprising and creative spirit of the American people. As a young man, I read books such as The Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and I loved to learn about the lives and ideas of American politicians such as Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and I also read the works of Thoreau, Whitman, Mark Twain, Jack London, and others. I was impressed by Hemingway's depictions of winds and rainstorms, waves and boats, old men and sharks. The first time I went to Cuba, I made a special trip to the pier where Hemingway wrote "The Old Man and the Sea". The second time I went to Cuba, I went to a bar that Hemingway frequented and ordered Hemingway's favorite rum with mint leaves and ice. I wanted to experience the spiritual world and the atmosphere of the field when Hemingway wrote those stories. I think we need to have a deeper understanding of different cultures and civilizations.

-- "Speech at the Washington State Government and U.S. Friendship Group Joint Welcome Banquet" (September 22, 2015)

Further reading:

Born in 1899, Hemingway, known as the "tough guy in the literary world", is a famous American writer and is known as the spiritual monument of the American nation. After the outbreak of World War I, he went to the battlefields of Italy as a Red Cross driver. There, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant and three medals, and also left 237 scars and nightmarish memories. After his recovery, Hemingway worked as a journalist in Paris and wrote novels at the same time. In 1926, Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises, was published, which truly showed the great physical and psychological damage that war caused to the younger generation. Hemingway and some of the writers he represented were thus called the "lost generation."

The novella The Old Man and the Sea, published in 1952, is one of Hemingway's most famous and influential works. It tells the story of an old fisherman named Santiago who fights huge marlins and schools of sharks in the middle of the sea, and celebrates the indestructible spiritual strength of human beings in the face of hardship. "A man is not born to be defeated, you can destroy him, but you can't defeat him." This often quoted quote comes from "The Old Man and the Sea". In the course of 62 years of life, he also wrote many immortal masterpieces such as "Farewell, Arms", "The Snow of Kilimanjaro", "Crossing the River into the Forest" and many other immortal masterpieces. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

More than 1/3 of Hemingway's life was spent in Havana, Cuba. He once described: "I love the country and feel like at home. A place that makes people feel like home, in addition to the hometown where they were born, is the place where destiny belongs. And here, there is a "street bistro", the most famous of which is a cocktail made with Cuban rum with mint leaves and lemon, called "Moxito", which was also Hemingway's favorite.

Like Hemingway, The Federalist Papers embodies a strong American spirit. In May 1787, at the invitation of the Confederate Congress, Philadelphia held a national convention under the chairmanship of George Washington. The convention rejected the old Articles of Confederation and recreated a new constitution to replace them. The new constitution generated two diametrically opposed opinions in the states of the United States: one for support and one against. Thus there was one of the most heated polemics in American history. The Federalist Papers are the result of this controversy. It is a collection of essays by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison who published in the New York press under the pseudonym "Publius" in their quest for the ratification of the new Constitution.

Thomas Paine is considered one of the founding fathers of the United States, and the name of the United States of America is also derived from Paine. During the American Revolution, he wrote the widely circulated "Common Sense" pamphlet to encourage the North American people to fight for independence and establish a republican form of government.

"The things are not even, and the feelings of the things are also." Every culture has its value. Xi Jinping's detailed list of American classics he has read and his personal experience of visiting Hemingway's bar is precisely to express that civilization is colorful, equal and inclusive, and that "we need to have a deep understanding of different cultures and civilizations."

In this speech, Xi Jinping not only talked about the majestic Mount Rainier and the sparkling Lake Washington, but also mentioned the influence of the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" on the Chinese people. This classic film about loving and being loved shaped the first impression Chinese audiences have of Seattle: the city of romance. To this day, the phrase on the movie poster is still often mentioned: "If the person you have never met, never met, or known is the only person who belongs to you, then what will happen to you?" This is Seattle, and it believes in the adventures between people and people. Xi Jinping took this as an example to illustrate a truth, "Promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations can enrich the color of human civilization, allow people of all countries to enjoy a more meaningful spiritual life, and create a more selective future."