President Xijinping pointed out that youth are encouraged to base themselves on China's realities, tell the story of Chinese civilization well and present a credible, lovely and respectable image of China to the world. On March 23 and 24, Du Peng, Vice President of Renmin University of China and Dean of the Silk Road School (SRS), led a group of teachers and students from SRS to Yiwu for a field trip. They visited Chen Wangdao’s Former Residence, Fotang Old Street, etc., showing the long history and cultural heritage of Chinese civilization to international students, and helping them to understand China, the Chinese people, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese nation.

Chen Wangdao, a famous modern ideologist, social activist, educator, linguist, and active promoter of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, translated the first full Chinese version of the Communist Manifesto. In the former residence of Chen Wangdao, students visited theexhibition of Chen Wangdao's life story,the firewood room where the Communist Manifesto was translated, and various versions of translation of the Communist Manifesto. They also watched an video where President Xi told the story of Chen Wangdaothat when he was translating the Communist Manifesto, he didn’t noticed that he was eating zongzi with ink rather than sauce and unconsciouslysaid it tasted sweet.Students nodded andrepeated in Chinese, “truth tastes sweet”.

Faith enables people strive. In front of the bronze statue of Chen Wangdao, students reminisce about the past and present and exclaim the power of truth. It is people with strong faith like Chen Wangdaowho have made the impossiblebecome possible in the past 100 years.

Legend has it that Dharma, the eminent monk of Tianzhu, once traveled to Yiwu and crossed the river here. People built the Dupan Temple to thank Dharma for his kindness, and namedthis place after Fotang, which means a Buddha Hall. The Fotang Old Street is more than two thousand meters in length, with many shops and dazzling commodities, where antique flavor has been reserved. In the middle of the street is the Xinhua Theater, built in 1954. Students gathered around Du Peng as he introduced the history of the theater and its cultural connotations.

In front of the "trade sugarfor chicken feathers" sculpture on the street, local staff told the students the story of the "sugar knocking gang", who shook their rattles from street to street in idle farming hours and exchanged homemade candy bars for chicken feathers for a small profit. This reflects the local people’spioneering spirit and open consciousness, which is the national spirit of China as well.

Dana, a student from Russia, said, "In the past, I was under the impression that Yiwu was just a bustling commercial city. After these two days, I found that the cultural heritage of Yiwu is beyond my imagination. There are developed business and trade, smart city governance, colorful life and many job opportunities here.I will share these stories to let more people know Yiwu.“

It is believed that with the implementation of "Silk Road Tour" series of field trip, international students will have more opportunities and broader platforms to understand the Chinese spirit, Chinese values and Chinese power.