In recent years there has been an increasingly steady flow of Polish musicians, artists and composers to China, providing local audiences with a real taste of what the eastern European country has to offer.

And behind many of those visits is just one man, Maciej Gaca, the culture counselor of the Polish embassy in Beijing.

The 45-year old says he is dedicated to promoting cultural exchanges between the two countries.

"I have worked hard over the years to bring more people to China to study and work, and am very proud of having played my part in teaching them about the country, and showing them that many of the traditional stereotypes associated in the West with China are just not true."

Since 2010, he says more than 100 Chinese-Polish cultural and arts projects have been produced or co-produced each year.

Gaca sees his position as "a bridge" between the peoples of China and Poland.

"And from what I have seen, there is genuine interest in each other's culture, maybe more so than any other cultural relationship existing between two countries today," he says.

Of course, if you want to create a successful bridge, you have to experience the conditions on both sides, and Gaca has certainly done that.

At 18, he chose Chinese as his major at the Adam Mickiewicz University, one of Poland's major universities, based in his home city of Poznan in the west of the country.

That interest in China meant two spells studying at the historic Peking University in Beijing, which pretty much sealed his determination to help develop ties between the two countries.

Gaca's master's thesis was on Chinese character writing, and he then decided to specialize in one of China's minority languages, embarking on a PhD in the Naxi language called Dongba, one of the few languages which uses pictograms.

From 2001 to 2007, he acted as deputy director of the department of Sinology at Adam Mickiewicz University, and he then helped to establish Poland's second Confucius Institute, nonprofit public institutions that popularize Chinese language and culture, becoming its first director.

He says that understanding a country's culture and arts is by far the best way to get to know its people, its past and its future.

"Culture is a fantastic tool with which to facilitate communication, because messages can be passed and understood without the need to overcome language barriers," Gaca says.

He is convinced that strong cultural links between countries also influence progress in others areas too, such as business and economic cooperation.

"An appreciation and awareness of each other's culture goes such a long way to helping people from what can be very different nations to get on and in helping to cement stronger ties in many areas."

He says, he would like to see better promotion of China in Europe.

"It should be simpler and aimed at arousing the curiosity of the general public in Europe - that's where culture and the arts play such an important part."

Of course, Gaca's role is also to promote Polish culture in China on behalf of his government.

Over the coming months, two events will take place which Gaca says are among the most high-profile promotions of his country's history ever held in China.

There's a national Polish exhibition being planned in the National Museum of China in Beijing, which will showcase some of Poland's most historic pieces of art. It's only the fourth time such a major event has been held outside of the country.

Then some of its best-known modern artists are expected to hold a major showing at the National Art Museum, also in the Chinese capital.

Gaca adds that the best-known Polish figures in China are still arguably the composer Frederic Chopin, and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, the physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity.

"But there is real curiosity between the two countries towards each other, and I am determined to continue my mission of cementing even stronger ties between these two very rich cultural nations."

liulu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/06/2014 page5)