A Spanish envoy's lifelong journey in China

Inma Gonzalez Puy of Barcelona has for decades been living in China and fostering connections between Spain and China. Therefore, it is with some conviction that the director of the Cervantes Institute in Beijing says, "Cultures are one of the most powerful tools for connecting different societies."

The Barcelona native's connection with China began not with a plane ticket but with a book. In her teenage years, she stumbled upon Spanish translations of works by Pearl S. Buck and Lin Yutang — writers who painted vivid images of a country she had never seen.

"In the 1970s Spain, books about China were scarce. Yet those few volumes sparked a deep curiosity about a distant and mysterious land. In a way, they were what set me on this journey to China," she recalls.

That journey became reality in 1979, when Beijing began recruiting international students from Spain for the first time. Gonzalez Puy, then a university student, seized the opportunity and applied to study at the Beijing Language Institute — now Beijing Language and Culture University.

"Those readings opened the first imaginary door to China for me," she says. "Later, when I arrived in 1979, I discovered a reality far more complex and captivating than any literary depiction."

Her studies cemented her resolve to live in China. In 1983, Gonzalez Puy returned to work at the Spanish embassy in Beijing, where she would spend 20 years — first as a translator, then as cultural attache. "Those were pivotal years for the consolidation of bilateral ties, and my professional career unfolded almost in lockstep with contemporary China's transformation," she says.

"Those years convinced me that culture is not merely a supplementary element of diplomacy, but one of its most profound instruments. An exhibition, a book or a film can open pathways of understanding that endure for generations."

Throughout her career, Gonzalez Puy has championed this belief through tangible projects. In 1995, she curated a groundbreaking exhibition of Chinese avant-garde art in Barcelona, introducing more than 30 Chinese contemporary artists to a European audience.