"Now they have a very good impression of China after paying several visits. If it were not for the COVID-19 pandemic, they would have come this year. My mother loves Chinese massage the most," he says.

"To change people's stereotypical view of another country, one of the best ways is to visit the country in person, to take a look and to experience the local customs and traditions. People often change their minds quickly when that is the case," he says.

Derksen started learning Chinese at high school about 15 years ago. Two years later, together with 65 other students and teachers, he paid his first visit to China.

"China was completely different from what I imagined," he recalls in a video. He remembers that when he saw a lamb-shashlik vendor in Beijing, he went to buy some. The vendor asked him where he came from, and after finding out that Derksen came from Germany, he named the German soccer players he knew.

"Although I could barely speak Chinese and he couldn't speak German, we had a quite smooth communication," he says.

After graduating from high school, Derksen started working at a bank and, unable to stand the boring work, he quit three years later and applied to university. The memory of learning Chinese and the visit to China came back to him, and he decided to study Chinese language and East Asian politics and economy.