Portrait of the writer Hu Lanbo

The chinese writer Hu Lanbo

Rome [ENA] Chinese businessperson, journalist and writer, Hu Lanbo was born in Manchuria and moved to Europe in the 80s. Today she lives in Rome where she also created the bilingual magazine "China in Italy" (Cina in Italia). A weekly magazine with a clear-cut goal: to make China known to all those Chinese born in Italy who do not speak Chinese anymore and to function as a bridge to improve integration and relationships between

The writer Hu Lanbo with the journalist Carlo Marino of ENA

communities willing to live and work in harmony. This publication, initiated in 2001, is also intended to promote integration between Chinese and Italians and wants to talk to second-generation Chinese who desire to maintain contacts with their country of origin and to Italians curious about a country as far away as China. But many Chinese who come to work in Italy even today, come from exclusively agricultural areas of China and live, even now, in societies with very ancient rules, because they are far from the large inhabited centers and isolated because of the geographical conformation of the territory.

Book by Hu Lanbo

It is difficult for these people to enter into such a different world. So usually they end up by not even trying to get in touch with the new Italian reality. And this - Lanbo emphasizes - is not good either for them or for the Italians. Hu Lanbo studied in Paris for a doctorate in French literature. She is the first Chinese writer to tell her story of emigrant and that of her community. Given the poor interaction that Chinese and Italians have had up to the present day, it becomes essential for the author to explain to Italians some fundamental features of her culture through the experience and thought of a Chinese woman who has lived among them for years.

Hu Lanbo's Book

For the writer, the first encounter with the reality of a European society that was so different from that of her country of origin was difficult. And this even though Hu Lanbo had attended in Beijing, as she wrote in her book, a university for foreigners and knew, even before his arrival, the essential features of the culture of the European continent, particularly the French culture. In her latest book, "The sun of eight in the morning", Hu Lanbo tells the story of a young Chinese girl who lives the years of the cultural revolution and of the Great Leap Forward.