Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporters Li Hua, Hei Hongwei, Liu Xiang) news: The drizzling autumn rain brings a hint of coolness to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. However, the Central Asia Overseas Chinese Friendly Association, located at 19 Moscow Street, Bishkek, is filled with warmth. On September 20, 2023, the reporting team of "Road of Prosperity – Belt and Road Reporting Project" organized by the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, visited this place, which is referred to as a small “home” by local overseas Chinese.

This two-story building, which looks somewhat old from the outside, is very cozy inside. On the desk of Hu Yumei, president of the Friendly Association, there are a stack of invitations and a notebook.

"The Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday are approaching, and now I want to invite members to spend the festival together. As we are away from our homeland, I hope to bring warmth to overseas Chinese," said Hu Yumei.

Photo taken on September 20, 2023 shows Hu Yumei records the invitations, and plans to invite local overseas Chinese to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. (Photo by Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily/ Hei Hongwei)

At the office building of the association, a photo wall caught the reporters' attention. Hu Yumei listed the unforgettable moments that had occurred in the association's nearly 20 years of development, and her thoughts drifted back to the past. "This is how we celebrated the Chinese New Year together," "This is the first Chinese primary school we built," "This is a Qipao (a traditional Chinese dress for women) show," "And this is the first Chinese newspaper we published."

In 1999, Hu Yumei came to Bishkek from Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and worked as a professional manager in an enterprise. During her work, she met some overseas Chinese.

She found that overseas Chinese living abroad are facing various difficulties due to the different languages, customs, cultures, and ideas. Some overseas Chinese would be even more homesick as time goes by. Therefore, she had the idea of establishing a friendly association to provide a "harbor" for overseas Chinese.

In 2006, Hu Yumei officially registered the Central Asia Overseas Chinese Friendly Association in Kyrgyzstan.

"As soon as the association was established, many overseas Chinese came to us to solve some work and life problems," said Hu Yumei. The association also holds three or four large-scale social events each year to bring together overseas Chinese.

In 2012, Shi Yulin, the general manager of Urumqi Junchi Tianyu Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd., ventured into Central Asia to export high-quality machinery equipment produced domestically to Kyrgyzstan. After ten years of hard work, the company has firmly established itself in the Central Asian region, and found a sense of "belonging" in this foreign land.

"After joining the association, I felt like I had a 'family', and I didn't have to work alone anymore," he said. Whenever there were difficulties in daily life, everyone would help each other, and the development of the enterprise became more resilient.

During major festivals such as the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and National Day, the association would hold cultural exchange activities to stimulate overseas Chinese's patriotic feelings. It also carries out a series of public welfare activities, donating money and goods for the elderly and children in Kyrgyzstan's nursing homes and orphanages. This makes Shi Yulin feel the meaning and responsibility beyond "striving" and "making money."

"A series of social activities have built a positive image of Chinese enterprises in Kyrgyzstan," he said.

After the association was established, Hu Yumei found that local overseas Chinese had a great demand for information about their home country. In order to keep everyone informed about domestic conditions and ease their homesickness, Hu Yumei returned to Xinjiang and contacted a newspaper to create the first Chinese newspaper in the five Central Asian countries called “Central Asia Overseas Chinese Newspaper”, which serves as a bridge of friendship for people to communicate and exchange between China and Kyrgyzstan.

Hu Yumei said that the newspaper has created a platform for cooperation on the new Silk Road to better make China's voice heard, with three versions in Chinese, Russian, and Kyrgyz language.

In order to fulfill the long-cherished wish of the descendants of overseas Chinese to learn Chinese, Hu Yumei, through various efforts, self-raised some funds and established the first Chinese language education center for children of overseas Chinese in Kyrgyzstan.

Photo shows Hu Yumei and girls form Kyrgyzstan. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

"Not only the children of overseas Chinese, but also more and more people in Kyrgyzstan are willing to learn Chinese. Once the language is understood, cultural communication becomes smoother and the empathy between peoples is enhanced," Hu Yumei said. "In the past ten years since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed, the relationship between China and Kyrgyzstan has developed well, and bilateral trade has been closely linked. Many Chinese enterprises have entered Kyrgyzstan for investment and development, and university graduates proficient in Chinese have become popular in recruitment for Chinese-funded or Sino-Kyrgyz joint ventures."

Over the years, Chinese enterprises have participated in numerous investment and construction projects in Kyrgyzstan, providing substantial assistance to the Kyrgyz side in infrastructure development, including the construction of roads and hospitals.

When riding in a taxi on the China-aided road, Hu Yumei felt proud when the driver said, "China has built such a good road for us."

"As our motherland becomes stronger and stronger, it provides us with a strong backup," Hu Yumei said. "In the past 10 years, many countries, including Kyrgyzstan, have gained new understandings of China. Overseas Chinese businesses in Kyrgyzstan also actively participate in many projects to help local economic development and deepen the local people's understanding and knowledge of China."

"Our association will extensively unite and contact overseas Chinese and returned overseas Chinese, working together to realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Hu Yumei said. For the future, she expressed her confidence and said that she would continue to play the role of the Friendly Association, fully promote in-depth development of friendly cooperation between China and Kyrgyzstan, tell Chinese stories well, tell stories of overseas Chinese well, and tell stories of friendly exchanges between China and Kyrgyzstan well.

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