"I feel it's my mission to pass on the Chinese culture and I insisted," he says.

Soon he found out that because of the lack of employees with Chinese proficiency, he, then in his 70s, had to pick up the thousands of titles all by himself on computer every time the bookstores made orders.

"And I had to write brief introductions on new titles myself," he adds. "I'm really short of energy as I'm reaching my 80s."

Even though he had to subsidize the bookstores with his own money every month during hard times, he managed to make them survive and published the comic-strip books of the four Chinese ancient classics in Indonesian, as well as many Chinese-language learning textbooks.

Now the books are sold in 150 bookstores in his country. And the Indonesian people can enjoy reading his childhood favorites.

"As Suryawan himself has become a cultural bridge, his bookstores have also become a cultural icon in Indonesia," the Special Book Award committee commented on his achievements.

Suryawan says there are about 20 million Chinese Indonesians.

"Now they're making the effort to catch up on learning their mother language. And the trend is on the rise," he says.

Also winning a 2013 Special Book Award were American scholar Ezra Vogel, Italian Sinologist Lionello Lanciotti, Argentinean writer Jorge E. Malena, Egyptian translator Mohsen Fergani and Swedish translator Anna Gustafsson Chen.

Since the first award in 2005, a total of 33 foreign translators, writers and publishers from 14 countries have been honored for their contribution in promoting Chinese culture to the world.

The 83-year-old Vogel, whose work Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China is a recent bestseller in China, says: "I have been studying China for half a century ... I wrote in English for an American audience. It is a special honor to know that Chinese friends feel that my book has also contributed to the Chinese people's understanding of Deng and his era."