Vincent Hein and his Chinese wife, Ma Xiaomeng, with whom he says he has more in common than any French woman.

"If you feel a place is strange, the problem isn't the place. The problem is yourself," says Hein, who won the Prix Litteraire de l'Asie (French Asian Literary Prize) in 2013.

Hein first arrived in China 25 years ago, when he came to Beijing to study Chinese for a year as an exchange student from Paris-based Sorbonne University.

"I was worried that I would misbehave and shock people," he recalls, a train of thought that was the result of years of learning about the "mysterious" and unfathomable Chinese culture.

"We learned that Chinese (people) think in loops, which is completely different from us. We are supposed to be straight-forward," he says. "China should be all about dragons, opium and Zen spirit."

But he was nevertheless attracted to the country. He came to Beijing and tiptoed around the first few days until a Chinese teacher told him to relax.

"He said, 'if you're well-educated in France, you're well-educated in China'," Hein says. "And I realize that is correct. We do know how to understand and care for others despite the cultural differences. We are the same."

When Hein first started his post in China in 2004, his friends back in France were under the same erroneous impression - that China was beyond understanding.

So he started to take notes about his life and circulate them among his friends.

"My choice of the subjects are intentional," he says. The format of diary allows him to explore feelings and focus on descriptions instead of commentary. It is also a tribute to Nicolas Bouvier and those travel writers who "weren't trying to judge the land alien to them".

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