Bianu was in Beijing with other French poets, as part of an exchange with Chinese poets, translators and researchers. Organized by the Peking University Poetry Research Center and sponsored by Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, the 30 poets also toured Huangshan Mountain in Anhui province and Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Jacques Darras, a celebrated poet and translator, says the mutual exchanges are going so well that he wishes "every day could be spent like this".

The 75-year-old has written poems saluting Chinese culture and Chinese poets. Three years ago, in Paris, he met Huang Nubo, a Chinese poet and also a successful businessman.

"Under the slight influence of the wine, they asked me to rebuild the Perse pavilion, the token of the two countries' friendship, as it was in the old photo taken by Perse. And I said: 'OK, I'll try'," Huang says.

He met with local residents and experts. The original pavilion was found and reconstruction work began.

The reconstruction is also a gift for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-French diplomatic relations, Huang adds.

Xu Shuang, a professor from Paris Diderot University, believes the exchange will boost translation of mainstream contemporary poets from both countries.

"Chinese poets benefit a lot from French poetry. But many good poets are also good translators of foreign poems," says Wang Jiaxin, a poet-on-campus at Renmin University of China.

"Now maybe the time for Chinese poets to return something to world poetry," Wang says.