Brian Linden attends a meeting with readers at a bookstore in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. [Photo/Jiangsu International Online]

Brian Linden, who is from Chicago, the United States and has lived in China for 38 years, was invited to the Librairie Avant-Garde in Nanjing on March 2 to talk about his new book One Village at a Time with readers.

Dedicated to telling China's stories to the Western world, Linden wrote about his experiences in China over the past three decades in the new book.

"Nanjing is my second home in China," said Linden at the event. He enrolled in the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in 1987 and met his life partner there.

The plane trees on Zhongshan Road, which he describes as "having a very unique charm", are what impressed him the most in Nanjing, said Linden.

Linden travelled to Yan'an, Shaanxi province in 1987. [Photo/Jiangsu International Online]

Linden received a scholarship offered by the Chinese government to study at the Beijing Language and Culture University in 1984. The second day he arrived in Beijing, Linden was invited by a casting director to star in a movie, and this was how CBS found him and offered him a job as a photojournalist.

"Studying in China is the best present I have ever received," said Linden. "Staying here and showcasing the real China to the West is how I express gratitude to the country."

In 2008, Linden opened the Linden Centre in Xizhoutown, Dali, Southwest China's Yunnan province.

"It's more of a center than a hotel. It's a place where different cultures interact and blend," said Linden. "I built the place outside big cities because I want to push foreigners to learn more about China's rural culture. Besides a modern and rapidly developing China, the long-standing civilization with centuries of history is also worth studying."

Linden and his wife had spent much time and money renovating the center, which was the former residence of Yang Pinxiang, a renowned local merchant. He once invited a US senior high school to conduct its four-month-long international courses at the center to raise the Western world's awareness of Yunnan.