As trade and bilateral cooperation expand between China and Japan, the number of Japanese people living in China is also on the rise. We met 42-year-old Keijiro Sugiyama in Beijing. 

Keijiro Sugiyama is the chief executive officer of a Japanese consulting firm, and he tried to hold his first meeting in Chinese.

Sugiyama started learning Chinese when he came to work in Beijing in 2017. According to his teacher, he is a very hard-working student. His bond with the language was first forged 20 years ago. 

"It was in 1998. I was 20. I came to China for the first time. I took a train in Guangzhou, went to the west to Nanning, and then to Vietnam. I didn't know the language at all. But as Chinese and Japanese languages share a lot of similar characters and words... I wrote down what I wanted to say on a paper along the way... and I made it to Vietnam," said Sugiyama.

Sugiyama said language carries the culture of a country. Getting to know the culture is a must for those doing business in any country. To better understand the culture, Sugiyama also likes to travel whenever he's available. During his two years' life in China, he has traveled to as many as eleven cities. His dream is to leave his footprints on each province of China.

His next stop is Chengdu and Chongqing. He said he wanted to see the giant pandas. In his free time, Sugiyama often hangs out with friends and meets up with the local Chinese people. 

Sugiyama is just one of the thousands of Japanese people who are living in Beijing. But as an individual, there is still something that Sugiyama wants to show to the Chinese people, the smile of the Japanese people.