Dang Cuiping, the mother of 8-year-old Ma Yijia, was delighted to find her daughter had become more independent after participating in the Black Forest Arts and Cultural Festival.

The festival, which started in Freudenstadt in Germany's Black Forest region on July 18, promotes cultural communication between youths from different countries.

Ma told her mother that after having lunch at a festival event, the German participants cleared the table while her Chinese peers went off to play games.

Ma said from then on she helped her new German friends and started to do more things for herself and others for the first time.

Her mother said when Ma returned home from the festival, she bathed, dried her hair and found her blanket by herself for the first time.

Dang said she felt activities at the festival enabled the Chinese participants to "communicate with local children and really integrate into German life".

Ma was delighted she made some German friends and very proud that she taught them some Chinese calligraphy.

The Chinese participants, who were aged between 8 and 18, took part in arts performances and prepared food with their German peers during the two-week event.

They also visited France, Austria and Switzerland to further experience European culture.

Shi Dongqing, the Chinese representative of the festival's organizing committee, said, "Our idea was to create an environment for the youths." She said the environment helped the Chinese youths perceive the world in a different way and learn from each other as well as their German peers.

Zhou Guanyu, the mother of 9-year-old twins Liu Ruijia and Liu Ruifei, was pleased to hear her lively daughters had enjoyed themselves during the festival.

Zhou said the twins had matured and had improved their manners.

Shi said the twins met a group of noisy Chinese tourists in a hotel in Austria and realized the importance of good manners.

The sisters said the Chinese participants got along with each other very well during the festival and they wanted to join in the event again.

The Black Forest Arts and Cultural Festival has been held five times since August 2012. Shi said the Chinese youths could learn from the festival as Germany has an excellent environment and people are serious and dedicated about work and life.

German people generally prefer a down-to-earth attitude and value the process of getting things done, she said. Shi said she hoped the Chinese participants could adopt similar attitudes and states of mind.

For the first time, China Daily sent cultural envoys to carry out interviews and record their stories and feelings during the festival this year.

"They are envoys of Chinese and Western cultural communication and the world in their eyes is different from the one the adults perceive," said Shi.

Zhao Jierong, 17, was one of the envoys. She recorded her experience through photos, including one of Ma teaching her German friends Chinese calligraphy.

"Residents in the Black Forest region were very warm and eager to know Chinese culture," Zhao said.

Zhao wrote a story that was published on the education special page account on WeChat, a popular social networking platform in China.

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