Canadian Fabiola Benitez currently works in Guangzhou's Tianhe district where she founded Global Friendship, a cross-cultural platform serving the international community.

She credits being inspired by her workplace, which is surrounded by many cafes, bars, and restaurants run by foreigners or international students, which has created a multicultural area she compares to a "mini United Nations."

Two years after coming to Guangzhou, she founded Global Friendship with her friends. 

Her daily work is to gather foreigners in South China to participate in different social activities, creating a platform for exchanges and mutual assistance, which has enabled people to communicate, develop friendships, as well as explore business cooperation opportunities.

Guangzhou is a city that does business, so it has become an inclusive city, which is very similar to my hometown of Ottawa, where I grew up in a multicultural atmosphere with classmates from all over the world, she noted.

In the international community, she operates, there are many foreign vloggers. Some of them explore the districts' delicious street food, some are inspired by intangible cultural heritage experiences like putting on costumes to learn to sing Cantonese Opera, while some have become travel experts promoting Guangzhou's beautiful scenery.

The group's foreign community has spread the history and culture of Guangzhou, as well as the daily lifestyle in the city to their respective regional audiences, attracting more foreigners to Guangzhou.

Guangzhou is a city where tradition and modernity are mixed, where you can see very modern skyscrapers and also see areas that have preserved old buildings and traditions - both of which fascinate me deeply, added Benitez.

She expressed that Guangzhou, which has been a trading port for centuries, has a very attractive business environment. Benitez also mentioned that in the 10 years that she had lived here, she had seen the rapid development of infrastructure, more and more high-rise buildings and subway lines, and more and more well-known companies and brands coming here. 

Fabiola Benitez. [Photo/xkb.com.cn]