The Asia-Pacific Media Forum will be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province on September 5 with the theme "Building a Path to Shared Prosperity for the Asia-Pacific Community: Media Consensus and Action."

Charles Stephen Farr, executive director of the Secretariat of Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities Alliance (GISCUA), shared with South his view on how American students often arrive with deep-seated misperceptions, but are completely transformed by the real-world safety, warmth and open-armed hospitality they experience firsthand.

"You can watch TV shows, you can read, but when you're here and you see it, everything changes," Farr noted. He emphasized that candid, peer-to-peer dialogue among young people is the ultimate key to bridging cultural divides and nurturing the leaders of tomorrow.