Mahjong is nearly ubiquitous in China. The clicking of tiles is a subtle background noise that visitors might notice as they stroll the streets and parks of the country. Mahjong is not new to the world outside of China, but its rising popularity is making the game into a de-facto form of Chinese cultural diplomacy. [...] Foreign visitors took note of the game's popularity and entrepreneurs exported the game from China to the US in the 1920s.

SAN FRANCISCO—For Sam Chapple-Sokol, a chef who has spent time working at the White House, food is the missing ingredient in international relations. The Daily Signal connected with the food connoisseur in San Francisco’s Mission District, where he explained the concept of “culinary diplomacy,” a term he coined.

"I had already visited the China Pavilion more than one time in the past days but I can say that today I realized the magnificence of capital Beijing," Italian visitor of the world exposition in Italy's Milan, Mauro Magni, told Xinhua on Saturday. Magni talked to Xinhua after spectating the lion dance, Peking opera, acrobatics and dances, and Chinese ballet drama Marco Polo animating the China Pavilion and other venues at the Expo Milano 2015 site.

She was one of the international artists invited to exhibit in the Havana Biennial. And the only Jamaican!  [...] The theme of this year's Havana Biennial is 'Between the Idea and the Experience'. And the curators took the decision to move some of the art out of conventional exhibition spaces into the street. 

So there I was, on stage, swinging three hula-hoops in front of a big crowd of wildly cheering North Koreans. It's not what I went there to do and I had not anticipated that this sort of thing might happen.

The Minnesota Orchestra recently returned from a highly publicized and well-received trip to Cuba that has left many people in both countries feeling good about improving relations between Cubans and Americans, as well as their governments.

China will not do business with countries that don't also offer both cultural and political relationships.