Photo provided to China Daily

In 1997, when Kuehnel first visited China, the trip turned out to be more fruitful than he had expected.

He enrolled into a monthlong language program at a college in East China's Shan-dong province to learn basic Chinese while traveling. But he had to attend a higher-level class due to limited choices in lower levels.

While he lagged behind the class, he still tried to use whatever little he could pick up in exchanges with teachers and his classmates.

"I complained a lot, but I decided to hold on because I wanted to temper myself," Kuehnel recalls.

Soon he was surprised to find that his spoken Chinese improved fast. Encouraged by that, Kuehnel extended his stay in China.

The following year, he successfully passed a test for high-level Chinese, a rare feat for foreigners back then.

Kuehnel also chose Chinese as a subject of his thesis on linguistics after he returned to Germany in 1998.

During his time in Shan-dong, he met a Chinese woman, Gai Wenqing, whom he married in 2006. After several years in Germany, the couple returned to China in 2010 and have since lived in Beijing.

For Kuehnel, who easily gets bored of routine, China can be a good place to live, he says.

But it's more than just that for him.

He is following in the footsteps of many other foreigners who are coming to China for career development as the country's relevance in world affairs grows.

As an expert on cross-cultural communication, Kuehnel pays close attention to related issues and says he is impressed by Chinese efforts in cooperating with other countries in the field.