The International Nao Festival of Acapulco kicked off about 380 km south of Mexico city over the weekend.[Photo/Xinhua]

Minister counsellor at China's embassy in Mexico Lin Ji said the festival offers an opportunity for residents of Acapulco, one of Mexico's five most popular tourist destinations, to learn more about China and the maritime trade route that connected the two countries during a span of centuries.

Dance, music, drama and cuisine from the Philippines, Japan, Spain, Britain and Colombia are also part of this year's festival.

Diego Prieto, the director of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), said the event serves to highlight Acapulco's rich cultural heritage, thanks to its role as a meeting point between Asia, Europe, through the Spanish conquistadors, and the Americas.

"This globalization, which at one time was accompanied by conquest and violence, has to develop into a globalization that leads us to fraternity, cultural enrichment and understanding between peoples," said Prieto.

As part of the festival, an exhibit titled "Memories of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions" is showing at the San Diego Fort's museum origins of today's complex Chinese characters system.

Museum curator Victor Hugo Jasso said the exhibit, which will run through Jan. 31, shows ancient Mesoamerican and Chinese civilizations had certain elements in common, despite being separated by time and distance.

Accompanying the exhibit will be "interactive workshops between children from Acapulco and China, so they can communicate through these hieroglyphs and this type of symbolic communication," Jasso told Xinhua.