[Video/China Daily]

With very few exceptions, the Chinese character "茶"(tea) is pronounced either in a way similar to the English "tea" (e.g., French "thé", and Spanish "té") or as something akin to "cha" (e.g., Hindi "चाय" pronounced as "chai", and Russian "чай" pronounced as "chai").

The reason dates back to ancient times when tea traveled along the Silk Road where the pronunciation "cha" became prevalent. The "teh" pronunciation — from coastal Fujian — found its way to Europe and beyond through the Maritime Silk Road.

During the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, tea set sail from Xiamei village. To the north, it embarked on a magnificent journey across the vast Eurasian continent. To the south, it reached the bustling port of Fuzhou and continued its journey worldwide via the Maritime Silk Road.

"Digitization is the next step. We need badly infrastructure projects, agriculture projects, interconnectivity projects and that falls into the BRI system," said Jaime FlorCruz, ambassador of the Philippines to China.

Over the past 10 years, the Belt and Road Initiative has generated more than 3,000 collaborative projects, involving investment of nearly $1 trillion. It has created nearly 420,000 jobs in the countries involved and helped pull 40 million people out of poverty.