Two blind girls attracted people's attention as they entered the China Theme Pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Friday afternoon.

Holding walking sticks, the two blondes stopped in front of the huge block of movable types matrix, squatting down to touch the Chinese characters on the block.

The Chinese characters may be alien to the two girls, but their eager caressing of the types seemed to indicate a strong wish to learn more about a distant culture with their hands and hearts.

The moment was captured by Xie Hailong, a renowned Chinese photographer, through his lens.

At the last press conference held by the Chinese delegation on Saturday, when the picture of the two blind girls touching the Chinese movable types was displayed on the screen, all at the scene fell into complete silence as if charmed and awed by a great civilization that has come from afar to Frankfurt.

China is the Guest of Honor country for this year's Frankfurt Book Fair from Oct. 13 to 18. Like the two girls, thousands of visitors were lured into in the China Theme Pavilion, which features, among other things, a winding wall made of tens of thousands of books and a huge types matrix.

The pavilion integrates typical Chinese culture elements with modern visual art forms, thus creating a quintessential Chinese cultural space quite different from the European culture familiar to local visitors.

As the first day for the Frankfurt Book Fair to be open to the general public, Friday saw local visitors pouring into the China Theme Pavilion to experience Chinese culture at their doorstep.

At the central part of the pavilion, visitors were listening to lectures given by renowned Chinese writers and scholars, taking pictures beside the "book wall," or just sitting on the ground near the shelves to read the German versions of Chinese books.

Elsewhere in the pavilion, curious visitors were eager to learn how papermaking and printing were invented, while children were fingering the solid types of Chinese characters, with some gleefully romping and dancing on them.

In front of the block-printing booth, visitors lined up to watch the live show of printing. Some were savoring newly printed Chinese paintings fresh with the scent of ink, though they might not know the meaning of poems on the paintings.

Thirteen-year-old Catherine and her two friends, Yolanda and Camila, were playing with the type matrix.

The only Chinese character Catherine knew was "ai," meaning "love." Catherine told Xinhua that she had learned the character from her Chinese classmates when she studied in a high school in Britain as an exchange student.

Catherine proudly demonstrated her mastery of Chinese greetings such as "ni hao" (hello), "xie xie" (thank you) and "dui bu qi" (sorry), though she could not write or recognize them in Chinese.

Yolanda's father, a doctor from the western German city of Marburg, said he took her daughters to the China pavilion to learn more about China.

"It is wonderful," he told Xinhua.

A German receptionist working at the information desk said he could not give an exact figure of the visitors, but said he saw "much more visitors" to the guest country's theme pavilion this year than previous fairs.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest and most important of its kind, with over 7,300 publishers and traders from more than 100 countries and regions participated. It is expected to attract some 300,000 visitors this year.

China, as this year's Guest of Honor country, has set a new record by sending a delegation of more than 100 writers, 300 actors and actress as well as some 700 publishers and traders.

Chinese publishers made a record number of copyright deals at the Fair, sealing contracts for 2,193 copyright items so far, sources with the Chinese delegation said.

Of the total contracts, Chinese publishers have imported 1,310 copyright items, and exported 883 titles to foreign counterparts.

To local visitors, more attractive are the shows, exhibitions, lectures and seminars about Chinese literature, culture and society held during the Fair.

More than 600 Chinese cultural events were held by Chinese organizers to boost dialogue between Chinese scholars and their foreign counterparts and to enhance local people's understanding of China.

On the square in front of the China pavilion, a huge tent housed a show of Chinese intangible cultural heritage. Ten masters of Chinese traditional arts and crafts including papercuts and Tibetan religious painting known as Tangka captivated the audience with their exquisite skills.

"The live and vivid show has brought Chinese culture closer to the local visitors," said He Yan, president of China's Central Compilation and Translation Press who was in charge of the show.