Shakespeare plays

Xi said he eagerly searched for books of William Shakespeare during his years as a youth. Over the years, he read The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet among other works of the literary giant.

"I was enchanted by the ups and downs in the plots, the vivid characters and plaintive emotions displayed in the stories by Shakespeare," Xi said in a speech during a state visit to the United Kingdom in 2015.

He recalled that as a teenager living in the barren land of northern Shaanxi, he kept thinking about the question of "to be or not to be", and it was during that period that he made up his mind to dedicate his life to serving the nation and the people.