Seattle is rarely the first US city that comes to Chinese minds. In fact, few people could probably tell Washington state from Washington DC.

Two romantic comedy films have irrevocably shaped the image of Xiyatu, as the city is known in Mandarin, among the Chinese public, and as a result it would not be a stretch to say Seattle is seen as the American capital of romance, somewhat akin to how the world perceives Paris.

In Sleepless in Seattle, Nora Ephron's 1993 runaway hit, Tom Hanks' character, Sam, moves with his young son from Chicago to Seattle for a fresh start after the death of his wife. The movie portrays the largest city in the Pacific Northwest not as a canyon of high-rises, but as a bohemian enclave of artists and designers, which possibly did not impress Chinese at the time.