Ties between China and Hawke's Bay have been strengthened for teens in Hastings by the district's world-first Amazing China Face Race competition.
Organised by Hastings councillor Kevin Watkins, hundreds of secondary school children had to hunt for one unnamed person out of the 1.35 billion people in China with just a photo and voice recording.
Students spent two weeks solving clues on things like Chinese geography, history and culture and the answers allowed them to eliminate regions where the face' did not live.
Once they were down to the last region the teens had to use their ingenuity to track down the face: Li Sha.
During the hunt for six nights scenery and interviews from Hastings were broadcast by a television station reaching 10 million people living in Mianyang.