t’s hard to imagine many other places in the world that are more dynamic, culturally unique, and globally relevant during our lifetimes than China. So many of my expectations and stereotypes about this country have been challenged; China was so much more diverse than I could have ever imagined and I was often struck by the unexpected natural beauty in a country I thought would only be smokestacks and high-rises.
Starting in the Sichuan province, for three months, I worked my way north and east city-by-city via train. During my travels, I passed through both newly developed cities so enormous they are still hard to describe as well as some of the more remote regions that I’ve visited in all of my travels.
While I had traveled to China several times in the past, this was my first time deep in the heart of the country – far from the Eastern seaboard and the familiar city names of Beijing, Tianjin and Hong Kong.
Highlights from my time in the heart of China include:
- Experiencing the incredible hospitality of people during the Chinese New Year that I didn’t know or to whom I couldn’t even speak the same language.
- Watching Chinese opera in an unheated teahouse in the dead of winter.
- Walking along the “real” Great Wall of China that you don’t see in guide books. In fact, large sections of the Great Wall are made of mud. In the harsh elements in the remote regions of western China, the now crumbling wall still demarks the boarder of China proper and Inner Mongolia.
- Exploring the unending variety street food, which changed from province to province.
- One of my most surprising discoveries was the frequently overlooked Muslim population in western China. The Hui people are ethnically Chinese, but have been heavily influenced in their religion, culture, architecture, and cuisine from the historical confluence traced back to the Silk Road. In many of these cities, you will find that the number of mosques per capita rival the Middle East and street signs are written in both Mandarin and Arabic.
The China of today often feels fleeting as the country continues to undergo tremendous change and development. The China I saw was not the China I would have seen 5 years ago, nor will it be the same 5 years from now. In order to appreciate the new, the old, and the incredible changes of “now,” I set out on my journey to the heart of China, from west to east.
Locations: Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Guangzhou, Guangdong Province; Chengdu, Sichuan Provice; Chongqing, Chongqing Municipality; Ankang, Shaanxi Province; Xi’an, Shaanxi Province; Lanzhou, Gansu Province; Linxia, Gansu Province; Yinchuan, Ningxia Province; Hohhot, Inner Mongolia; Beijing, Beijing Municipality; Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality.
