The initial fear was that we would get lost at the airport. This would be stressful enough in any foreign country. Here, we were not even sure we knew enough words to say, “Please help me, I want to get to Jinian University.”
The initial fear was that we would get lost at the airport. This would be stressful enough in any foreign country. Here, we were not even sure we knew enough words to say, “Please help me, I want to get to Jinian University.”
Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. All of us had studied Chinese for at least a year at Rhodes University. Thanks to that, we were given a two-week, all-expenses-paid tour of the country, sponsored by the Rhodes University-based Confucius Institute.
We were going to visit three cities spanning 2 158km of China: Guangzhou in the South, Xi’an in the centre and Bejiing in the North.
We started our journey in Guangzhou, also known as “The City of Flowers”. Even in winter, it was not hard to understand the motivation behind this nickname. The highway overpasses were draped with vines, the vegetation grew lushly beneath every bridge in the style of small tropical rainforests. Dizzyingly high skyscrapers contested for space with ancient forests and sprawling shopping complexes.
We visited a national park where elderly locals invited us to join in their exercise classes. We did so; performing samba dances and Tai Chi to the tremendous entertainment of onlookers, who found our fumbling extremely funny.
For a more holistic experience, we also climbed up Baiyun Shan (White Cloud Mountain) and visited the Buddhist temples there, which were amazingly peaceful just outside the bustling metropolis. We travelled by train; twenty-hour trips in cramped bunks in the company of locals keen to engage in halting conversation.
We were fortunate though – our second-class tickets meant we at least had some room to lie down during the long commute. Third class would have meant a very small, hard bench.
It was much colder in Xi’an, a shock to the system after the temperate conditions of Guangzhou. Xi’an breathed history – it echoed off the walls as we explored the grounds of the Dayan Ta, a five-tiered pagoda built in 704AD. We were whisked off after only one night in the city, moving on to Beijing.
The trip would not have been complete without a trip to the Great Wall and we were undeterred by the thermometer reading of minus-11C. Not many people are able to say they built snowmen on the Great Wall.
The Summer Palace was similarly wintry, but beautiful, and the Forbidden City did not lose any of its majesty beneath the thick coat of snow. We were freezing, but entranced by the vibrant history and culture around us.
All too soon, it was time to return home. We felt as though we had barely scratched the surface of the country we had toured. If anything, the trip had only inspired us to plot a return visit.
