Gosh, it’s been a while since I took the long haul flight over to China. It was the summer of 2008 I believe, over five years ago. For one summer, I travelled to Beijing, Xi’an, Xunyang Ba, and Hong Kong. I spent several days in each, except for Xunyangba, where I spent several weeks.
There’s no way that I can adequately portray my whole experience in a blog (you really need to just go and find out for yourself), but there are three small things that I feel I can portray. These are three things I learned on my trip that I felt particularly valuable and would recommend if you wanted to take a similar trek.
The first thing is to go with a purpose. My trip was actually a field trip to China for a university course in Anthropology. It was through Saint Mary’s University (in Halifax), might I add, and so I went on this trip to complete a university credit in anthropology. My research project for this course was to compare the use of traditional and modern medicine among rural villages, and this project sent me to Xunyangba, which is a village of 800 people, south of Xi’an in the province of Shaanxi. It was here that I spent three weeks with ten other classmates and another ten classmates from the Shaanxi Normal University, who were able to guide us around the village and translate for us. For three weeks, I toured a village in the middle of China and interviewed villagers about how and when they used traditional medicine, versus modern medicine. I roamed the surrounding countryside and met some absolutely incredible people. I immersed myself in a way of life that I could not have if I was wandering around by myself, without purpose, without translators, and without guides. If you decide to travel somewhere far away, make sure you have a reason to go there, because you’ll have much more fun getting lost.
Which leads me to my second piece: make sure you get lost. I had to put in some effort to excuse myself from the comforts of recognizable and English-speaking classmates. When in Beijing or Hong Kong, I would take every opportunity to excuse myself from the group and wander down (lit!) alleys and into markets. Of course you have to make sure you feel comfortable and safe in the place. In China, I almost always did, but I made sure to travel mostly during the day. Taking walks was particularly enjoyable, for it allowed me to get lost in every sense of the word, and each time you must rely on yourself. The farther you go, the more responsibility you place on yourself, and this is part of a confidence and perspective building exercise that many travel-seeking students often partake in.
My third piece is on what I gained from the trip. I went to China with a mission (student course). This mission sent me deep into an area I would not have gone normally, allowing me to immerse myself more deeply into a culture. And from this immersion, this getting lost, I was able to return with a much broader perspective on the world, one what different kinds of living actually exist out there, and with an appreciation of the good things I had back home.