My first memory of thinking about China was from my parents saying, "if you dig down through the earth, you would end up in China." This was interesting and is why I got a globe soon after. That globe is still here at my side and makes plain now as it did then that the country antipodal to China is Argentina, not the United States. (Despite this obstacle, digging to China from the USA may soon be possible!)

Visiting mysterious China became my greatest travel desire from the age of five or six--sparked by the digging concept and enflamed by stories of China in old issues of National Geographic. I was able to visit in November 1993 and again in August 2002 (and again, in July 2005.) The experience was everything that I had longed for as a child.


Lu Hui, Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, 1891

The history of China and its capitol city Beijing have much to teach the thinking traveller.