My trip to China this spring was an excellent turning point for me, although it was just for 40 days out of the planned 70 days and I'm planning to visit China again next spring for 70 days to visit various grottoes as before. I visited 9 out of 45 major grottoes in China last time, and plan to visit 15 or so next time.

Yes, wherever you visit, "people" is the most important factor to experience the area. And that people includes both the local people who live there and also visitors to the area, foreign or domestic as sharing what non-local want to see and experience are also important to have a diverse view on the area.

But for my last trip to China, my strict objective was to see grottoes and take pictures of those Buddhas and structures of grottoes, so I minimized associating with local people, which made my trip incomplete from completeness.

As I told you before, I visited China 20 times or more, but just around Beijing and Shanghai, and only places I visited other than those 2 cities were Taishan and boarding for Three Gorges, and my travel to various parts of China was limited.

And during the last trip, the situation reminded me of lots of things I did and people I met during those 15-year period.

I became wondered what happened to all those guys with whom I shared lots of good times and sometimes overcame bad times together. I thought of lots of books I read and various topics I discussed with friends whom we shared the period.

But now, I lost contact with most of them.

Once I returned my home in Los Angeles in mid-May, I spent the following several months opening the boxes in the storage to read books I read, essays and papers I wrote, memorabilia I collected over the years, and whatever I stored for future reference.

Visting China helped me trigger such motivation, which was the best part of the experience rather than just vising grottoes.

China itself has been changing rapidly recently whether that means good or bad. Two things good for me were: there are many American style stores (KFC, McDonald's and Starbucks, etc) which helped me feel comfortable a bit, which was not necessarily good for non-Americans. Yeah, that's a joke ;-)

But the other thing was China did away with foreigner only ticket price against the much cheaper Chinese only price. Fee to the entrance to shrines and temples got a little cheaper for foreigners, although it increased dramatically for Chinese locals. Back in old days, foreigner-only-ticket price was up to 10 times more than what Chinese, local or visitor, paid, which discouraged me from travelling widely during my previous 20 or more visits to China.

The worst part was: most Chinese cities are not as safe as it used to be. Pickpocketing is still common as it used to be, but now I had to worry about knife-brandishing thieves and burglars or other crimes to travellers, which became worse during the last 10 years.

I forgot to mention, last trip was the first visit since 1994, so it has been 12 years already, which gave me a good opportunity how much China has changed.

I usually don't have any favorite countries to visit, as wherever you go, your impression on the area is hugely influenced by local people you meet there.

My stay in Urumqi, Xinjiang was the one of the worst experience I've ever had, as I got scared of mugging and band of scoundrels who were following me in the great bazaar. All travel books and travelogues I read mentioned that it is the best place to visit in Urumqi. So I visited there, but due to the local thugs and scoundrels following me in the bazaar, I got so scared on my safety and was lucky to take a bus to the train station and decided to cut short of visiting Urumqi and purchased a train ticket to Xi'an that afternoon and left.

A dozen or so guys surrounded and followed me at least for 30 minutes or so when I walked around the grand bazaar of Urumqi which is one of the most place there, and no one was willing to help me at all about the situation. Although they didn't touch me directly, when 10 or more such guys were surrounded me, it was a nightmare. I couldn't get away from those guys quite some time, and a policeman finally helped me to ride a bus #1, which was the city tour bus I took 30 minutes earlier to get there.

I was gonna head to Kuqa and Kashgar after staying several days in Urumqi, but left Urumqi after just one night. I arrived there Saturday afternoon from Turpan, and left Urumqi by 2 PM following day.

These days I have the best time while visiting Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan, and visit there at elast once a year on my way to Korea or China. Tokyo is quite vibrant and I enjoy even watching people walking by from a cafe. I still speak poor Japanese, but can read and understand quite well. Quite frequently I speak both English and Japapense to my Japanese friends and they speak Japanese to me, and some passers-by wonder about the situation.

Back in old days, I spoke pretty good Chinese enough to be pretending as Chinese, so associating with local Chinese people was easier and seamless, but now I barely speak Chinese, although I still read and understand quite a bit of it; and that made me have limited contacts with local people.

It was frustrating not being able to argue back when I understood sellers or metchants tried to overcharge the price. Sometimes for my own safety I had to pay 4-5 times the price while local Chines next to me paid the decent price.

Even so, I hope to visit China again to have more experiences of diverse Chinese culture.

If there are more pretty girls I can hang around with, it will be better, but the chances are slim for foreigners. The English language is the most widely spoken, so speaking English helps me meet and communicate with other people easily, but for most people from non-English speaking countries especially for Asia, learning English is a difficult process.

In Chengdu, Dunhuang and Xi'an, I met really attractive Chinese girls and I was willing to change my itinary to hang around with them, but as they spoke limited English and we could not communicate effectively, so I had to move on to the next city, sadly.

I felt bad, but I was not sure whether I should have blamed them for not studying the English language hard enough, which is like a lingua franca, or I should have blamed myself for not studying the Chinese language enough as I visited China.

Americans, and even immigrants to America like me who've lived in America long enough, are arrogant with the status of the English language ;-)

Europeans, other than Anglo-Saxons and Irishs, might think differently.

By ethnicity I'm a Korean, and for identity-wise Korean-American, and social status and legal paper-wise American. To Chinese, I was just a Korean, and French or German were American as they were Caucasians, and some Chinese made errors on my paper work as they put me as Korean not American. Fixing papers for error costed me extra money. To extend a visa at Dunhuang, it costed me 450 yuan against the 180 yuan fee.

When I visited Dujiangyan in Chengdu, I met a English teacher who's a Chinese, so she was glad to practice English by explaining the area to me, and I was glad that someone explained in English. In Chengdu, meeting who could speak English was more common than most cities in China, other than Beijing and Shanghai.

But in remote areas such as small cities far from Zhangye, where most local people were Tibetans, even Mandarin Chinese were not well understood, and my smattering of Chinese words didn't help much.

In China now, there is a train from Beijing to Lhasa, so travelling Tibet is getting easier than before and I heard that travel permit to Tibet might be abolished pretty soon. For my next trip I'm considering visiting Tibet.

And from Tibetan border to India, Sikkim is now open only to Chinese, Tibetan and Indian businessmen, and foreginers will be allowed to pass through some time next year. My Chinese friends from America and Taiwan passed the border, but no Koreans and Japanese passed it yet as the guards checked the papers thoroughly. They told me even cab drivers won't take foreigners to the border as police gave hard time to whover brought foreigners to the newly opened border.

Once I returned to Los Angeles, I felt comfortable when hearing the English language in American sytle. Sounds weird or familiar?

I have been in this country for 26 years already, and although I still speak English heavily with accent, I feel really comfortable with the language as I use it all the time.

During the trip, I heard English with all kinds of accents, and if I talked to Americans once in a while, I felt comfortable hearing American accent, but I doubted whether those Caucasian Americans felt comfortable talking with me. I believe some might have thought I might have been one of those deceiving Chinese who took you to Chinese restaurant and overcharged price.

But as we talked they quickly found out I was like a Los Angeles native, but most first reaction to me, when I tried to talk them as they spoke in American accent, was a bit cold and suspicious. What I'm trying to say is: if I heard English with American accent, it was like quenching the thirst.

What I missed most was I could not go to Karaoke Bar (KTV) for singing and drinking. I really enjoy singing and going Karaoke with friends to relax, but I didn't feel safe to KTV in China all by myself and couldn't have relaxing time myself for 40 days which was harder to bear.

For my next trip to China, I'll try to meet more local people there.

(November 2, 2006)

Copyright© 2005 Daniel SW Kim