In 2007, I taught English to Chinese middle school students in a summer school in Nanjing and that included a tour of Inner Mongolia and various places around northern China. It was the first organized tour I've been on and will probably be the last. I like traveling on my own, getting off the beaten track, getting to know folks. That tour was endless miles on a bus, endless shopping, and many unintelligible lectures. The mantra was "Stay with the group." Not my thing at all.
I yearned to tramp around the countryside, talk to farmers and merchants in small towns to see what they had to say, do some birdwatching, and find places of solitude to gather my thoughts. Instead, we went from city to city. The noise level was intolerable. Much of the time, I was sick from air pollution.
As usual, I kept a daily journal of the trip and wound up with 30,000 words and many photos on CDs. Armando, from Houston, Texas, who was on that tour, found this Storytelling Trails and Tales blog and contacted me to see if I could send him that journal. He has photos,too, and would like to combine them with my words. As I re-read my journal entries, I realized there is something there. I think that once I have figured out how to publish my e-book novel, I will put our words and photos together for a non-fiction travelogue.
Someday, I intend to go back to China and wander on my own terms.
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