Over spring break, I was lucky enough to go on a trip to China with my family. In total, we went for 10 days, visited three cities (Beijing, Guilin and Guangzhou) and did a separate excursion to the village where my grandfather grew up.
I can safely say that this is the best trip I have ever been on.
For context, I’m half-Chinese, and this was the first time I’d been to the country where my grandparents grew up. I’ve always wanted to go to China, and over the last couple of years, that desire grew closer and closer to reality. I sometimes jokingly whispered in my father’s ear, “Hey, it’d be cool to go to China, wouldn’t it?” Little did I know that my grandfather would complement my wishes by expressing his own desire to return to his village with his children and grandchildren.
Of course, I had my anxiety and fears before departing. In the months leading up to the trip, I thought about my “Circle of Life Moment,” as I had called it, like when Rafiki raises Simba over his head, high above Pride Rock as “Circle of Life” blasts in the background. Except it would be my 90-year-old grandfather raising me above his head and probably getting injured in the process, so there would be a hospital visit instead of singing, don’t take that literally, but you get the point, right? I built up this idea that there would be some kind of “spiritual awakening” inside me, but in the days before I left, doubt crept into my mind. What if there wasn’t? The news didn’t help my nerves either, because in the preceding days, I was Googling statistics on plane crashes and picturing myself dying a very morbid death before I even landed, but that’s neither here nor there.
Of course, my anxieties faded right when we landed. On the first leg of the trip, we stayed in Beijing for three days. Highlights from Beijing include Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall of China. Walking a segment of the Great Wall was one of the hardest and most fulfilling hikes that I have ever done—the only one that even comes close to its difficulty is the Quiraing, a hike in Scotland I did while studying abroad. But walking the Wall, overseeing breathtaking views that I can’t even describe, is an experience that I will never forget. My calves also didn’t forget the hike for days after due to the sheer number of stairs we climbed.
After Beijing, we flew to Guilin, a mountainous city in Southern China. The difference between Beijing and Guilin was absolutely jarring in the best way possible. While Beijing and Guangzhou were metropolitan cities, Guilin was a city practically embedded in a mountain range; you could be looking at a city street, turn around and see rivers and mountains. It’s a city unlike any other I’ve been in before. My favorite part about Guilin was exploring Daxu Old Town, a marketplace along the Li River, complete with local craftspeople, businesspeople and merchants. It was a complete departure from everywhere else we explored and different from anything I’ve ever experienced.
Of course, the highlight of the Guangzhou leg was visiting my grandfather’s village. No words can fully describe that experience. I’ll say it was like stepping into your favorite childhood storybook, a place you’ve only read about or have heard stories about. It was a bright, sunny and hot day, and right when we arrived, my grandfather started speaking Cantonese to a random stranger we met on the street. That stranger started showing us around and guided my grandfather to places he wanted to visit. And while he hadn’t been back there in decades, much of the village and architecture remained unchanged from my grandfather’s youth. My grandfather was even able to recognize his house (and the bed he was born in). Perhaps the highlight, though, was my grandfather meeting a long-lost cousin of his. We were walking around the village, and our stranger/tour guide approached someone he knew who could help us find my grandfather’s house. My grandfather started talking to this person, and then he gasped, turned around and exclaimed, “That’s my cousin!” This man happened to be his grandfather’s brother’s grandson.
When the Japanese invaded my grandfather’s village, he and my great-grandmother ran into the mountains to seek refuge. After we met my grandfather’s cousin and saw his house, we hiked into these same mountains to visit the site where my grandfather’s great-grandfather is buried to pay our respects.
Needless to say, I had my “Circle of Life Moment.” The only thing that would have made it better is if my grandmother was still here to go with us, but I know that she is smiling down on us now.
Although I don’t know when, I would love to return to China someday. Perhaps I’ll take my children there, and then my grandchildren, and they can see everything I saw during my trip. More importantly, they can also see what my grandparents saw.
