千 里 之 行 ，始 于 足 下

千 里 之 行 ，始 于 足 下

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

道 德 經 ~ Dao De Jin

So said the legendary Laozi, Chinese philosopher and among the founders of Daoism. If a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, then what about a journey some 7670+ miles, across continents from one side of the globe to another? I guess if you want to be technical and unimaginative about it, you could say that this trip I’m about to take begins with…

… the step I’ll take out of the house and towards the family car, in which I’ll catch a ride to O’Hare airport, where I’ll board a plane that will take me the bulk of the 7670 miles and (too many hours later) arrive at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport, from which I’ll then take a train to the city of Nanjing, where I’ll spend the semester studying.

But I’m not one for technical, unimaginative answers. In the unending tempest of cause and effect that defines the contours of our lives, it’s hard to pinpoint a precise moment when any journey begins or ends, or specifically when the seeds of this journey I’m about to take were planted. But I can look into the past and see the beginnings of my present journey before I was even born.

To spend time studying and traveling in China has been a longtime dream of mine. The seeds of this dream can be traced back to a journey my parents took back in the early ’80’s (yes, before I even appeared on this earth), when my mom and dad (in their more adventurous days when they weren’t too tied down by kids and careers and responsibility and habit…) embarked on a biking tour through China. This was shortly after China had opened up to Western tourism. It was a country suspended in another time, still reeling from the Cultural Revolution, and not yet consumed by its current drive towards capitalist communism and modernization.

I’m guessing my parents would barely recognize China in its current incarnation, such a contrast to the images implanted in their minds during their visit over 2 decades ago. But those images of a now non-existent China of the recent past have been planted in my mind: my mom is an amateur photographer of sorts (who, alas, gave up on her dream of becoming a photographer for National Geographic at the behest of her parents who insisted she go into engineering) and, from the few weeks she spent biking across the Chinese countryside with my dad, brought back some incredible photographs. And some incredible stories to go with them.

Flipping through these photos, hearing the accompanying stories, and seeing her slide show (which always ended on a cute and clever note with a slide depicting a mother holding a baby with its bare bottom facing the camera, titled “The End”) as a kid was what, in retrospect, initially sparked my interest in China. The connections I’ve had and the affiliation I feel with East Asia increased since then, giving rise to the dream I’m about to fulfill of going to study in China. See, once I started reading more into my interest and hearing about the break-neck speed of the changes overtaking China, or at least its cities, I was even more inspired to go there and see the country and culture for myself before more changes take place, before more of its history and uniqueness are lost in the tide of capitalist communism that seems to be sweeping the country.

So now, after a couple not-so-successful attempts to teach myself Chinese during high school and (more successfully) spending the past 2 years studying Mandarin Chinese at Indiana University, I’m about to take the first steps to start the journey, the path of which started to be set before my birth. Welcome to Silk Road Central, my travel log blog, which I’ll be updating regularly (thanks in part to the inspiration of my friend Farid: chox sag olun for the encouragement, Farid-bey!). Please feel free to visit periodically to read about my adventures along the modern Silk Road!