My name is Jim, and I love to travel, especially to China.
I love the atmosphere, the overcrowded streets, the amazing
food, the historical and cultural sites, my family, and
so much more.
I spent the most part of my early life living in poverty
along with many, many others in China back then. I lived
with my mother in a little, run-down, square room about
15' X 15'. Our tiny room was at the bottom floor of the
7th High School of Neijiang. In it, we had a bed, a table
and a few chairs, and a dresser. That was about all we had
- no bathroom, no kitchen, no appliances. We had to use
the public washrooms in the school. Outside tiny room, there
was a clay stove that burned coal and wood for cooking needs.
I immigrated to Canada in the late 80's with my family,
and have settled here ever since. I graduated from University
of Toronto back in year 2000. During that period, we were
able to make one trip back to China to visit my relatives
in 1995. After my absence of many years, China made some
drastic changes. Since it opened up to the world in 1978,
China has grown and developed in strides.
China's Fast Development Pace
It's not until another 10 years later that I was able to
visit China again. I was quite awed at the changes in China
during these 10 years, so much more so than my first visit
in 1995. It seemed to me that China had grown in these 10
years more than the last 100 years combined! My home town
had changed so much that I got lost during my first stroll
around the city, and could barely recognize many of the
streets.
The city has expanded dramatically - new condominiums and
commercial towers sprung up all over; the river that run
through the city seem to have receded much over the past
two decades, no longer do I see boats and ships passing
through; a new recreational park just finished construction
in 2003 right by the river. Now this is just a medium-small
sized city (Neijiang) with a population of about 600,000,
just imagine how the rest of China has changed!
Below are two pictures I took of the new recreational park
called "Da Zhou Guang Chang". One was taken during
day time in front of the park, and another taken at night
time on 8th floor at my uncle's condo.
Picture of Da Zhou Park at day time. This
was taken just before Chinese new years day, which is why
you see so many lanterns (air balloons) floating and so
much decorations all around.
Night time is amazing, especially during
Chinese new years. Notice the many lanterns floating. There
are millions of lights everywhere at night time, and during
Chinese new year, it's a light show every night with lights
put up on almost every tree in the city. It's a bit hard
to see, but the path of trees by the side walk (the red
and blue light dots you see) are all flashing lights. Things have changed much for me since coming to Canada.
I now travel to China, visit my relatives, and tour China
several times each year - discovering new sites, trying
new food, meeting new people, and catching up on what I've
missed during the past two decades. I will share stories
of all my Travels to China, and my adventures in China on
TravelChinaTour.com. |
