China offers many opportunities to explore

One of the major benefits of living and working in a foreign country is the opportunity to experience it firsthand. Unfortunately, COVID has greatly curtailed most of the travel I've wanted to do, even in a professional capacity. However, there have been a couple of times when I've been able to escape the metropolis of Beijing.

The first was to Guizhou province. With its mountains, trees, and all the kiwi juice I could drink, it was a welcome escape from the big city. I learned about philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) and visited some of the caves he lived in during his time in exile when he penned volumes of philosophy, which had a great impact on post-Confucian thought. I wish to be that productive should I ever have to spend time in quarantine.

My second trip was to the rolling grasslands of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. We went to several sites that demonstrated the effectiveness of decades of afforestation efforts, and this was every bit as impressive as you'd imagine.

In the sand dunes, there were bushes and grasses, as well as tall trees, which provided welcome shade from the summer sun. And we saw dunes with grids of grasses in the fledgling stages of anchoring the dunes, getting them ready for saplings.

The highlight for me was seeing the ruins of the Mongol Empire, which was the seat of power of Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).I love history and geeked out over this part of the trip. My only regret was not having an opportunity to ride a famed Mongolian horse. That pleasure will have to wait for another visit.

While China has so much to see, in a news organization there's much to say as well. One of my ongoing projects is with China Daily's account on the Himalaya online audio content app, where I am the "voice" of China Daily Voice.

It helps keep me up to speed with important stories of the day and I really get a kick out of receiving messages from friends or former colleagues who tell me that "some girl on this app sounds just like you!" And I tell them it is, in fact, me.

This project introduced me to an app I never used before and it's been interesting to explore and see what Chinese people listen to on their audio platforms. As someone who used to have a 40-minute commute to work every day, I'd like to think that listening to these new stories helps commuters pleasantly pass the time on the train, bus, bike or scooter.

China is a vast country with much to see and many more stories to tell. I hope to do more of both in 2022.