The issues that made our year

The country is so beautiful

When I started working at China Daily last year, a colleague told me about an exciting story she had covered.

A few years ago, she followed members of the Xibe ethnic group, who mainly live in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, who were retracing a journey made by their soldier ancestors 250 years ago to defend the nation. From Northwest China, they traveled more than 5,000 kilometers across Mongolia to Xinjiang in 13 days.

They carried guns to guard against the wolves hunting around the steppe in Mongolia, and followed the route taken by their ancestors. Sometimes they had to camp in the desolate Gobi Desert, but in return, they enjoyed the night sky studded with beautiful twinkling stars.

"When we finally arrived in Xinjiang, I felt grateful to be a part of that journey made by the soldiers' descendants, and it was an intriguing experience. From now on, you will have it, too," my colleague said after telling me the story.

It is probably the best job description I have ever heard, and a few days later, I was on a flight to my home in Xinjiang for the first time as a journalist.

Last year, I visited places in China I had never been before, and experienced different cultures as I covered stories I had never heard before: I saw people in a small town in Fujian province invite a team of drummers to a relative's funeral procession; I heard farmers in Jiangxi province speaking the same dialect as my friends from Taipei; and I ate fresh shrimps from the Arabian Sea on the Pamir Plateau.

I never expected to be a journalist. Now, seeing my byline below a headline gives me a sense of fulfillment and all my experiences have made me realize how great my country is.

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

I think he was right, as I experienced the diversity and inclusivity of Paris when I visited years ago. I have searched for the same feeling since I returned to China.

Now, after visiting many places, talking to different people and experiencing various cultures in China, I have found each province is unique in its own way and the country, made up of them, is like a bigger version of Paris.

If I may make a wish, I hope that by the end of the year everyone is lucky enough to visit China－not through a camera lens, documentaries or the media, but by applying for a visa, buying a ticket, and beginning a journey in this beautiful country.

In November, when I was covering a joint patrol along the Mekong River, the beautiful rainforest of Southeast Asia that Captain Benjamin L. Willard saw in the film Apocalypse Now came into view.

Thankfully, unlike the captain's uneasy trip, mine was safe and pleasant.