The wonder of wandering aimlessly and meeting new people

Being stuck in an apartment block for a month or so during the epidemic made me realize how much I would miss being able to walk around. Plus, it drove my dog into depression. I know these are trivial problems compared to the serious suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, but sometimes losing even small things can make us more grateful for the real joys of life.

For years, my dog and I have walked each morning in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) wall park near China Daily. It's a magnificent park that runs for about 9 kilometers across the north side of the city. Every morning, there are grandmothers exercising, lots of dancers, playing children and playing dogs. It's a great asset for the city.

Unfortunately, access to the park has been tightly controlled since the virus started－and dogs aren't welcome. Let's hope that changes soon.

So, Feifei and I have been walking around the streets near China Daily. I've gotten to know all the streets within an hour radius of home.

Beijing is a great walking city. There are lots of people on the streets living their lives－fruit sellers and book sellers, delivery guys, people in office clothes walking to the subway, grandparents taking care of children.

I'm trying to learn street photography, and there's a lot of interesting stuff to make photos of. I'm amazed how many people want to have their pictures taken or stop to talk with me, though my broken Chinese limits what we can talk about. It's a friendly city.

Walking around lets you see the city much clearer than any other way. Car cities are dead. But, Beijing has lots of walkers so it's alive, though there are too many cars.

I have many great memories from wandering around. For example, about 30 years ago I was walking around the outskirts of the Uzbek city of Samarkand when a 13-year-old boy asked me to his house to meet his family. They were great hosts and showed me the beauty of their culture. I would have seen none of this if I'd stuck to the city center.

Two years ago, I was kicked off a train in Africa by border guards while trying to go from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. So, I had to hitchhike through the night to get back to a town. I met welcoming, helpful, and great people who I never would have encountered any other way. Though unplanned, this wandering gave me an unforgettable view of the African people.

Wandering around China, though less challenging or exotic, is equally rewarding.

It's a great idea to take a bus or subway to some random place, then just get out and walk around. If you get away from tourist areas, people will be interested to talk with you.

The French language has a word for walking around aimlessly, flaneur, which Wikipedia tells me derives from the Old Norse word meaning "to wander with no purpose".

Many great writers have been flaneurs. Charles Dickens famously often walked 20 miles (32 kilometers) in a day around London. Many of the scenes in his stories are street photos. Balzac and Baudelaire were known for wandering around Paris. The well-known statistics expert and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb stresses the importance of not having a plan.

Fan Ho, the late, great chronicler of Hong Kong who drew on the styles of traditional Chinese drawings to produce his photos, was also known as an avid flaneur.

When I get writer's block, which is often, I find that going for a long walk will often give me an idea needed to formulate a story－not that I'm comparing myself in any way to the great writers discussed above.

Walking around aimlessly takes a lot of time. Some people would say it's a waste of time, and time is money. Certainly, many people create very good careers by moving straight and fast in one direction.

But, that's missing out on a lot of life. Wandering aimlessly, either literally or metaphorically, is the only way to meet people and see things that you had no idea existed. It may seem unprofitable, but it truly enriches the soul and the mind.