As a chemical engineering major, my student years were full of mathematics, information science, chemistry and physics. Most of these fields require me to sit at a desk for hours and resolve logic problems. Early on, I decided I need another pole in my life that stimulates my brain in another fashion.

I decided it is time to study a new language. I started out by studying Russian language, and after two years, my Russian language journey ended with a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg in September 2019.

That was the exact moment in time I found that I would want to study a new language. At that time, Chinese was my choice because the language is spoken by an enormous number of people and has almost no similarities with my mother tongue. Early on, I was so driven to learn more about China and visit this mysterious destination.

I started a Chinese learning journey in my small room in Sweden. I would repeat pinyin uncountable times and memorize words even more often.

My one-month journey in China would take me around the whole country because my friends were also living around the whole country. You can imagine a circle spreading from Beijing to Hohhot to Chengdu to Shenzhen to Zhuhai to Quanzhou to Shanghai and back to Beijing. Although I heard of the beautiful nature in Xinjiang from a good Chinese friend in Germany, whose job was organizing tourist group travels into the region, I felt like staying on track with the major cities for my first travel should be a better idea.

I remember sitting in a small restaurant close to the Munich Central Station, eating Dapanji, or chicken potato stew with noodles, and being astonished by the travel pictures my friend took.

Service in China is the most reliable thing I have ever experienced. Be it the service hotline of an App, or maybe the service center in the subway station, the kitchen staff in hotels, all of it works like a well-oiled machinery leaving no room for failure. How come all the cafeterias and buffets in China are so fresh. Absolutely, everything is hand-made and was just prepared for the customer, which is a really good feeling.

Moreover, the possibilities you have are so massive. Imagine you are on a long train ride but forgot to pack food. In Europe, this would be a death sentence, while in China, people just order directly into the train from the next station they arrive, or make use of the options offered on the train.

I was very surprised about the manifold of aquafarms in Guangdong. First time in my life, I was riding on the Chinese coach, or daba, and it was really convenient, since the seats were made of leather and almost formed like couches. In general, the efficiency of the Chinese high-speed railway network is something that was so important for me, since I needed to travel a lot on tracks. Therefore, I was more than happy to see that absolutely every train in China was on time and never delayed, moreover super fast. I could have never imagined constantly traveling at speeds of 350 km per hours just like that, or making a trip from Shanghai to Beijing under five hours.

China is developing at a rapid speed and is home to very advanced technologies. When traveling in Shanghai, I experienced this firsthand when I was on the magnetic levitation train. Magnetic levitation trains are relatively new and not well probed in the world. Shanghai is the only place in the world where a high-speed commercial maglev train is operated, a technology that has great potential for rapid overland transport. I hope this can be further developed and trains of higher speed and better quality can be available soon.

Another special thing I observed is how energetic the old folks in China are. They meet up, make music, dance, perform Tai Chi and talk together. They seem to be very happy and very fit in the brain and also the body.

Lastly, I want to talk about the Chinese folk. The Chinese people I met on my trip throughout China have all been more than kind to me. They are also very curious asking me a lot of questions. This also left the impression on me that most persons I talked to are fairly smart and know what they want. Generally, they don’t like wasting time and will do everything to make you feel accepted as a guest in their country.

The return to Germany almost felt like entering a hazy dream world. The biggest cities felt like small towns and everything is so empty. Definitely, a different world kind of feeling.

With the new Chinese visa guidelines in place, there are several nations in Europe, that are allowed visa free entry into China for up to 15 days. For my current situation, this is a big relief since my parents do not have to go through the process of visa application anymore when coming to visit me. Also, friends of me have fewer problems to go to China and visit the country. Hopefully, Chinese and European people will become more familiar with each other and many beautiful Chinese local cultures can be seen and learned. I also hope that an equivalent guideline for entry into European countries will follow.

(Reinhold Julian Skagfjoerd is a jointly-trained Ph.D. student of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

Planner : Jie Wenjin

Reviewers : Hou Weili and Cheng Li