A couple of things.

This last year that I have been in China has turned into be much more than I would have ever thought it could have. I would have never thought such an incredible depth of feeling could have been attained. I simply just didn't know. My ignorance was complete and all encompassing before I left the States. That is something I can only recognize now. I have grown and changed. I didn't expect to. I'm not sure what exactly it was I expected. It was a mysterious yearning for things untouched and unknown by my senses. The person that came to China last year has been discarded somewhere between long night train rides and red setting suns.

There is still the mystery. The undeciphered pictographs adorning small business windows. The traditions that my mind cannot grasp. The language that falls on my mostly deaf ears. My heart has been opened and it has been filled with the wonder of a new culture. A new experience that has broadened not only the breadth of my knowledge, but that has also begun to unravel the tightly compacted ball of ignorance that once choked my existence. I didn't realize, living my life back in America, the extreme extent of my blindness. The veil has been at least partly lifted from my eyes as the burden of world awareness has been allowed to slowly seep into my young psyche.

I don't know if the impact would have been as great had I only visited China. It took some time before I was able to digest all that I see and all that I hear, something a mere visit wouldn't have been able to produce. My eyes would have been opened, but only partly. Living amongst the mystery, daily allowing folds of revelation to smooth out. Was I to only have been here a short time, I wouldn't have seen much more than just the skin of the mystery, the surface of a country that hides all that is worthwhile in the meat. That would have left me in the same place I was in before.

This journey has impacted me much more than any lecture given by a proffesor ever could have. It is something I can call my own. I am able to digest and analyze what I am given based on first hand experience. The pages of a book just wouldn't have sufficed. I needed to lose myself in the caverns of Chinese society before I could even attempt to understand. I needed to be shrouded in the darkness of the unknown to find the light.

My wish is that everyone could experience something parallel to this. To leave one's home in search of mystery. To cast off the shackles of ignorance that enjoys such free reign. To be humbled by something you don't understand. To return to the place you left a better person. To be lifted from what you know and placed in an alien environment.

I will take from this experience much more than stories of good food or of the hardships encountered in a Chinese train station with nothing more than a phrasebook as your friend. I will take a sense of accomplishment and eyes that have seen. A heart that has felt, and ears that have heard. I will leave a better man. Let us now praise travel for a moment...or for a lifetime.