Jasmine's China Adventure Tours

Monks at Songzanlin Monastery, Zhongdian.
(Photo courtesy of Sue Wright, Toronto, Canada)

What's New at Jasmine's China Adventure Tours

Dear Friends,

As I look back over 2001, and ahead to 2002, so much seems to be touched by the shadow of September 11. I was in China just finishing a tour when the terrorist attacks occurred, and I first learned about them when my husband called me from California to tell me the news in a voice I had never heard from him before. The shock was terrible. Although I am Chinese, America is my home now, and this news deeply hurt my heart. Just a few years ago, my parents came from Beijing to visit us in the U.S., and we took them to New York and stood on the top of the World Trade Center, marveling at the view. It is still hard for us to believe in what happened. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this sad event, as we hope and pray for peace and safety to be restored to the world.

Moslem grandmother and grandchild, Xi'an (Photo by Edwin Davis)

I know that many people are wondering about the safety of travel after September 11. I can only tell you that I had one group of American friends come to China to travel with me in October and they were very well received by Chinese people. Everywhere we went, when local people asked "What nationality are they?", and I told them "American", they gave us big smiles and the "thumb's up" sign. We were warmly welcomed into local people's homes, even into the Great Mosque in Xi'an, where people told us "those terrorists do not represent Moslem people", and described how shocked they were by the events of September 11 and how strong they thought American people were. If you are considering an overseas trip in 2002, I encourage you to think about China. As always, it is a fascinating country to visit, and at a time like this I think we need the experience of people-to-people contact more than ever.

During my tours in 2001 I was able to deepen our opportunities to have personal contact with Chinese people by discovering even more local families for us to visit on our tours. My most popular tour, "Ancient Capitals and Scenic Wonders", includes home visits in several locations, including a small farming village at the foot of an unrestored section of the Wild Great Wall outside Beijing and a "cave house" village near the Xi'an terra cotta army. In Yangshuo, Dali and Zhongdian, we have the wonderful chance to visit family homes and enjoy special home-cooked meals featuring local produce from the fields and lakes--one highlight was Mrs. Ma's "barley-wine flavored fish" in her Tibetan style home in Zhongdian. And an exciting new option for my guests in Lijiang is the chance to stay in a local family's beautiful, traditional courtyard house in the Old Town. I hope I am not boasting when I say that I believe few other group tours will give you this chance to experience real Chinese life, not just the tourist sights!

In 2002, I will once again offer my Ancient Capitals tour twice, in the spring and fall. It has been my most popular tour over the last few years. I designed it to be the perfect China experience for the traveler who is adventurous enough to want to go a little beyond the normal tour routes. And since I have been asked about tours during the summer, this year I will offer one special departure in July that includes Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin and Yangshuo as well as the wonderful Yangtze River Three Gorges cruise. Please look for the new "China Panorama" tour page inside my site. Also, for the particularly adventurous, I will offer a special "exploratory" tour in early September to some little-known areas of minority culture and spectacular mountain scenery in Yunnan Province. Please see the page for the "Ethnic Borderlands of Yunnan Province" tour inside.

Visiting a Tibetan family of barley wine brewers in Zhongdian.

As always, I will guide my group tours personally and limit the size of the groups so we can have the best possible experience of China. I'm also very happy to hear about your special interests so that I can work them into the tour program. In the last year, I was able to arrange special visits to airfields used for flights over "the Hump" during World War II for one of my groups. I even found two former Chinese fliers who worked with the American forces to meet with my friends. Also, I had the great honor to lead a group that included the descendents of the private secretary to John Leighton Stuart, the last American ambassador to China before 1949, and to arrange a visit for them to Beijing (formerly Yanjing) University, where Dr. Stuart had been president many years before. Not only was that a wonderful group to travel with, but I also learned so much about my country's history during that special period. As I told all my friends who traveled with me in the past, one of the things I treasure the most about my trips is that I learn so much from my groups while I am introducing them to my country.

I'll close this message with my warmest wishes to all my old and new friends for a peaceful, happy and propserous New Year, and with the hope that we will meet in China (or in America) in 2002!

C.S.T. Number 2034611-40

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