I grew up as a Chinese Indonesian born girl with parents who are madly seriously proud of the Chinese blood running in their veins. They brought me up to be as equal proud. However, my impression about China was temples, like the temples in Jakarta's Kota area. Especially when I look up and see the figure of a mouth-opened-dragon with its forked tongue dangling in the air, that's like a horror movie to me. When I was a kid and had vacation in Semarang (Central Java), I refused to go into one famous temple there. It looked dark, spooky, and... scary.
One more thing, Chinese characters for me, reminded me of tombstones. I imagined that in China it would be worst. Temples, dragons, and tombstones everywhere. I never wanted to go to China.
But when I started to watch channels like National Geographic, I saw that China is not all about temples. The big and beautiful China was nothing in comparison to "Kota" in Jakarta. I gradually fell in love with the nature. So when Insight Guides offered me to pick up a title as an appreciation for my comments on "Insight Guide Vietnam", I chose "Insight Guide China" even I didn't know when I would have the chance to visit this country.
The description, and especially the photos, in "Insight Guide China" made me promise myself that I would one day go to China. Suddenly, not until a year later, I already set foot for the first time on Grandpa's homeland. National Geographic did not lie to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment