Nothing prepared me for China.
In Xiamen, a city of five million, I walked up to 12km some days, past glittering malls, bustling fish markets, and serene gardens, rode bullet trains, got lost regularly and met hundreds of locals.
I saw three foreigners all week. Not once did I feel unsafe, just the opposite. Shopkeepers, police, and even a Mongolian family, who adopted me for a day at the botanical gardens, treated me like someone worth cherishing. Strangers smiled widely and gave me thumbs up when I ate oyster pancakes with plastic gloves instead of chopsticks.
The people are very happy, friendly, clean, well dressed, the streets and shops are spotless and 200+ kilometres from the city was exactly the same.
WeChat was a blessing, it’s like Facebook on steroids, it pays bills, translates messages instantly, answers questions, even hires bikes. The city floats on kindness. No drunks, no aggression, just teenagers practising English on me and grandparents laughing as I tried to say ‘Xiamen’.
I went to trace my great-grandfather, a 17-year-old shepherd who left for Australia before the gold rush. After searching museums, universities, and hospitals, the city library spent an hour with me and they’re still looking. I was seven days in a place where kindness was effortless and where an 82-year-old stranger can walk all day and never feel unwelcome.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
