Faces of China
Some countries stay in our memory through landscapes.
Others remain through faces.
For me, China became a country of faces.
When we travel, we often rush toward landmarks, temples, museums, and famous streets. Yet what I remember most are not monuments. I remember people.
The fish seller with kind eyes.
The student proudly showing her notebook filled with careful Chinese characters.
The supermarket girls who laughed easily and posed for my camera.
The strangers on trains, in markets, at stations, and cafés who, for a brief moment, allowed me into their world.
These were all chance meetings.
I had never known these people before, and yet many of them stayed with me long after I left.
There was something deeply moving about everyday life in China. I found people open, hardworking, warm, and surprisingly curious. Sometimes we exchanged words. Sometimes only smiles. Occasionally, we understood one another without sharing a language at all.
I met Catherine Hou during a walk along Jinjihu Road in Suzhou. She worked as a project manager and spoke excellent English. Curious about life in China, I asked her what she thought of her country and its people.
She answered thoughtfully.
“Most Chinese people are hardworking and kind,” she told me. “Families often live together because it is easier to take care of one another. Grandparents help raise children while parents work.”
Then she spoke of education.
“For many children, studying is the only path to a better future. They work very hard. Sometimes too hard.”
Her words stayed with me.
Later, in a railway station, a young girl approached me with complete confidence. We shared no common language. She spoke no English; I spoke no Chinese. Yet somehow we spoke perfectly.
She showed me her schoolbook, filled with handwritten notes and tiny characters carefully squeezed into every blank space. I remember admiring her determination, her hunger for knowledge, the seriousness shining through such a young face.
Then there were children at vegetable markets, mothers travelling with babies on trains, boys racing bicycles around me with endless energy, monks from a monastery smiling patiently for my photographs, and workers who somehow found warmth even in long days of labour.
I still remember one fish seller who cleaned a large carp for me with great concentration. When he finished, he raised his thumb proudly and smiled as if we had completed something important together.
Small moments.
Brief encounters.
Yet somehow unforgettable.
Perhaps travel teaches us something simple:
every country has its landmarks, yet people are always its true soul.
