The only way you'll find the answer

Ten months in China provides plenty of revelations including that Chinese don't really look that similar after all

A minibus that operated in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, in the late 1980s carried the inscription "Travel and see". I did not understand the real meaning of that until I started traveling to other countries from the mid 1990s.

Until 10 months or so ago, I had been to quite a few countries but had never set foot in China, or indeed Asia.

Growing up, my knowledge of China was scant. I knew its staple food was rice and believed it was almost impossible to distinguish one Chinese from another. I also knew about the exploits of kung fu and was under the impression that all Chinese were kung fu experts.

In more recent years I obviously became aware of China's growing stature in the world, but my earlier rudimentary perceptions by and large remained intact until I had the opportunity to live and work in the country from February.

As a participant in the first batch of a program, China Africa Press Center, I was able to crisscross the country and meet a large cross section of Chinese people.

Anyone as lucky as me to be able to travel to Beijing, Guangdong, Yunnan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, Shandong, Fujian, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Shanghai is bound to go home with a kaleidoscope of memories.

The predominant impression I have of China after this odyssey is the massive infrastructure development that is taking place in every corner of the country.

For me, the crowning glory is the effort Chinese authorities are putting into making transport easy not only for their compatriots but for visitors to the country as well.

Once you improve transport, it is easy for other developments to fall seamlessly into place, which is essentially what one Chinese official in Jiangxi province told me.

For Chinese engineers, neither the highest peaks nor the deepest valleys are an impediment to building roads or railway lines to link remote areas and major cities.

In some of the provinces I visited, such as Yunnan and Fujian, long tunnels have been dug through soaring mountains to make way for railway lines and roads, and in other places, pillars have been put up to overcome nature's obstinacy.

One effect of this is that Chinese tourism is booming. Tourists not only from all parts of China, but all parts of the planet as well are flocking to tourist attractions across the country. The Great Wall and the Forbidden City in Beijing are obvious magnets, but they are by no means the only ones. Sanqing Mountain in Jiangxi province and old Dali town in Yunnan province are far from the well-beaten tourist track, but they, too, are attracting visitors in huge numbers.

Most people looking on China from afar are apt to think it is a country of just one or two peoples, but having traveled through this land of 56 ethnic groups I have well and truly been disabused of that notion.

My earlier naive impression that all Chinese are virtually indistinguishable one from another was given particularly short shrift in Yunnan, where about 25 ethnic groups live together in a specially created village.

Here they exhibit their cultures to enthusiastic visitors who troop there daily to sample China's multiethnic richness.

On a two-month study program I took part in at Beijing International Chinese College I learned a great deal about Chinese culture.

I learned about the burning of incense, and of tea ceremonies, and of how this ancient beverage is cherished as a bonding agent as it brings people together for chit-chats or to discuss matters of the gravest kind.

There are numerous types of tea, of course, and on a visit to a tea house in Beijing I developed a taste for hong cha (black tea) and lu cha (green tea). I hope to continue to drink tea when I return to Africa.

My 10-month stay also convinced me that Africa has a special place in China's heart. Wherever I went, everyone, from government officials to the most humble villager, extended warmth to me and demonstrated profound respect for Africa, to such a degree that I have no doubt the relationship between continent and country will continue to flourish in the years and decades to come.

The presence of China all across Africa is evident already. The value of annual trade has surpassed $200 billion, and that figure will undoubtedly continue rising.

One area in which the relationship can be further cemented is in people-to-people dealings. If that happens, there should be more opportunities for journalists from the two sides to study each other's cultures so that they can educate their readers, listeners and viewers.

Another thing that has greatly impressed me in China is the sturdy work ethic of its people. One element of that, the feeling that there is no time to hang around because it's time to get to work, is evident in the economic fruits that it produces.

The attitude to many Africans to work is rather more laissez-faire, and I reckon our continent would do well to take a leaf out of China's lesson book.

The concept of heaven on Earth is very much a work of the mind, and no place on the planet is free of its problems. For me, one of the most pressing of these in China is the air pollution in its big cities, something I was given a full taste of in Beijing.

Yet even with this, given the threat that this pollution poses to health, I have little doubt that Chinese ingenuity that has built its impressive railways will find a solution to the problem.

All these years after seeing the advertising blurb on that bus in Accra, a slogan that comes across as simplistic, or at least as a truism - my stay in China has underlined that there is much more to it than meets the eye. Travel and see, indeed.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 12/12/2014 page7)