From 'Love Encounters' to Entrepreneurship: The Travel Story of a Tsinghua University Student
Chengdu, a city loved by literary youths, has spawned numerous guesthouses due to the influx of tourists, and ‘Xiao Bie’ is one of them. ‘Xiao Bie is like a new wedding’.
The protagonist, we’ll call him ‘Xiao Bie,’ doesn’t actually have ‘Bie’ in his name. He met him during a trip to Chengdu, and he learned a few stories about him.
Xiao Bie was born in Fujian, grew up in Hunan, studied in Beijing, and graduated from Tsinghua University, which is a dream for most Chinese people. Instead of getting a decent job or selling pork, he packed his backpack and traveled around.
He spent two years traveling almost all over China.
Lijiang, a small city in Yunnan, is known as the ‘City of Encounters,’ a place many travelers long for. In the eyes of travelers, Lijiang is not only an ancient city but also authentic Naxi cuisine, Naxi roasted fish, butter tea, and Lijiang – all must-try foods.
Like cliché romance dramas, Xiao Bie couldn’t escape the trope. In Lijiang, he met a girl from Sichuan, and his admiration grew, so he followed her to Sichuan and then to Chengdu.
Xiao Bie is a very strange person, as he himself says, ‘He’s an oddball.’ Oddballs always do odd things. Bored Xiao Bie slapped his forehead one afternoon and declared, ‘I’m going to open a guesthouse.’
To raise the money needed for the guesthouse, Xiao Bie sold everything he had, from location selection to renovation, from beds and furniture to toothpaste and toothbrushes. For this clueless handyman, it was the biggest challenge – for example, changing the bedding for 4 beds took an entire day. Nevertheless, the guesthouse was finally opened.
Many backpackers considered ‘Xiao Bie’s Guesthouse’ a home, leaving a short but precious memory in their long journeys. Travelers from all corners of the world shared their travel stories and experiences. There was a talkative Northeastern big brother, and a young girl who returned from a high-altitude trip on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway after suffering from altitude sickness and bleeding from her nose. Xiao Bie found happiness in their stories.
Xiao Bie’s favorite girl was from Mianyang, Sichuan, because of work, she could only meet him on weekends in Chengdu. After much consideration, Xiao Bie closed the guesthouse and went to Mianyang. I don’t know what happened to him afterwards, except that he got married.
It cost a lot of money and brought a lot of rewards, from meeting, to starting a business, to getting married.
What is the meaning of traveling? As Xiao Lu said: ‘Go to different places, see different scenery, learn about different things, and gain insights into different lives. Reading thousands of books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles. Traveling can let you see things you've never seen before – landscapes that only appear on television will be right in front of your eyes.’
You can see the sunrise over the sea, and the sunset on the plateau. You can go to Northeast China to see a snowstorm, or to Hainan to smell the aroma of coconuts and dates.
You can experience the vastness of the desert and the crowd in the park.
To do things you’ve never done before, to meet more strangers, or to have a passionate romance – perhaps that's the meaning of traveling.
