The Importance of Travel
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Written by Rev. Dr. Mike Hegeman
When I was 20 years old, I took the opportunity to travel to far Western China to teach English. The year was 1987, and the trip encompassed part of three months: June, July & August. I had just finished my junior year at Grand Canyon University, and I thought a trip abroad would be the perfect thing. I had not left the continental United States since I was 6, when my family had returned from 5 years in the South Pacific, and I was itching to see the world.
I remember that the students and faculty from GCU who were participating in this trip had several preparatory gatherings. We learned a few Mandarin phrases to get us by in an emergency: Nán cèsuǒ zài nǎ'er? (Where is the men’s room?), Duōshǎo qián? (How much does this cost?), and Wǒ shì měiguó rén (I am an American.), and we learned about Chinese culture and the Communist system that had dominated China since 1949. We learned how to be hospitable guests of China, learning that we had as much to learn and gain as we had to offer.
1987 was a time of openness in China, but where we ended up had seen few Westerners. After landing in Beijing and taking a couple of days to get oriented (and to visit the Great Wall), we took a Chinese Airlines flight to the far west to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province. I remember how smokey the air was on that flight, and that we were each given a little collapsible paper fan to keep cool. Landing in Urumqi, we encountered not only the arid climate (much like Arizona), but we also encountered the stark realities of a divided society.
In this part of China, the majority of the people were Uyghurs, a major branch of the Turkic family that stretches from Mongolia to modern-day Turkey. The ruling class, however, was composed of Han Chinese. The Han ruled over the Uyghurs, making them second-class citizens, in a supposedly “classless” country. In the weeks we spent teaching at an agricultural college there, we saw the tensive intersection between these two cultures. They each ran on a separate time schedule. The Han Chinese ran on “Beijing Time,” even though Beijing was 2780 km away (about as far as Denver from New York City.) The Uyghurs ran on “Local time” - a difference of three hours.
The local Uyghur population had a Muslim heritage, but few people practiced their religion. One afternoon, I was invited by a couple of my Uyghurs students to visit their home for lunch. At the meal, they bowed their heads and folded their hands. I asked them what they were doing, and they said, “We do not know.”
I came to appreciate the Uyghur people, their gracious hospitality, their openness, and rich heritage. I remember entering into a Uyghur market, and it felt like I’d been teleported to another world. The smells of livestock and aromatic spices, the cacophony of buyers and sellers, and the vibrant colors of their native costumes. And then there was the music! Stringed lutes and drums, strange flutes, and clanging symbols. It was intoxicating. And sad.
Knowing how downtrodden they were was heart-rending then. Little did I know that these Uyghur people would face, within 30 years, some of the harshest oppression on the planet.
What I gained from travelling halfway across the planet when I was 20 years old, was a glimpse into another world, that was also my world. It wasn’t an alien planet. It was the same planet. I fell in love with the Uyghur people, and saw in them, even though their culture was so different from my own, a shared humanity.
It is why I continue to travel, to be transported to other worlds, in hopes of encountering sister and brother human beings, and to love them as I am called to love in Christ’s name, giving and receiving in equal measure.