I am so excited to know that you will come to China and can stay with me in Xuzhou for two weeks. I will be free in February and will have a lot of time to show you around our beautiful city. During your stay here, we can go to Xuzhou Museum, walk around Yunlong Lake, climb up to the top of Yunlong Hill and see beautiful Xuzhou. There is also a lot of nice food to eat in Xuzhou. I’m sure you’ll have a very good time here.

I am only in China for a short time. Chinese people are very friendly, just like people at home in Canada. I can speak a little Chinese, but I can’t write it. I’m trying to study and speak it. I often try to speak Chinese to my Chinese friends. Sometimes they don’t understand me, because I can’t speak Chinese well.

I go out this morning. I am on my way to the hospital. I want to see my friend Eric there. But I don’t know how to get there. I ask a Chinese boy. The boy can’t understand me. Then I take out a pen and some paper. I draw a man in bed on it, give the picture to the boy and say something about it. The boy smiles and then shows me the way to the hospital. So I see my friend at last.

Please email me soon!

Andy

Sophie Chen is a 14-year-old girl from Taiwan. When she was 6 years old, she did something amazing! She finished a 2,100-kilometer bike journey from Xi’an, the capital city of Shaanxi, to Turpan (吐鲁番) in Xinjiang, with her parents. It took them two and a half months. Sophie became the youngest child in the world to have biked along the Silk Road. Chinese novel Journey to the West inspired her to do so.

That is not all. Sophie wrote a book about the long journey with her father Jack Chen, a professional outdoor explorer. On April 26, the book’s English version Biking the Silk Road: 6-year-old Sophie’s Fantasy Tour came out in Beijing. New World Press published it.

Now Sophie studies at Ta Hwa High School. She sees the journey as a special experience in her life. She became more hard-working and learned history and geography better because of it.  

On the way, she met many friendly local people and saw amazing things. She even picked some grapes! “The grapes in Xinjiang were so big and sweet. I have never seen them in Taiwan,” she said.  Still, it was not easy. “The biggest challenge was the bad weather and road conditions,” she said. She wrote in the book, “It was terribly hot in the Gobi Desert. I almost got sunstroke and could never have enough to drink.”

Sophie has biked in other countries, such as the United States and Turkey. This summer holiday, she plans to ride a bike from Greece to Portugal in Europe.