China can be both a daunting and an enriching experience to western newcomers. With a chronicled history of more than 5,000 years, the country has gone through various societal changes, from the earliest primitivism to the present day socialism.

Despite being the most powerful and technologically advanced country in most of its past days, China's interaction with the west is quite recent, starting only from a few hundred years ago, and this interaction often comes in forms of being oppressed in various ways. The result is a culture that may seem paradoxical to the western eye, a culture that carries with it a certain attitude to the West. A journey into this unfamiliar soil is certainly not to be taken lightly, but with helpful local guidance it is also bound to be full of pleasant surprises and enormous rewards.