🌱 Elaine’s Notes
I don’t remember exactly what I expected when Dad first told me we were going to China.
I was only nine years old.
To me, Beijing was simply a place I had heard about.
The capital of China.
The city with the Great Wall.
The city with a giant palace where emperors once lived.
I didn’t understand dynasties.
I didn’t understand thousands of years of history.
I definitely wasn’t thinking about how one trip would become the beginning of a much longer journey.
I was just excited to explore somewhere new with Dad.
And somewhere during that first Beijing trip…
Panda joined us.
🐼 The Little Panda From Beijing Zoo
Dad bought Panda for me during our visit to Beijing Zoo.
At that time, Panda was just a cute souvenir.
A memory from my first China adventure.
I didn’t know this little Panda would still be around many years later.
I didn’t know Panda would travel with me again.
I didn’t know that one day, I would bring Panda back to the same country where our journey started.
🐼 Panda’s Thought
“When I first met Elaine, she was just a little girl excited about Beijing.”
“I didn’t know we were only at the first chapter.”
🌱 Returning To Beijing Years Later
When Dad and I returned to Beijing again, something felt different.
The city was familiar…
but I was different.
The first time, I saw the Forbidden City as a huge palace.
The second time, I started wondering about the emperors who lived there.
The first time, Wangfujing was just a colourful street filled with lights, shops and food.
The second time, I noticed how Beijing had changed while still keeping pieces of its past.
The places were the same.
But the way I looked at them had changed.
🌱 From Seeing Places To Finding Stories
Over the years, Dad brought me deeper into China.
Not just the famous places.
But places I never expected to visit.
Xi’an.
Baoji.
Hancheng.
Yuncheng.
Small cities with big stories.
Slowly, names that I saw in books became real places.
The Zhou Dynasty was no longer just a line on my timeline.
The Qin Dynasty was no longer just the Terracotta Warriors.
The emperors were no longer just names to memorise.
They became connected to places I had walked through.
🐼 Panda’s Thought
“Something changed…”
“The little girl who once asked Dad where we were going was now asking why these places mattered.”
🌱 My China Timeline
One of the things I started doing was creating my own Chinese emperor timeline.
At first, I just wanted everything to make sense.
There were so many dynasties.
So many emperors.
So many names.
I wanted to see how everything connected.
But after travelling, I realised something:
A timeline can show when things happened.
Travelling shows why they mattered.
Standing in the actual places changed the way I understood the stories.
🐼 Coming Home With Panda
That is why bringing Panda back to Beijing felt special.
Panda was there when China was just a new place I was discovering.
Years later, Panda was still there when I started understanding the stories behind those places.
Maybe Panda didn’t just follow me back to Beijing.
Maybe Panda followed my whole journey of growing up.
From a little girl visiting China…
to someone trying to understand it.
And the journey is still continuing.
— Elaine 🌱
🐼 Panda’s Final Thought
“Beijing was where our first chapter began.”
“I wonder where Elaine will take us next.”
Next journey:
🐧 Cheers joins me as we continue discovering the stories hidden across China…
