A Journey to Another World: Xi'an & Lanzhou, China

I hate to admit it, but I once carried some quiet prejudices about China. The kind you don’t announce out loud, but let settle somewhere in the back of your mind. They were shaped by headlines, by political noise, by narratives repeated often enough to feel convincing. And yes, by a few past encounters that lingered in memory longer than they should have. Travel, however, has a way of humbling you. It confronts your assumptions without ceremony and leaves you no choice but to look closer.

Visiting Xi’an and Lanzhou—cities shaped by centuries of Silk Road stories—forced that reckoning. These are not cities built for spectacle or foreign validation. They are cities that carry history in layers, worn but resilient, unapologetic in their continuity. Walking their streets, you feel time not as something preserved behind glass, but as something lived, argued with, and carried forward. So yes, this photo series deserves the title Perspective. Because that’s exactly what shifted.

I truly thought I’d struggle with the locals. I expected tension, indifference, maybe even hostility. Instead, I found the opposite. Communication was a challenge, of course. English isn’t widely spoken, and my Mandarin extends only as far as politeness allows. But language, I learned again, is only one way to connect. What mattered more was intent. And everywhere I went, people were warm, patient, and unexpectedly kind.

They were loud, yes. Vibrant, undeniably so. Phones held at arm’s length on loudspeaker, animated conversations spilling into public spaces, music playing without apology. But there was no malice in it. No aggression. Just life unfolding at full volume. It took me a moment to understand that what I initially read as chaos was simply a different rhythm—one that doesn’t prioritize quiet, but presence.

People assumed I was bound for Shanghai or Beijing for the meetings and workshop. That would have made sense. Those are the cities the world knows, the ones that dominate postcards and perceptions. Instead, I found myself in what some might casually label as “mid-tier” Chinese cities—places that are anything but mid. Because China runs on its own scale. One that recalibrates your understanding of size, speed, and ambition almost immediately.

Train stations felt like airports. Airports felt like cities. Transport systems were seamless, efficient, and relentlessly forward-looking. Infrastructure stretched beyond the horizon, not as a promise, but as a statement. This is a country that builds with intent, that thinks decades ahead, that refuses to settle for “good enough.” Mediocrity, it seems, is treated as a failure of imagination.

And underlying all of this is grit. Determination. A deep, unmistakable sense of national pride. You feel it everywhere—in how people speak about their cities, their history, their future. There is confidence here, sometimes bordering on defiance. A belief in continuity, in endurance, in the inevitability of progress.

But even with all of that—power, scale, ambition—they cannot have everything. They will never have everything.

And let me say this plainly and bluntly: what is ours is ours, and will always remain rightfully ours. No amount of pressure, intimidation, or posturing can break the Filipino spirit. That truth traveled with me, quietly but firmly, through every station, street, and city I passed through.

Perspective doesn’t mean surrendering conviction. It means understanding complexity without losing clarity. And this journey reminded me that two things can coexist: respect for a people, and resolve in who we are.

Travel didn’t erase my opinions.

It refined them.