Stint in HK sparks US man's lifelong love of China

Benjamin Renton was only 6 years old when he traveled to China for the first time. Many years later, he refers to China as his "second home".

Renton and his family relocated from the United States to the region in 2006 because his father, a banker, had work in Hong Kong. They didn't return to the US until 2010.

Because he cherished the country where he spent some of his formative years, Renton frequently returned to China. He spent every summer between 2015 and 2019 studying, traveling, interning or participating in research projects in the country. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, making international travel more challenging.

This September, Renton embarked on a two-week trip to China after being away for three years. Over the years, he estimates he has visited the country more than 20 times. "I certainly have a very deep connection to China," Renton told China Daily.

One of his favorite things about China is how easy it is to travel around the nation. "It's such a big country, and it's so well-connected, particularly recently by train, plane or boat even," he said.

Among his many trips to China from his childhood up until two months ago, two were particularly memorable.

The first was in 2015. That summer, Renton, who said he has had a keen interest in China's "extreme and border regions", stayed with a local family in a village with people of the Naxi ethnic group near Lijiang, Yunnan province. The visit gave him the opportunity to learn about the group's society, which emphasizes the role of women in the household, mostly focuses on farming and has a beautiful script.

"I think that's really helped me to sort of go beyond what some people's conceptions of China are just in the major cities of Beijing or Shanghai, for example, and really see what else China has to offer."

The other really memorable trip was in 2017, when he took a Yangtze River cruise from Chongqing to Yichang, Hubei province. During the three-day trip, Renton, one of the few foreigners aboard who could speak Mandarin, dined with other passengers and took excursions on smaller boats to view the gorges along the river, which he said was "very cool" for him.

Renton said that on every trip he has taken to China, he has tried to do something different, but he has also enjoyed going back to places he had visited before to see changes that had occurred.

"When I used to travel with groups or by myself between Kunming and Lijiang in Yunnan province, that used to be a nine-hour train ride on one of the overnight trains, where you would sleep overnight and get there in the morning. Now, that can be done in two or three hours by bullet train," he said. "That train service has expanded down past Dali and to Xishuangbanna and into Laos, which is really cool to see. And it is cool to see the village that I stayed in near Lijiang is on the line of a new railway line that is being built."

Recalling more about his 2015 trip, Renton said he also stayed with a family in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, where he shared a room with his "homestay brother" for two weeks. "He is two or three years younger than me but is now doing a PhD at a university in Chengdu (in Sichuan province) on microbiology. And I think it's been really cool to see the development of a person who has a life that is in some ways different but in some ways is very similar," Renton said.

"My friends in China are people who go to school or go to work in the same way that we do here in the United States," he said, expressing how he enjoyed meeting them when he was in China before and how special it was to see them again when he returned in September.

Renton's last trip to China before this year was in early 2020, but he left as soon as the COVID-19 epidemic began sweeping the nation. During his September visit, he reunited with old friends, tried new things — for example, attending a traditional Chinese wedding — and visited several universities and international schools.

He said he was glad to see a China that "continued to develop over the pandemic", and he was equally happy to meet familiar people in familiar places.

"I think it's always been a priority of mine to go to China," Renton said.

He said he has always enjoyed exploring and trying something new in China, and he appreciated some of the perspectives and practices in Chinese culture, such as emphasizing family bonds and sharing food.

"And I think those types of experiences are only possible with people who open up their lives and cultures and allow people like me to meet with them and understand that. And that's been really, I think, experiences that I will always remember," he said.

From his experiences, Renton grew to understand the significance of people-to-people connections by means of activities such as study abroad programs or cultural exchanges.

"All of those opportunities are incredibly important, and I think they can also lead the way for collaboration in other areas in terms of health, the economy, or other areas of the US-China relationship," he said.