So last year I moved to a Chinese megacity on a wing, a prayer and two weeks' notice. My students were between nine and forty-five years old with levels ranging from absolute beginners to professionally competent. I shared a large open-plan office with all the teaching staff of the language school and the view from my window was the toilets of the luxury mall where the school was based. Said mall blasted out ear-splitting pop tracks on a three-song loop between ...

Taking some time before my next adventure undoubtedly gave me the space to process my year in China, and to work through the pile of battered notebooks that make up my travel journals. I'm writing this from Seoul, South Korea, about to take up a new contract teaching in the wilds of Gangwon province, but before I dive into the next chapter I wanted to write something about my trip to Xinjiang, which was probably the most important turning point of my time in Chin...