"Journey to the Middle Kingdom" is a celebration of travel: it is the memoir of a young musician's first visit to China. Fulfilling a long-cherished ambition, Christopher West filled a rucksack and headed for China. He travelled up the eastern side of China by train, bus and boat, following an idiosyncratic intinerary which included places as diverse as modern, capitalist Guangzhov (Canton); the home of a Communist Party official in Suzhou; and Qufu, the provincial town where people still revere a king who died 3000 years ago. The process comes to a climax on the Great Wall, high in the beautiful Yanshan mountains. As he confronts the world's oldest continuous civilization, the author is forced to embark on a parallel, inner journey, testing his Western values and beliefs against those of his new surroundings.