For those of us living and working in China, it’s been an interesting couple of months. As the COVID-19 Coronavirus spreads its way around the world, we’ve seen communities, cities, and even entire countries go into lockdown mode. Unprecedented travel restrictions have literally sprung up overnight, all in an effort to curb the spread of this new virus. It’s a challenging time for everyone, and not surprisingly, everybody has their own way of dealing with the stress. For my part, I’ve been using any extra spare time to revisit my reading list.
I first heard about “An American Bum in China” on a Reddit discussion thread last year, and the crazy story instantly appealed to me. This is the true story of Matthew Evans, a young man from Iowa without very much going for him, who decides on a whim to visit China for the very best of reasons… to meet a girl he met on MySpace. With no money, no work visa, no Chinese language skills and no prospects of any kind, Matthew’s initial week-long trip grew to become an amazing– no, make that epic– five-year adventure. From homelessness to a college professorship, from sneaking across national borders to finding free room and board in an Occupy Hong Kong protest camp, Evans refused to let any obstacle block his pursuit of love.
In addition to laughing out loud at the way author Tom Carter faithfully narrated Evans’ escapades, I was struck by the freewheeling, resourceful way that this young man managed to navigate his way across a foreign country. When Evans got an idea to go to China, he just packed a bag and bought a plane ticket. When he needed a college degree to land a legitimate job, he just went out and purchased a fake one in Shanghai. And when he found himself out of money, he came up with a plan to sneak into Burma and sell his US passport. Matthew Evans, even if he could honestly be described as a “bum,” seems to be a determined one.
“An American Bum in China” turned out to be just the escapist read that I needed. This short book is a throwback to a completely different time, an era when travelling to other countries was actually a possibility… never mind that time was only a few short months ago. Hang in there, everybody– this too shall pass. With any luck, it won’t be much longer until Matthew Evans, and all the rest of the world’s budget travelers, are back out there on the road again, doing their thing.