Name: Anna Trott
From: Maidstone, Kent
Living in: Guangzhou

“China is truly a place of contrasts; rich and poor, old and modern, sublime and ridiculous!  It’s a challenging place to live, but so very rewarding.”

Inspired by her father who came to China in the 1980s for work, Anna Trott came to China to teach for a year on a British Council Exchange programme in Nanjing in 2000.  Originally, she planned to stay for one year on a British Council Exchange programme to teach in Nanjing University.  Six months later, she left the city to travel around China, ending in South China.  In Sichuan, she climbed mountains, slept in monasteries and was rescued by armed monks from a bunch of fierce monkeys, before crossing to Kunming in Yunnan Province.  She ended up staying six years.

In addition to teaching, Anna opened up her own English school and published a textbook with Fudan University Press.  Currently, she is the regional manager for a study abroad company, where she manages a network of agents and delivers presentations across Southern China. By helping Chinese student to study in the UK, USA and Australia she hopes this will give them the opportunity to discover the same sense of discovery living overseas that she has experienced for herself in China.

She discovered early on that it is often better to accept her adopted culture and do things the China way. Two months after arriving in Nanjing her back gave out.  She was lifted down seven flights of stairs on a stretcher and taken to the local Western hospital.  She returned home undiagnosed and found the state of her back was deteriorating.  After another trip on the stretched down the stairs she was taken to a local Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital for a course of acupuncture.  Twenty minutes later, she was surprisingly feeling better and able to walk again.

Nine years in China have created countless memorable stories.  She has travelled extensively across the country, including a memorable trip to Xinjiang in Western China in 2002.  On a local bus travelling from Kashgar to Pakistan, aisles packed with material and other goods showed that the ancient Silk Road was still very much in use.  Fantastic scenery of red mountains, wild camels, the vast desert and camaraderie amongst passengers - despite them having no common language - all added to the experience.