The lively and colourful Tongren Shaman Festival at Qinghai was one of the highlights of Kanchana Srifuengfung’s trip to China in 2019 
Nasha Jungkankul enjoying the vista at Tianmen mountain in Changsha
Founder and CEO of dehydrated fruits and healthy nibbles brand Kunna snacks, Nasha Jungkankul admits to having a passion for China since her days at university. The international relations major studied the Chinese language and took in the local culture, people and more during her sojourn. “My first significant stay in China was in 2006 when I was in my third year of university in Thailand. I was in the intern programme at the Thai embassy in Beijing for three months,” Bow, as she is more readily known, says. Her second long-term visit was when she stayed to study further the language. She laughs, “I kind of merged into the local society and learned how the people lived. Most were just doing their best to get by. They were really admirable.”
In recent years Bow has travelled regularly to China as a representative of the Thai Chinese Asean Cultural and Economic Council and to study the market for her snack food business. “The major part of my business is in China, so I like to know what’s trending among customers there. I have visited many of the country’s major cities, including Harbin, Nanning, Shenzhen and Guangzhou,” she smiles, adding, “on these trips I always leave a bit of free time for leisure and exploration.” A seeker of hidden gems and spots, Bow recalls climbing the famed 999 steps of Tianmen mountain in Hunan province back in 2019. “It is quite hard to breathe the thin air but once you get up there, well…,” she sighs. “It’s just like the name suggests: heaven’s gate.”
She poses in the streets of Changsha 
Nasha at the famed 999 steps to Heaven’s Gate at Tianmen mountain
The vast natural splendour of the country aside, the modernity and break-neck speed at which development is happening in China is also something that impresses Bow. “Shanghai’s bullet and maglev trains and so many new transportation methods are just so exciting. Things change every single week there, on a daily basis even. Every time I return to Shanghai there’s something new to look at.” Innovations on a smaller scale, such as a new mobile phone service to place a coffee order five minutes prior to arriving at the café—and tech giant Alibaba’s new offline retail supermarket Hema, where nearly everything has been digitised or automated with robots—keep Bow coming back. “They will have been developing new things even during the Covid-19 outbreak. I can’t wait to see what exactly.”
The phrase ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’ comes to mind when the 33-year-old says, “I try to live my life in China as the locals do. I use a local sim card to keep connected and I have Alipay on my phone. I was shopping in Hangzhou a few years ago and only had a credit card and a fist-full of yuan banknotes. When I went to pay for something, the clerk thought I was weird for not using Alipay. It’s a charming country and in many ways a good role model for other nations. China has come so far so quickly not only because of its sheer size but also because of the industry of its people.”
The elaborate thangka paintings inside the Tibetan Medicine Museum of China in Xining 
Kanchana Srifuengfung on a hike to the Halong glacier
Known as Esther, the retired Kanchana Srifuengfung has had an affinity for China ever since being a witness to some of that country’s most turbulent internal modern upheavals. The 74-year-old reminisces, “I have been visiting China since the late 1970s. There was a rapprochement in relations with Beijing at the time and Zhou Enlai had come to Thailand on a formal visit with Thailand’s ambassador to Beijing. When he returned to China, the ambassador invited some people to visit, which was an incredible opportunity.” She continues, “I went along with my younger sister. We were there not long after Mao Zedong died and things were a bit chaotic. The Gang of Four were still on trial.”
In the intervening years Esther has seen the country change and as a keen follower of cultural history it is through the Siam Society that her most recent trip to China came about. “In July 2019 I joined a trip to Qinghai near the northeastern border of Tibet. I wasn’t initially keen on going but it was an opportunity to witness two festivals happening at the same time,” she explains. The festivals she refers to were based on shaman practices and featured witch doctors who communed with the gods in a trance. “They would sort of foam at the mouth and dance weird moves, but to the community there this was communication from the gods to ensure safety, good fortune and more. The whole thing was like something out of National Geographic or a documentary on the occult. It was mysterious, exotic and fascinating,” she says.
Kanchana poses in front of the Jyegu Monastery
The experienced explorer spent 11 days on the move. “We would sit in a bus for four or five hours at a stretch and the further we travelled, the further back in time we seemed to go. It was so illuminating to see particularly how the Tibetans have preserved their ways,” Esther says. “During the festivals people dressed in traditional attire and it transported us to an era of elegance and pride.”
Having visited many of China’s big cities in the past, this was a chance for Esther to experience the seemingly endless grasslands and yellow mustard fields of the high plateaus of Tibet, where the backdrop is always a dramatic vista of snow-topped mountains. “We passed through villages where the locals still practised archery and keep yaks. We visited Xining where we learned about one of the largest thangka paintings in the world at the Tibetan Medicine Museum of China,” she continues. “And we got to watch a horse racing festival in Yushu.” Describing the tour as one of her best to China, Esther picks one last cultural highlight. “We were privileged to witness an ancient funeral practice called a sky burial, where the deceased is left out in a high place for the vultures. It was an eye opener. I’m so glad I went and can’t wait to go again. There is just so much to see and do in China.”
Kasemsit, Runrad and Pichitra Pathomsak on a trip to discover Zhangjiajie’s natural beauty
The first time Pichitra visited China was in 1988 when she was a teenager. Her love for the country is something she shares with husband Kasemsit Pathomsak, who began visiting when he was a small boy. Their first impressions? “Well this was before what we think of as modern China, when everybody still wore the same uniform and the government’s shopping malls, called Friendship Stores, were the norm,” laughs Pichitra, who also recalls two different currencies in use at the time. “There was the renminbi and the waihui jian, respectively used by locals and foreigners for a while until they settled on the renminbi in the 80s.”
You have to understand the place before you go, otherwise it’s just meaningless sightseeing.
— Pichitra Pathornsak
The couple having fun in the city
Kasemsit says of his first visit, “It was like going back a few decades. China was behind us. In those days they didn’t even have proper running water and there were chickens and pigs still running around downtown streets. But look how far they have come,” smiles the executive chairman of Merchant Partners Asset Management. “Thirty-five years ago the Chinese came to Bangkok and were excited about our tall buildings and technology. Now whatever we have they have, and whatever we don’t have they have too!” he laughs.
The couple regularly visit China for their business meetings. “We’re always bringing groups of relatives and friends back to the heritage cities where their ancestors were born. And we help raise funds to build schools in nearby villages as a way to give back,” says Pichitra. Descended from old and respected families in the Thai-Chinese community, the entire Pathomsak household is educated in Mandarin and can speak the language to some degree. “Even on business trips for international chamber meetings and Silk Road International Chamber of Commerce gatherings we try to involve our children, Runrad and Chadhip,” says their mother, who is also a director of the family’s Pathomsak Holdings.
Although business takes the family to many locations in China, Xi’an has always been their favourite starting point. “It’s one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals and a home to the Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty to unite China and give it a common written language,” says Kasemsit enthusiastically. Xi’an is also the location of the renowned terracotta army. “It’s a very exciting city. Every time you go it feels like we are stepping back in time,” he continues. “There are a lot of Central Asian influences and even some Arabian because it’s part of the Silk Road to Beijing.”
Chengdu is known for its pandas
Mixing business and pleasure is the way the family prefers to experience China, as Pichitra says. “We look up and research the places we plan to visit, learn about the local secrets and talk to people who have been. You have to understand the place before you go, otherwise it’s just meaningless sightseeing.” Destinations such as Chengdu and the Zhangjiajie mountain ranges are among some of the many that the Pathomsak family has visited. But Kasemsit’s advice is to begin with the classics. “Beijing itself is worth at least a week or two. Check out the museums, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. Just don’t get lost in one of the 9,999 rooms of the latter or you will be stuck in there for years!”
Snapped in 2008, Napawong Snidvongs sits beside a beautiful remote late in Kashgar
Napawong Snidvongs had her first adventure in China not long after turning 19 in 1999. “I went with my parents and some friends to Beijing and we visited the Forbidden Palace, the Summer Palace, parts of the Great Wall, the usual places,” chuckles Napawong, or Waan. What the founder of family-friendly community mall Bambini Villa remembers most is the scale of things, as she says, “Everything just seemed so enormous even though we only ever saw a small part of it.”
It wasn’t until after 2005 that Waan had the chance to go back to China. “I had met my husband by then,” she says, referring to Thai-China business champion Joe Horn-Phathanothai. “His office is in China and much of the time we work together there for his ChangAi Children’s Project, which assists youths in poor villages in southern Yunnan. I think he had it in his mind to cover all the provinces in China, so we’ve been to a few far-flung regions together… Shangri-La, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang included.”
On a trip to Lijiang with husband-to-be Joe Horn-Phathanothai in 2007
When the couple, who married in 2009, visited Shangri-La in 2006 it was not particularly open or tourist friendly. “The roads weren’t great, they were scary,” laughs Waan. “We were going up the mountain and there was no protection on the cliff side at all. There were very few people and it was very beautiful up there.” Subsequent trips to locations such as Lijiang and Zhangjiajie came over the years, but often Joe, who grew up in China and can speak the language fluently, had to go to China on business by himself. “I still want to visit Tibet before it changes too much,” says Waan wistfully.
Perhaps she is inspired by one of the couple’s more memorable trips to Inner Mongolia. “That came about because we wanted to visit Ulaanbaatar, in Outer Mongolia, but couldn’t because there were protests and rioting in the streets at the time,” Waan explains. “Instead we went horse riding on the steppe with friends and stayed in yurts. The food wasn’t easy to get used to but we tried it all. The local hospitality was brilliant and I run out of ways to describe the scenery, the scale of it and the peace and serenity.”
Posing with local children on a visit to Shangri-La in 2006
Xinjiang was another trip that Waan remembers well. She went with Joe and his family in 2008. “We were looking for this natural rock feature in the landscape called Shipton’s Arch and started in Kashgar town. We hired a car and drove across a desert for two or three hours. We got to the bottom of the arch and could see it was quite a climb, including a really difficult bit,” Waan explains. “When we reached the hard section, waiting there were some enterprising kids who offered to rent us their ladder! We were a captive clientele. We just had to hope the kids were still there when it was time to descend. Thankfully they were—and naturally the ladder was twice as expensive coming back down!”
Suthini Jumsai with daughter Maymay at one of Suzhou’s many gardens in 1978 
Suthini, her husband Dr Sumet and friends pose at Dunhuang during a visit in 2011
Shanghai native Suthini Jumsai, wife of famed architect Dr Sumet, left China in 1961 when she was seven years old. The former proprietor of a publishing house says, “I spent more than 20 years living in Hong Kong and Thailand before I re-visited Shanghai. This was in the early 1980s and China had begun to open the door to the outside. Since then I have been back on numerous occasions to visit relatives and do some sightseeing.”
Recalling that first trip like it was yesterday Suthini laughs, “It was 1978 I think when ping pong diplomacy came to Thailand. So I said, ‘Sumet! This is a good opportunity. Go ask the Chinese embassy whether we can travel to China because their people came here to play ping pong.’ To our surprise the embassy said to my husband, who at the time was the head of the Thai Architect’s Association, that they would welcome any of its delegates. Sumet went back to his association and suddenly 60 architects and their spouses were going to China!”
While Shanghai will be familiar to many, a short 30-minute train ride away is Suzhou, Suthini’s ancestral home and favourite city. “My forebears came from Suzhou, which is famous for its beautiful gardens, some as old as a thousand years,” she says. Back in the day the city was also known for its benign weather and fantastic Chinese calligraphy, poetry and more. “So a lot of officials and wealthy people retired to Suzhou to build themselves lovely mansions and wonderful gardens. They still do today,” Suthini smiles.
Another picture of the scenic gardens
Another favourite destination is Pingyao in the central province of Shanxi. “In antiquity it was an important stop on the Tea Road,” Suthini explains, referring to the ancient trail that connected southern China and its quality teas with markets in Mongolia and Russia. The trade route turned the city into a hub for banks and martial arts schools for their protection. The beautiful houses, which are among the ancient city’s popular attractions, include the building used in the famous movie Raise the Red Lantern, according to Suthini.
On a more recent trip to China with her husband and friends in 2011, Suthini visited Dunhuang on the edge of the Gobi Desert. “Many, many centuries ago people met there to trade and they built cave dwellings which they hired artists to decorate with murals, carvings and statues. The caves are now open to the public and the artwork is still so vivid after more than 1,000 years,” she smiles. “If I had to recommend places to see, Dunhuang, Pingyao and Suzhou’s gardens are on the list for sure, but truthfully they could be joined by so many more.”
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