by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 31, 2016 | two girls in China
China is not an easy country to travel for someone who does not know the language. You cannot just arrive and decide day-by-day where and what to do. Why is that? – Very few people speak English – All the signs are in Chinese – Chinese people are 1.3...
by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 30, 2016 | two girls in China
Here we are, less than a week left and then off we go! And so the time to pack has arrived… Jesuits in the XVII century packed very differently from us. They crossed deserted areas and camped in the middle of nowhere, They had to carry tents, supplies, tables,...
by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 28, 2016 | two girls in China
Nǐ hǎo! Mandarin isn’t an easy language to learn usually, but with help from the Language Centre we will learn some basics to help navigate our way through the more rural areas of China. China has eight major dialects; Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fuzhou...
by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 12, 2016 | two girls in China
Who said traveling is easier today? Queuing now at the Visa Application Center with a folder full of documents and forms to get a tourist visa for China. The Jesuits needed no visa, their fame and reputation preceded them everywhere!
by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 12, 2016 | two girls in China
Here is the headquarters of the Jesuits’ order in the eternal city! It was within these walls that Kircher wrote the China Illustrata. Not a bad place to start our expedition to China, following in the footsteps of the Jesuits whom Kircher wrote...
by Ivo Kruchten | Jul 11, 2016 | two girls in China
Our tickets to Beijing cost us a few hundred euros, ten minutes of our time and a couple of mouse clicks. It took about a decade for the first Jesuits to plan the outward trip from Rome to Bejin and one of them died in the meanwhile!
