It is only a couple of weeks since Li Jing (李荊) finished a solo 9,000km horseback ride from central Russia to Beijing, yet he is already preparing a similar trek to London. Next month.
The rugged horseman, who drapes a khaki cape over his shoulders as he rides solitary through pastoral settings, is fulfilling a childhood dream to retrace the route of Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan.
“Ever since I was a child I’ve loved horses and I’ve also greatly admired Genghis Khan, whose spirit has been a big encouragement for me,” Li said in an interview at a Beijing horse club.
PHOTO: AFP
“His armies rode from Mongolia and China to Russia and Europe,” he said of the medieval warrior. “I have done it in the opposite direction from Votkinsk to Beijing. And now I will go back.”
Born in central China, Li, 47, moved to Russia in 1990 where he married, had a child and taught Chinese as he planned his eventual horse ride back to his homeland. Two earlier expeditions never panned out but his dream stayed alive.
“For me there is nothing more beautiful than being all alone with my horses on a beautiful Siberian steppe,” he said. “The feeling of solitude and tranquility is indescribable.”
Following his trek from Russia, Li was invited by Megan Lewis, a Welsh equestrian, to join her expedition from Beijing to London, scheduled to start on April 19 from the Great Wall near Beijing. That ride will raise money for charity while also commemorating the move of the Olympic Games from Beijing to London in 2012.
“It is not a certainty that we will be able to reach London,” Li said of the nearly four-year ride. “Anything can happen on such a long ride, we have to see if we are lucky, if the heavens will shine down on us.”
Li’s knowledge of Chinese and Russian will help the expedition as it travels along the Great Wall and the ancient Silk Road into central Asia, he said. He will also be helped by the experience he accumulated during his just-ended trip.
To overcome motorized traffic and constant fears of robbers or unfriendly locals, Li sought to avoid cities and camped out when he could. While riding through Siberia, extreme cold in January last year left him stranded for three months in a village where the residents turned out to be both friendly and helpful.
“The villagers told me that I would never survive in minus 40°C weather, so they asked me to stay with them,” he said. “I wanted to leave as soon as I could but blizzards blew up and it was too dangerous to ride because you could not see.”
Once in Bashkortostan, a remote Russian republic, he was repeatedly apprehended by police who were looking for a horseman who was suspected of murdering a fellow policeman.
“I got picked up by police at least six times,” Li said. “Once I was roughed up pretty bad.”
The 19-month journey cost him US$15,000, mostly spent on food and grain for the nine horses that he rode with during the trip. Locals often fed both him and his horses, though he often went hungry.
“There are horse-lovers all over the world, they helped me a lot,” he said. “I could buy or trade horses with them. Sometimes they would give me horses.”
Yuri, his current horse, called Luai in Chinese, or “love to travel,” was given to him by another Chinese horse-lover.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in