Ian Mote's Articles: Insights, Tips, and Expertise

I grew up in London, but agedeighteen, I took a gap year, when I spent six months on a school exchange program in rural Kansas, experiencing a true American way of life. It made me realise that maybe there was more out there in the world to understand, see, and experience. I went to Hong Kong for the first time in 1990 and then again in 1995. The 1995 trip also featured my first tentative steps onto mainland Chinese soil, which I found fascinating. What a different world from suburban London. In 2002 I moved permanently to Hong Kong and lived there for four frenetic years. That time included regular trips into all different parts of China, and from those trips, these stories started. I had an intermission from China when I moved to Dubai in 2006, but in late 2008 I took the opportunity to return to Asia to live in Shanghai, where I remain to this day.