Chinese simply must go home for Spring Festival, like migratory birdlife. One man this year, however, made the most monumental effort, travelling the equivalent of the bird with the longest migration of all. And he started from literally the end of the world.
Chen Zhongyuan, a native of Sheyang County in Yancheng of Jiangsu Province, has travelled to the South and North Poles nearly 50 times. He gave up his lucrative job in Beijing to study simultaneous interpreting at the University of Bath in the UK, and has since worked as an interpreter for expedition-cruise operators such as Quark Expeditions, Aurora Expeditions and Polar Latitudes.
The end of October to the end of March of the following year is the Antarctic tourism season. It’s a busy time for Chen, with cruises one after the other. Spending Chinese New Year on a ship last year, Chen organised a dumpling workshop for the passengers aboard, bringing him and them some Spring Festival joy. But this year has been different.
Back in early in December 2024, Chen’s company started to make the arrangements. And on 26 January, his 42nd Antarctic trip came to an end with the docking of the POSEIDON cruise ship at the port of Ushuaia in Argentina. But that was to be just the start of a very long journey.
Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Shanghai, a train to Yancheng and finally a taxi to Sheyang County were to follow, meaning that by the time he arrived home, Chen had amassed some 23,150 kilometres of travel, approximately the same distance an Arctic tern undertakes each year.
“But I didn’t fly it myself”, Chen said, speaking with the Yangtze Evening News.
During his time in the polar regions, Chen learned about marine life, geography, photography and much more; mastered skills such as driving assault boats, reading nautical charts and tying knots. He even listened in on the Inuit of Greenland revealing their tips as to how to hunt polar bears.
Chen has already brewed up a new expedition plan, such as leading a group to the Galapagos Islands, or holding science lectures on penguins, whales and glaciers, whilst working aboard his cruises.
But the Antarctic will also no doubt be calling. And that means another return to Ushuaia, the capital of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego Province that is also the jumping-off point for most people on a voyage to Antarctica. There, a well-photographed sign proclaims the world’s southernmost city as “fin del mundo”; “end of the world”.
