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Backpacker photographer Thomas Carter spent two years capturing the China that few people see. He often slept on bus station floors and advises: "Close your eyes and point to a place on a Chinese map, then go there," writes Yao Minji.
American photojournalist, backpacker and ex-English teacher Thomas Carter gives this piece of wisdom to foreign visitors to China, if they are really interested in the country: "Go in the opposite direction from the tour groups."
"Close your eyes and point to a place in a Chinese map, then go there, because chances are it'll probably be better than anywhere on the Tourist Trail," he suggests.
Carter, a San Francisco native, considers it a pity that people go home thinking that Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an and Chengdu, their great sights, five-star hotels and fancy restaurants have made a good China trip.
Carter spent the last two years backpacking to more than 200 villages and cities in almost all provinces and autonomous regions in China. Then he visited them all again in a second trip.
He spent no more than 30 yuan (US$4) per night and no more than 50 yuan on food a day and he went where the spirit, the bus, friendly drivers and survival Chinese took him. It was tough, but the journey was everything - and a book.
Sometimes really poor migrant workers and farmers felt so sorry for him that they offered to feed him and let him stay with them.
He blundered upon soldiers of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea when he accidentally crossed the border at Changbaishan Mountain in Northeast China's Jilin Province; in China he ran into trouble in remote villages for taking pictures and got beaten up by drunks because of the communication gap, among other adventures.
Many of them were positive. The intrepid traveler who taught English for two years barely managed with his Chinese and went to the places that laowai don't go.
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