A British expat exploring Xinjiang in China
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Today we interview an influencer getting a PhD in Shanghai in AI for colorectal cancer detection. Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Oh yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Luke Johnston speaks Uyghur as well as he has extensively traveled in China, Shizong, Xinjiang, and he's used Uyghur to speak with locals there. So we're going to ask him about that. We ask him about all of this. Welcome to the Bridge to China, Luke. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to come on. I've seen a couple of your shows, so excited to get started. I'm excited to get started. I have met people who speak Uyghur, obviously, but they were like raised Uyghurs.

At what point did you decide, I want to learn Uyghur? It was... I went to Xinjiang. I went to Kashgar, I remember. Kashgar.

And Orunchi. And Orunchi is the capital of Xinjiang. And it's pretty well developed. Everyone speaks Mandarin there. So I don't really have too much of a problem going. But when I went to Kashgar, it's mostly Uyghur ethnicities who are there. It's slightly less...

And I remember going there and a lot of the people, not the children or anything, they would learn it at school, but a lot of the older people, they couldn't speak Mandarin. So when I was going to the shops, things like that, they would only speak Uyghur language. And it was frustrating because...

I was like, so in love with Xinjiang, like the, the, the people, the culture. And I just thought, what better way to kind of get to know the place and get to know the culture than learning the language. So, um, yeah, it's, it was difficult because there's not many English resources online. Uh,

So, yeah, like I said, there's not many people who will learn this from abroad. So, yeah, it was tough, but I found a teacher who has helped me and I found in the end,

Lots of resources. So I've made my own video actually teaching people how I learned. That's amazing. We're going to come back around to that. I think people want to know about you. Where are you originally from? Oh, good question. When people ask me that. So I'm from Northern Ireland.

and I lived there for just a couple of years. Uh, so it was cause it was in the middle of the war with the IRA. It was very dangerous. So I remember I was growing up, like I couldn't leave the army barracks for a couple of years. So in my heart, I feel like I'm Northern Irish, but I grew up, you can tell I've got the English accent. So I grew up, uh, in England in, uh, near, near Manchester, uh,

if you knew that. So that was where I was my whole life. So you, at what point were you like, oh, you know what, I'm just moving to China. I mean, how does that happen? Where does that even start? I had, I guess, a lot of people that have a very negative misconception around China. And I always would believe a lot of these documentaries and things. I didn't have any Chinese friends.

I did my master's degree in the UK and it was a very good uni and a lot of Chinese students they go to this uni and because I'm doing like mathematics statistics I guess not many Brits are renowned for this so

literally almost all of my classmates were Chinese. And so this was like, wow, I get to speak to Chinese, get to find out. I was asking them questions. Is this true? You know, is this true? And I was like, whoa, I suddenly realized everything I've been told is a, well, most of it is a lie. And so they showed me photos of China, which when you look in the news and stuff, it's maybe they have

um, they didn't show you the real China and what the beauty of it's like. So I was like, wow, amazed by how diverse it is. So, uh, I, yeah, I decided, uh, I really wanted to go there on holiday. And so I did, I went on holiday. Um, and at that time I was starting to think about doing a PhD, uh, and it was so expensive to go and do it in the UK. Uh, and I was thinking the U S, um, you can get a scholarship, but it's very limited. Um,

So without a scholarship, you're kind of stuck. Like you need to pay for the tuition, you need to pay for the cost of living all yourself. Whereas in China, the government, they're doing this initiative and it's much easier. So I always encourage people, you can go to really good universities, there's a great chance

of getting the scholarship. Of course, you need to have the good grades, but they're trying to encourage more foreigners to come. So I thought, you know what? Let's go for it. And yeah, I don't look back at all. You know, I have so many different questions. But firstly, I just want to point out that, you know, in our countries, one of the big things is there are not a lot of native born people from the UK and the United States who are good at math. And so we import people from China and India and elsewhere. And here you are,

born in the UK and you've decided to leave. You've actually made the problem of importing more people harder. So, you know, that's actually kind of ironic in a little bit, a little bit. In terms of arriving in China, when did you come and what were your first impressions in the first week or two? I arrived in 2019. So it was, um,

shortly before the pandemic um the september 2019 and i i first come and i remember there were it was very international and i was very scared at first and i was like wow uh this is gonna be such a different world but you know i've been to shanghai before uh just for a couple weeks um so i

Even though I was scared, I was very welcomed. I met loads of people from around the world. It's super international. I know you're living in Beijing, but I was encouraged to come to Shanghai because it's easier as a foreigner to begin with. Beijing, I love the culture, but Shanghai, there are so many universities there as well. You don't just have mine. You have Fudan, you have ECNU, you have Tongji. There's loads which are great in the top 10 list.

So there were many students. So I felt very welcome. There were loads of events for us. And then, yeah, it was like a couple months later, that's when the pandemic started. And I remember all of my friends saying,

they all thought China was going to be a dangerous place to be. So they all left. I was the only one who decided to stay. And I remember having interviews with the BBC, Sky News. They were saying, Luke, what on earth are you doing? I was like, well, you know, I'm pretty safe here, I feel. I don't think it's like an apocalypse like you guys are saying. And yeah, I put that video like a year later online and it went super viral, like saying, oh, look, this guy knew everything.

So it was kind of like your story is at every turn. Every time you tell me more about your story, it's like the opposite of even OK. It's already strange enough for a lot of Western person to come decide to live in China. But then you move during right when the pandemic starts and when everyone all many of the other foreigners are leaving, you're like, no, I'm staying here. Like so many parts of your story are very unique to you.

You know, I'd already been living in China 10 years when the pandemic hit. So I was like, I'm just going to stay. But for you, I think it's just such an unusual story. I want to talk about university because I would like to encourage more Western folks to come to China for university. What's it like applying to a university in China?

And what's it like starting at a university in China? What are the what obstacles are different in China than your experience of taking university classes back in home in the UK? Yeah, so there I would say there's a lot more homework. There's a lot you're working all the time. So many more classes. So I feel like in the UK, a lot of it.

Maybe you have less classes, more to do by yourself. But in China, it feels like a job every day you're involved. But at the same time, there's so much there, so much going on and I'm learning so much. I can't maybe speak about the master or bachelor, but from my friends, they're saying, yeah, it is intense, but it's very interesting as well. Like for a foreigner, we can...

We have to learn the Chinese language course. We have to take a Chinese culture course. That was really interesting. But in terms of the major itself, I guess maybe it's a bit unfair because my major is like mathematics statistics. So it's, I believe the graduation requirements are harder than maybe some other majors. It's very competitive. I'm the only foreigner actually in my department. So some of my classes were in Chinese.

And so I couldn't speak then, but it's kind of like a universal language.

Um, I, I, I swore I failed an exam, but like I got an A, so maybe they might've gone easy on me. I don't know. But, uh, but other than that, um, we have to do this. It's kind of like the U S the PhD program. So you have a qualification exam in Europe. I know they don't have this. Um, and you have to publish a lot of papers. So I think the U S in China, the PhD courses are super difficult. Europe, people

People graduate a PhD in three years. China, it could be. I haven't done it. I've done five years now and I've still not graduated.

But I know for Master, Bachelor, people get it done within the allotted time. It's just for PhD, which is the tough one, which I'm doing. Let's go back a bit. Your parents and your family, how do they feel about you living on the other side of the planet? I tried to avoid telling them until quite late. I was very scared. I kept putting it off and off and off. I didn't know how they'd react. But I think they were...

But my dad was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like, it's great to travel the world and stuff. My mom, she was like, I think she was very sad. Like she she messages me literally every single day. I probably I'm lucky for my dad messages me once a month. But they still care and everything. And they're very supportive.

And I think they were expecting me to come back to the UK because I said, oh, maybe. But now I'm graduating. I'm saying I'm staying in China. But I think they've come to visit, actually, and they can now realize how amazing it is here. And they told me personally, they said, oh, now we've seen it.

We're happy that you're here. So, and also like from doing my videos, they, it's kind of, that's why I started doing videos. Initially, just a very simple one on my phone, just so they can see what my life is like. So I made it very amateurish,

when I first began and now I enjoy it as a hobby. But yeah, the videos that helped them a lot seeing what I'm doing. That's wonderful. A lot of your videos deal with misconceptions about China. What would you say are the one, two, three, like biggest misconceptions in your opinion that people in the West have about China? And what is China actually like given those misconceptions? Oh, it's a good question. I'd say surely it's got to be about the freedom, right? Uh,

most of my friends saying, you know, you're not going to be able to do this, say this. Even my parents come in, are we allowed to hold hands in public? My mum and dad was like, it's fine, come on. Because they see everything in the news and when you look in the news, it's always politics, politics, politics. It's never life and things like that. So I would, yeah, what is freedom, you know? So in terms of

for freedom when you ask

I don't know, maybe your fellow countrymen, like maybe you say, oh, we can have a gun. Okay. But that's not the reason for freedom. Why do you have a gun? They might say, oh, maybe someone's going to attack us. We want to protect ourselves. Okay. So that's the reason for freedom. So then you look at China and it's extremely safe. There is no issue. So there's no reliance on these guns. So why would you need to have one in the first place? Okay. So that can be one

even in freedom of speech, I've been to like parks and stuff and, um, you get elderly people and they'll be discussing amongst themselves about the latest news in the West about what are they talking about China about that? They'll talk about politics, maybe online. Um, it's a different situation, but still people do it. And I feel I'm living the same life that I would in the UK. Um,

You know, it's just as free sort of thing. I can do the same things as I could back in the UK, but I'm more safe. There's more freedom here. So, yeah, there's that. And also I've touched on, I'm sure maybe we'll talk about it later, but I've talked about maybe religion in China as well. That was one of the things I thought, maybe I thought it was banned. So I was very interested in going to that. I'm not religious. I'm agnostic, but I'm curious about it. So I like going to that.

different religious places and things like that. So, I mean, those are the two biggest ones, but absolutely it's, it's allowed and it's very free place. You're listening to The Bridge.

In terms of the university you attend, are there bachelor's degrees that people can get in English while they're taking Chinese classes or all of the bachelor's degrees in Chinese to your knowledge? If you don't know, that's okay. I'm just curious.

Yeah, yeah. I should have mentioned that before. It was like, it's just for me when I applied. So some of my classes were in English, some were in Chinese, but absolutely a lot of courses all in English. So many of my friends don't speak any Chinese. No problem. I think computer science is a big one. There are many foreigners who go for that.

Um, media business, there are loads. So I think that's not a problem at all. It's just for me, maybe not many foreigners will go for the, cause I'm in the mathematics department. So, um, yeah, there are, there are, there are lots for that. So I, people, they're, they're very worried about the language and stuff.

But the professors, they publish, the students, they publish in English. So their, their English is very good. So even if I have a professor who teaches in Chinese, they'll still speak English. So they'll be able to talk to me and they'll always check. I

I'm okay. And normally they will resort to the English textbooks as well. So that's like how I managed. What about daily life for students? I'm curious about this. I mean, I know you're a PhD, so your experience is different than, you know, kids who are 18, 19, 20, but what is life like as a student in China? And how does that compare to life as a student back home? Um, I've, one of the things I noticed was that in, in the UK, we have a lot

There's a lot of things like for going out, partying and stuff like that. That's like a big part of the university life there. We have like the freshers week. So everyone will go to the nightclub, get drunk. And I feel like a lot of people, maybe they just...

especially in the first year or so, it's not, uh, they take it too seriously. So there's a lot of dropouts, but in, um, we have like a nightclub in the campus in the UK. So maybe in China, that was like one shock. It wasn't that. So it's like take the studying seriously, but also people will go out, you know, go to restaurants all the time. We'll go to some bars and things. Um,

Um, but the campus life is extremely cheap. That's one thing as well. So being a student, even if you don't get that scholarship I mentioned before, tuition, firstly, really affordable, um, something like,

a few hundreds dollars or maybe a thousand, a couple thousand dollars, maybe I think it is. Um, so it's very affordable cost of living. You can live in a dorm. So firstly, you can live in the Chinese style dorms with a few other people, which is $13 a month, ridiculously cheap. Um, but I know a lot of foreigners, maybe they don't want that. They want their own room.

Um, but again, that's still pretty cheap. I think maybe, uh, a couple hundred dollars. Um, and that's like a really nice place. Some of you can get downtown, uh, really, really good. Um, foods, you'd be spending a couple dollars, maybe $1 on, on some foods. So they treat us really well, you know, in the, in the convenience stores, they have a lower price and things. So, um, yeah, I think

Even if you don't have that scholarship, it's not an issue. My scholarship's actually expired after the four years. So I've managed to be okay while I'm living here. So with your student ID, you can get into museums and things like free basically throughout China. Is that right? Oh, the rule normally is that you need to be a bachelor student.

But I'll always check anyway. Sometimes I'll be like, ah, go on then. But sometimes they can be quite strict. So for master, PhD, yes, that's one thing. So in the...

Maybe in the US, I don't know, but in the UK, we have a lot of student discounts. Normally, it's for the bachelor students. So it depends, yeah. Can I ask about the application process? Did you go through an intermediary company that helped you apply or did you apply directly to the university? And what was that like? No, I did it all myself. It was okay. A lot of universities will have a really nice English page. It will tell you step by step.

I can't remember exactly if I had to do the scholarship first. So I think I applied for that first and then I applied for the uni. But as a PhD, normally we message the professors first. So I messaged a bunch of them and just trying to contact them all around China. So I found one that was suitable for me in the end. And the uni, really helpful. I'd be...

them and they'll have a reply straight away answering any questions uh i've actually been like the host of some of their welcoming sessions like for the international students the upcoming one so i've been telling them what to do in the process kind of thing um so they have loads of these kind of webinar sessions to help the students but the i remember the yeah the scholarship that that one was the the thing that took a little bit of time because you've got to do like a a

a really long medical check. Um, you've got to do a bunch of things. I remember for that, but in terms of the uni application, uh, I had a couple interviews, um, once, once that was done. So the, the interviews were pretty tough. Um, it was kind of like a oral exam, um,

So yeah, they don't let anyone in. So it is difficult to get in, but it's maybe easier than a Chinese person because a Chinese person, they have to do the written exam. And also you've got so many Chinese students, so they have a different quota. So it's very competitive for them. But for foreigners, maybe there's less applicants.

So I do get some comments on my videos saying they get annoyed. Some, some Chinese people said, oh, it's so easy for foreigners, which is true. Um, we, we can get to the better universities.

than maybe some of the Chinese students. But still, you do have to pass some interviews and tests and things like that. I mean, you had a master's degree before you even came to China. I mean, I can understand people complaining that it's easier for foreigners, but if anyone's qualified, it seems like, you know, it's not like you're just like,

kicking around rocks or something? I think the answer is yes, but you would recommend that other Westerners follow suit, try to get into a Chinese university, maybe to save money, maybe for the cultural experience? Absolutely, yeah. No doubt about it, yeah. I think it's been an amazing experience for me. I didn't mention it before, but because I really wanted to go into AI, I saw that as the future. AI is like a subset of statistics. So if you already know statistics...

AI is super easy to, well, easy-ish to learn because you know all the theory and stuff. So I thought China, America, they're having that kind of race at the moment. I saw China as having the, you know, the more innovation, more students working on this, more AI startups, more...

uh, there's more, there's more promise of it. So I, even though they were behind at that time, I feel like it's, I think it's becoming there. They're overtaking them now. So, um, I feel for tech, not just AI, anything in tech, uh, Chinese universities, they're getting better and better. So maybe you've not heard of it, but they're, they're now becoming more world renowned that look at the top, the global top list, Chinese unis. There's, there's more of them year by year. Um, and so I've,

So I feel like coming out of it, I've learned so much more than I actually did when I was in the UK. It is intense, but there's so many options for collaborations with companies. Companies come to our uni. So I work with

And there's this gene company. They'll come to us. We give them data. As I say, they give us data. We give them model. I know BYD, they come to our uni. So there's so many options for this, whereas I didn't get that really in the UK. Yeah. Looking at nature.com's rankings, I think China has seven out of 10, but

of the highest spots in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the world. So it does look like China is innovating in new and unique ways. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you're studying and how Chinese innovation maybe is globally leading in STEM? Yeah. So my research is, like I said before, about the cancer detection. So we'll take...

So traditionally, the doctor pathologist will look under a microscope from some tissue and there's going to be what maybe millions of cells. Right. And they're tiny. And the difference between a cancer cell and a healthy cell, if it's a low stage, early stage, is very difficult to tell. You might miss one.

So an AI is able to do that instantly. Look at every single one. So it's not going to replace the jobs, but it's going to help. And with AI, there's a lot of, it requires a lot of data first, right? So the more data you have, the better it becomes. And so China has that, all right? So you take, for example, even like with Taobao,

um they have way more data usage way more users uh i think than amazon and so the the actually the ai recommendations i feel like they are they are better than with with amazon so first of all maybe you might have similar models but uh with this they've got a lot more data for that and yeah also because china chinese universities they're requiring you to publish

So, um, there's a lot more innovative, a lot of push for innovation. I don't get that's one misconception as well. They, they say Chinese, they copy, but it's not, you know, we're looking in science in the medical area. I think AI, that's going to be a big one. China, they've had so many breakthroughs with medical AI, even, um, I think yesterday it was, they, they made an LLM just as good.

as chat GPT. I'm sorry, what is an LLM? Sorry, it's the, you know, like chat GPT. It's the large language model. So you, it's like a chat bot sort of thing. And America, they've got this really good one and it's taken the world by storm and it's all closed source. So they're not revealing anything about it.

and they're making the price higher and higher to use it. So a lot of companies are trying to use it super expensive.

China, just yesterday, they've made a super cheap one, 90% cheaper than America's, all open source. And I believe there's a really good free option that you can use for it. There's like a limit for how many times you can do, but ChatGPT is best when you've got to pay for that. There's a lot of innovation and trustability with the Chinese tech. They're trying to do that. Whereas in the West, they're trying to close it off. They don't want to reveal the secret.

So I feel China is a lot about collaboration and open source, trying to get the research world together. So that's something that I found. We work a lot with other unis, other companies, hospitals, things like this. So that's how it's really grown and grown. You're listening to The Bridge.

I'm going to ask you this. You're talking about these LLMs or AI models for interaction and asking questions. Do the Chinese ones work in English?

Sorry, I just cut out then. Do these Chinese large language models work in English? Could I ask a Chinese large language model a question in English and get English answers? Yeah, so they've trained it on both Chinese data and English data. So they're both okay to use. So a lot of

Chinese people are starting to use this now, English people as well. If you're in the Twitter X AI sphere, wow, it's really loads of people are talking about it now. But again, it's not like in the general domain, I think ChatGPT is the brand. Not many people might know about this yet, but it's just as good worldwide

way more affordable. So we're going to see it, I think, really taking storm. That's because, yeah, China, they've got a load more data to train it on, but they've made this model, which is

wow, they've released the paper for it yesterday. I'm reading for it. It's really innovative. So we're seeing that's why Chinese AI, Chinese tech, that's really taken by storm this year. Even robotics. Everyone's talking about like the Tesla robots, but then China, they've got their own fully functioning in warehouses even.

So as it's not ever reported. Well, you know, I think for me personally, I don't know much about as much about technology as you, not even a fraction as much. But one thing I noticed that China does is that the U.S. will have a technology. China will have a technology. But one huge difference is scalability. When the United States is knocking out 20, China is knocking out 20.

China is knocking out a million of them. So that's a huge, massive difference because, yes, the U.S. has robots, but China has robots in every hotel basically that you go to and like outside. And like I live near one of the Ferris wheels. Every major Chinese city has a Ferris wheel. That's a little amusement park for the local community. And, you know, the cotton candy vendor robots.

You know, the orange juice vendor robot and just et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I wanted to talk to you about your travels though, because you do travel a lot and you've also traveled to Kazakhstan. And I think you spoke Kazakh. Am I wrong? Uh,

Um, oh, I, I learned, I've learned a very little bit of it. I, um, it's in a way a little similar to Uyghur. So I was trying to use Uyghur there, but I've got some Kazakh friends, so they were teaching me, but I'm not, I wouldn't say I speak that language. No. So what about Xinjiang? You've been to Xinjiang, Northwestern China. Were there a lot of Kazakh people there as well as Uyghur people?

What different minorities are in Xinjiang or that you encountered? Oh yeah, totally. There's a, it depends where you go. So, uh, Arunchi, the capital, uh, there's a lot of Han people. And then you go to Kashgar, I think 90% are Uyghur. And then you go to somewhere like Ili in the North, and that is mostly Kaza. And then you go somewhere like Tachong, which is, I think that's the most Northwestern points. That's,

um by kazakhstan and so when the ussr sort of tried to invade a long time ago it brought in a lot of russians and so you find some of the russian ethnicities in that area so that was really interesting so there's a lot of russian architecture um on that side so it's super diverse so

Um, most of the minorities, they would speak Uyghur language. Uh, cause I think that the mostly the biggest minority will be Uyghur. Um, so it's, there's a lot of culture and it's, it's yeah, very, very interesting, uh, going around. There's also some of us, you've got the Hui ethnicity, well, there's what 56. I, I don't know all of them, but there's a, there's a lot in Xinjiang, which makes it extremely interesting to go. Hmm.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to going to Yunnan sometime this year because I also hear – and I also hear there's a very large contingent of many different Chinese minorities. I'm kind of looking forward to that. But you mentioned Russian architecture. I just came back from Harbin a few weeks ago. Tons of Russian architecture there as well. So China has just got all kinds of stuff going on in different places worldwide.

So your Mandarin, I'm assuming, is fluent. Is that right? It's okay. It's not fluent, but I can get by fine. So I had like some work interviews and then they were asking me, can you introduce your thesis? And I realized I speak to my professor every day in English. So there's a lot of business terms and mathematical terms. I don't know. So to say fluent, maybe not, but I can easily get by in traveling. So you do speak some Uyghur.

And I think a lot of people listening are probably very curious, what were your interactions with Uyghur people in Xinjiang like? And, you know, were people able to practice Islam openly? Yeah, so I've learned it may be...

for, I don't know, since about like maybe eight, nine months or something I've, I've trying to be learning. It's been on and off. So I've, um, I didn't have any Uyghur friends at the time in, in Shanghai. So I just went online, I found this app and I was like, um, and they had like this place where they had some Uyghur teachers. So I was like, oh, great. And she was willing to teach me. So I would, um, cause I planned to go to

Xinjiang in that year. So she'll be teaching me how to travel and say these things. So I could go out and record and film and ask people questions and learn about it. It's kind of weird, right? Because if you or I speak Mandarin in Beijing or Shanghai, people might be like, whoa, this white guy speaks Mandarin. But then when you go to Xinjiang, a lot of people...

Maybe they might assume I'm a Uyghur person. It's very similar to Uzbek, so they might think I'm maybe an Uzbek ethnicity. So I didn't get those crazy reactions. But people were super nice when they found out I was a foreigner and they were like, whoa, really? The nicest people each time I've been.

especially when I speak the language, they invite me to their house. So you could see they're living very freely, very happily. It's such a calm life in Xinjiang. I know they have really big festivals and celebrations all the time. I think it's way more slowed down there than in Shanghai. And I got to speak to people

you know, is it safe here and things like that? Um, are you happy here? Uh, can you learn the language? So yeah, absolutely. Uh, I, I, I think the, the public schools, they just prioritize Mandarin now. Um, but still they can find, uh, an Uyghur teacher, um,

Um, they learn it with their family and everyone can speak it, right? Everyone speaks Uyghur language. You, you go to maybe I'll take the UK, for example, we have the, the Welsh language, the government forced them to learn it in the school. And so it's seen as a classroom language.

but they don't use it in everyday life. And so it's a dying language. No one wants to learn it and no one cares about it. No one's practicing it outside. But in Xinjiang, the opposite. Everyone uses it daily life. So it's...

It's not eradicating at all. And there's bookstores. I went to a bookstore, I filmed, and it's a huge bookstore with loads of Uyghur books, maybe recipes, fiction, nonfiction, whatever you want. Children books, if you want to learn mathematics or whatever, science, it's all there. And I go on apps as well, and they've got like TV shows you can watch in Uyghur. So that's fine. In terms of Islam...

so in Xinjiang, look, when you talk about this, you've got to kind of understand the wider context of it. You can't just say as a black or white thing, it's something which is really not spoken about too much in the West that yes, that it was super dangerous. Um, many years ago, there were lots of terrorist attacks, many reports of this, lots of evidence, um, by some separatists. Okay. Um, you,

You look at Xinjiang geographically, it's next to Afghanistan. So you would see, for example, in the Soviet...

Afghanistan war, um, a lot of Uyghurs, they were taken, uh, to fight alongside the Mujahideen. And so they would use Islam for, for something else, um, in, in the name of terrorist attacks. And so there is some restriction, but you can absolutely do it. So you can go to the mosque, but I believe maybe you need to register first or something like this. So, um,

I'm not exactly sure how you would register, but I do know people, they can go to the Mecca. They can go to Saudi Arabia from Xinjiang. People, you know, as long as you've not committed any crimes, we believe you're practicing Islam in good faith. Yeah. One of my friends' grandma, she just went, I think,

A year ago or two years ago, she went to Mecca. So yeah, it's no problem at all. I haven't actually thought of that angle, but it is a really important one because they do, in Islam, you're supposed to go to Mecca at least one time in your life. That's a really good point. Actually, I saw you online on Axe defending the fact that everyone in China calls Tibet

which is what I call it also because that's what Chinese people call it. I don't, you know, so why is it Shizong as opposed to Tibet? Again, so when you look at Tibet geographically, a lot of Persian travellers say,

they would go through, like maybe the Silk Road, they'd be coming through all the way through Europe and Asia into China through Tibet, Shidang. And so a lot of these travellers, they adopted this name. So first of all, it's not called Tibet in the language. If you said, are you from Tibet? They'd be like, what? Where's that? They don't say that. They say something called Pod.

And so I think in the Persian language, some of these, they don't have this pronunciation. And so they adapted it to Tibbott. And then

the Brits came along as we do, we colonize everywhere and, um, we, we misunderstood and we said it as Tibet. And so in a lot of books, when we brought it back to Europe, we would write Tibet. That's what this place is. And so for a long time, maybe centuries or whatever, it was misunderstood as this. And it's very difficult to go back when everyone believes it's this. Um, and,

The area of Tibet, Shidang, it's kind of split into different regions. And the main one, where it is today, the Shidang Autonomous Region, that is formerly the Utsang region. So Utsang is the

in that's the name of the place in their language so zhang it sounds similar to zhang so that's where shi zhang and then shi because it's on the west so that's now i'm just like um china just now i'm just like said like a random name there's a reason they've tried to take it from that place and so why was it split up as well why do you have

and why is that the autonomous region? Because it was such a large area of land and there was a lot of conflicts with warlords and things like this. They had different, even the locals, the language would be very different. And so they couldn't really understand each other. They'd have different climates and things like that. So it was way before the war.

the PRC, they were in power. This happened, this was centuries ago by the Qing. They decided, right, this will be the autonomous region. Well, sorry, this will be the main Wuzang region. And so later then that was the Shizan autonomous region now. So it's complicated. And also like,

you might think, well, why do we not call it Bort? But that's because the boundaries and borders, they've changed over times as well. So it's not exactly that. So the place that we call Tibet or Shiedzan today, that is, there's only one name for that. That is Shiedzan. You can't call it Bort because that's something else, you know? And, you know, borders, they've changed in lots of countries and things, you know, with Poland, right? That's,

It was kind of moved westwards. You have America with the Alaskan treaty and things like that. So yeah, with Shidang, it comes and goes. There were conflicts. And so that's why it was kind of separated and why it's not perfect. You can't say it's called Bod. You can't say it's anything else. That is why. It is complicated, but...

if at the end of the day, uh, Shizang is, yeah, the correct one. So you know, some Tibetan? No, no, no, that, that I cannot do. So I, I did go to, uh, uh, one of the regions and I, I tried to interview people and, uh, I tried learning, but it was, they couldn't understand, uh,

So again, like you went to Shizong or you went to Qinghai. Where did you go? I went to Qinghai. So it's on the Tibetan plateau. The great, not part of the autonomous region. It's lovely. I was also there. It's a great, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place. So a lot of them, there's a lot of the Shizong culture there. A lot of them, they'll speak the local language. Really, really nice. So you know a lot about history and,

geography, etymology. It seems like a little bit you've dabbled in several languages. You're doing mathematics and AI.

What was your bachelor's degree? And you seem to be like much more educated than I expected. Oh, it was astronomy, actually. Wow. So you're just interested in everything. You're just like, you like reading about every topic. No, no, no, I'm kidding. I wish, I wish. It was just mathematics. So my bachelor of mathematics, master was statistics. And now even now, it's still statistics, but I'm doing it all in AI. So I...

I think statistics, you can go every field, like every company has data. And, um, so I could go into anywhere and I just thought biology was the, the most interesting one, but yeah, you're right. Like, uh, I, I love exploring and stuff. So that's why I've, that's maybe why I haven't graduated as soon as I have, because I just, but a lot of my classes, um, or I don't have classes. I have meetings so I can travel whilst doing my meetings online. So that's,

I go to Xinjiang, all these places, whilst I have my online meetings in a cafe or something. So it's been great. Well, before we get to China, where have you traveled in China? Let's talk about the broader world. Where have you been in the world? How many countries? Where have you actually traveled around to? It's not as extensive as it could have been. I've not really been to the Americas or anywhere. I've been to...

Africa a few times, like Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco. That was cool. I've been around Europe. Um, but China was the first place I went to in Asia. Um, and so like during the pandemic, I, I, I couldn't, I, I was just staying in China. So, um, it was only when the borders open, I got to go to lots of different places. Yeah. Back then in the pandemic, you, you couldn't go to

Hong Kong or Taiwan but now I can sort of been to those places in China I have again I've been to Kazakhstan Thailand Singapore so yeah those were very interesting Singapore was really cool because there's a lot of

Chinese influence there as well and British as well. I found that was true in Malaysia also. Everywhere I went in Malaysia, people were speaking in Mandarin and I was like, oh wow, this is not what I expected. What about in China? Where else? We've already talked. You've been to Shanghai. You've been to Xinjiang. You live in Shanghai. Where else have you been? I've been to a lot of places thinking about it. I've...

I really, I really like Guizhou. That's one of my favorite places. I've been there a few times. I've been to kind of like Dalian, Shenyang. They were really awesome. I feel like every place, it's just so much culture. Fujian down, down in the South. Um,

I know I've made a whole list of like, I think I've been to like 30 cities or something. I know some on Twitter, they've been to like way more. They've been to like 60 or 70. Wow. So I'm so impressed. So there's still a lot, even though I've been to many, there's still a lot yet to see, especially on the West side of China. But yeah,

I'm going to go to Chengdu actually the first time tomorrow. So I'm going to be going there. So that'd be interesting. Well, you have to have the hot pot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, I used to hate spice, but now come into China, I can handle it. So I'm okay with that. May I recommend that you have yogurt either before or after because it'll cool your stomach down.

Not water. Yeah, absolutely. I'll try some of that. So you mentioned at the beginning of the show that your parents came here and they liked it, but I would like you to ask you a little bit more. What did you show them? So, you know, because I think what you would show your parents would probably be a very good itinerary for a lot of people. What should people see when they come to China? What did you actually show your parents? Yeah. So my itinerary and what I ended up doing were two different things. So firstly...

They came the worst possible time. The biggest typhoon in 70 years came the day they arrived. I'm like, no. So it was raining, stormy. It was like really horrible. And I remember telling them for ages, Shanghai, the cleanest place you will ever see. And of course, when they come, there's like trees everywhere, all rubbish everywhere. But the second day, of course,

the cleaners, they would all come in the morning and it would all be clean. And so then they changed their minds. So there was a lot we couldn't do because of the weather, but also because of my stepfather, he was in a wheelchair. So he couldn't really travel too much. We wanted to go to other cities, but we just stayed in Shanghai. So we saw the main attractions like the Bund and

We saw like the old town. I've hosted a few city walks actually. So I really like the history of Shanghai. So I was, I took them on some, some historic buildings and things like that. Maybe where there's some less, less people walking,

um, in the old Shanghai, uh, town. Uh, Shanghai is huge though. There's, there's so much to explore. There's a lot of history. It's only a couple hundred years old, but there is a lot of history there still. Uh, there's a lot of European history. Um, and it's, there's a lot, you get the modern side of it as well. Um, so there's a lot of angles to see in Shanghai, a lot of parks and things like that. They come to my university, which was great. So they could see my uni. Um,

Um, so we've got to explore around there. That's like a, that's one thing I didn't mention the Chinese uni. Some of them are massive. It's like a village. It's like a community. So like you could spend a whole day in a uni. So you can just come, uh, you know, come to my uni Shanghai Jiao Tong university. It's, uh, you can spend a day there. There's like museums, art galleries, there's stadiums. Um, you can do, you can play

pool and bowling and whatever. There's really beautiful architecture and shops and things. Um, and living there is really great. You don't need to leave. There's, there's, there's a huge community, lots of cafes and restaurants and whatever. So, um, yeah, that was the main thing, but there's still a lot on my itinerary we couldn't do, which is fine because they can come back. Uh, yeah, hopefully when I graduate, uh, they'll come again and they'll,

be able to see the stuff. My stepdad should be out of a wheelchair by then so we can do more. Okay, so let's ask it a different way. In terms of people who are coming to China for their first time, let's pretend that this theoretical person has two weeks. Now let's do 10 days because there's a 10-day temporary transit visa. They have 10 days, they're coming to China, where should they go? Okay, so I would say you've got to go to a couple of

One of the big cities, right? So I think living Shanghai is awesome. I think the best city to live, but honestly, I'd probably pick Beijing, uh, for the culture. Uh, there's a lot more tradition. Uh, I feel like the architecture is more beautiful. You've got the great wall, the forbidden city. So if I was to be honest, I would pick Beijing in terms of, uh,

for tourism um and then you've got to pick somewhere which has got maybe some rural parts of it or something maybe a smaller city i don't know uh you've got you could go to the you know so the you take the big cities that you know chongqing beijing shanghai yeah but

there's so many, so many places, especially around Beijing. You can go to, uh, up in the North. Maybe you can find some of the natural sceneries or whatever. Uh, you can go to the inner Mongolia. There's, uh, I don't know, not, not into Hubei. I know that's next to Beijing. I don't know if that's worth going to, but, um, I'm sure there's many places around there. Shanghai. If you do come there, you've got Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and there's like, uh,

There's a lot of small cities there to go for. But I would definitely try to split it up. A lot, you know, Beijing, you could spend... You could easily spend, again, there, a couple of weeks. So I would say most of it, one big city. And then try to go somewhere where you can find the real China, you know? Because, like, in Beijing, Shanghai, there's a lot of... It's very... Yeah, they can be quite international, but also you get a lot of migrants from other cities. So... But if you go...

to somewhere else, you might feel more true local culture, maybe find some minority culture, I don't know. Chengdu. I mean, I think most people who live in Chengdu are probably from Chengdu, so that's kind of nice in a way. Plus, you have pandas and spicy food. So, I mean...

Let's just, two or three places you have not been that you would really, really, really like to go in China. Yes, so Harbin. I think that would be really awesome. The Heilongjiang region, even Mohe, where they're next to each other. You can go to the Russian border. That would be really interesting. Where else? I think, yeah, I've not been to...

Shidang itself. I've not been to Lhasa. So that's one of the tricky ones as a foreigner. You've got to go on a tour guide. So you've got to pay a little bit extra money. So it's always been money that's the issue with that one. I think it's, wow, heavenly. It's so beautiful, that place. It is so beautiful. I did get to go. And the sky was unlike...

the color of the sky in any other country or place I've ever been in my life. It looked like it was fake. Like someone had painted a fake blue sky over the real sky because it was so blue. It was insanely beautiful. Yeah. Like even the photos, I just can't imagine. I can't believe that's, they're not that close are they surely? So I don't know, but when, when were you okay there? Like, cause I know like of the altitudes, you know, there's a mountain on the wet Northwest of Beijing. It's a,

about 1,200 meters. It's kind of short. It's less than half of where I was going. But the weekend before, I hiked that mountain and I tried to stay up there for a few hours. And so when I arrived, and you're not supposed to fly into Lhasa. You're supposed to take the train slowly and maybe take a couple days. But we landed straight in Lhasa. And I was with some other reporters. Everyone but me got sick.

because I had been training and getting ready for the altitude. Everyone else was like out of it for two days. They couldn't even report. And I was out, you know, filming and stuff. So, you know, it is important to like maybe prepare yourself. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's well worth it. But I've done a lot of mountaineering before. So I don't know. It was a while ago. I'm not sure. But in Shanghai, I was okay. It's important to get your red blood count up.

You know, the week or two before you go to do everything you can to maximize how many red blood cells have been produced recently so that you can provide your brain with as much oxygen as possible. Let's see. Where else in the world haven't you gone that you would really like to go? I think that's an important question, too. Hmm.

I, yeah, I would love to go like the Latin America regions. So I'd love to go to Columbia, Mexico. Uh, so yeah, with my uni, a lot of my classmates come from that region. Like there's a lot of,

uh, Venezuelans, Colombians, Mexicans. And so I've made friends with them. Uh, and so I find that awesome. I love beautiful area. I love the food. Uh, and again, yeah, cause my friends from there in the uni, they're so nice, so welcoming. They tell me good stories. And also there's a bit of fascination cause it's like, uh, I've heard it's quite dangerous. Um, so, uh,

it's an interesting place for me to go. One of the places where you have to have two wallets, fake wallet and a real wallet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You wouldn't want to have your watch out or anything, but I don't know. And another one, I don't know if you know, I've not said, so this week, right, I will be moving house. I'm leaving Shanghai. So I'm going to be going to Xinjiang to live and work. So,

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should have mentioned before. So that's what I've been busy doing this week, moving house. Oh, we're going to have to definitely have you back on the show in six months then so we can talk about your life in Xinjiang. Absolutely. But Xinjiang, if you look at it, it's next to eight countries. So that's going to be my plan. I've already been to Kazakhstan, but it's also next to Pakistan, Afghanistan.

um, India, Afghanistan, even I'd love to try. There's a lot of tourism going there, but I don't know if they'd like the Brits, uh, um, maybe Chinese, they might like more, but I think, and Russia as well. So I'd love to go. Maybe Afghanistan, you go in a tour group, you know, a big bus. Yeah. I don't know. I've seen on Chinese social media, a lot of them are going and they're saying how safe it is. I don't know. Uh,

but I know the Brits as well as the Americans were there for a while so I think they might not like us so I think somewhere like maybe Pakistan might be more friendly I'm not sure but I'm very open to travelling the world I think all of these that's why Xinjiang is so full of culture because it's next to so many different countries it's all been brought in so that's what I'm hoping for this year

go to these places next to that. Kind of last question. How long do you plan on staying in China? Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I think I've spoken actually to my uni. They want to have me back after I come from Xinjiang to do a postdoc. So I'd be working inside a hospital and,

And I think that's got great promise. So a good salary and everything. So I'm thinking I might do that after a year or so. But I think China really happy here. I think the UK is nice to go back, but I just feel that nothing changes. I went back for Christmas and it's all the same. There was nothing there that really excited. I saw the family, but I just think living in China, I feel like I'm more accustomed to it now.

So, at least for now I'll stay here. Who knows in years? Yeah, sure, absolutely. Well, I mean, Christmas back home is something that I know that is very important to people from the UK. So, you could always have Christmas back home and still live in China. You know, I really actually, now that you've mentioned you're moving to Xinjiang, I really do want to have you back in six months. We can talk a lot more about Xinjiang at that time. And you also have the moniker Doctor by then, is that right?

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. I'm hoping so. We all sorted by then. So yeah, touch words. Maybe you can call me Dr. Luke by then. Thank you so much for your time, Luke. Thank you very much, Jason. It was lovely to speak to you.