Ancient City, Modern Life. Beijing With LH Draken

China is a rising world power, increasingly challenging the USA in terms of global influence and technological development, especially around artificial intelligence and biotechnology. It’s also an ancient culture with fascinating places to visit, and in this interview, thriller author L.H.Draken shares her thoughts on traveling to Beijing.   LH Draken is the author of The Year of the Rabid Dragon, a medical thriller set in Beijing, China. Lawrence is American but worked as a physicist and engineer in Beijing before moving to Germany. * Ancient historical sites in and around Beijing * Cultural and technological differences between America and China * Recommended hiking guides in China * What travel means to LH Draken’s writing and the concept of home You can find LH Draken at LHDraken.com and on Twitter @lhdraken. Transcript of the interview Joanna: LH Draken is the author of The Year of the Rabid Dragon, a medical thriller set in Beijing, China. Lauren is American but worked as a physicist and engineer in Beijing before moving to Germany. Welcome, Lauren. LH Draken: Thank you so much. It’s a real pleasure. Joanna: I’m so happy to have you here. You have such a fascinating background. Tell us a bit more about how you ended up in Beijing in the first place. LH Draken: I grew up having a little bit of a peripatetic lifestyle. My dad was going to school and we were in different places for his work so I had this bug set in me rather young. But then when I was in university and studying I got onto a project with a collaboration in China, in Beijing. It was an electron-positron collider and we were doing high energy physics and getting that started and stuff with the collaboration so it was an exciting new thing to be working with a group in China. Before that, I didn’t really have much interaction of course. And then during one summer, I went and for a few weeks worked with them and that was how I first got there. But then while I was there on the last weekend before I was due to fly home and continue the project I went hiking on the Great Wall of China on this really fantastic, unrestored natural wild part. And with us there was a group of international expats and I bumped into this handsome young German and we started talking and we talked the whole day and after that day I realized I have to come back to China! And I did. We ended up getting married and we had our first son in Beijing. And so that’s how it got started. And then I started working and writing. Joanna: You and your husband have such a lovely story. Me and my husband, we met on the Internet. It’s just not as romantic as hiking the Great Wall. LH Draken: Yes, it’s very romantic. Joanna: It is lovely. What year did you first get to Beijing and how did it change in the time that you were there? LH Draken: When I was doing the research I was there in 2010 and then I moved there on January 1st, 2011. So it’s a very easy date. So 2011 until mid-end of 2016. So almost five years. The thing about Beijing, it changes so quickly. The culture changes, the technology changes, how they do stuff, like how they deliver food, or how you deal with your landlord or what buildings are available or what restaurants you can eat in or what places you can visit and what places. It’s just phenomenal the amount of change that happens. When I wrote the book, it was set in 2012, and I feel like it’s this snapshot of Beijing in 2012 but there are some things where you want to talk about what do you recommend in Beijing right now. Well, I mean it just changes so rapidly,