ACCIDENTAL TOURIST WITNESSES YEARS OF CHANGE

Former US diplomat Jeff Moon had not planned to visit the Chinese mainland when he took a gap year in 1984 to travel Asia. But when he got to Hong Kong, he heard Beijing was issuing tourist visas, so he changed his plans.

He spent a month touring the mainland alone by train, stopping at Beijing, Wuhan, the historic cities of Xi'an and Luoyang, Chengdu and Chongqing in the west, and Lhasa in the Tibet autonomous region.

"During that period, China was starting its reform and opening-up, but the door was not quite open, just a little bit," said Moon, who has lived in China on and off since the '80s, initially serving as a senior diplomat and later returning as an executive in the private sector.