Lars Ellström has been engaged with China in particular and East Asia in general for most of his life. As a student, diplomat, banker, financial expert and business consultant he has strived to obtain an understanding of life and society in this part of the world. His trek from Beijing to Kashgar represents both a summing-up of experiences and an effort to reach deeper insights. Lars was born in 1942 in a suburban working-class environment in Stockholm, Sweden. He thus grew up in the atmosphere of economic growth and democratic optimism of the post-war Swedish welfare society, which provided him with the opportunity to engage in academic studies. At Stockholm University he studied Literature, Philosophy and Sinology. The latter discipline was brought to his attention by the intriguing Cultural Revolution: he found that there were not many Chinese speakers around and consequently not many with the competence to understand what was going on in the secluded country that China was at the time. In 1969-71 Lars strengthened his Chinese language skills at the language centres of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Nanyang University in Singapore. In 1973-74 he did research on modern Chinese literature at the Oriental Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia, before proceeding to Fudan University in Shanghai as a scholarship student 1975-76. During these final years of the Cultural Revolution he would for the first time directly experience the reality of China's political turmoil. After further research on modern Chinese literature at Stockholm University he took up the position as Cultural Attaché at the Swedish Embassy in Beijing in 1979. In this capacity, including that of acting as interpreter in meetings with Chinese leaders, he could develop a broader understanding of Chinese society. With that background Lars in 1982 was recruited as chief Beijing representative by Svenska Handelsbanken, a major Swedish bank. From then on Lars Ellström has worked with banking and business consultancy in China and the wider East Asian region. He has also worked as a financial expert in projects for the World Bank, Swedish aid agencies and the EU in Vietnam and China. Since the beginning of 2013 he again resides in Sweden.