Unable to speak English, 60-something Ding Baiqing and his wife backpacked across 10 countries with nothing but an electric rice cooker after retirement; a forum moderator on a certain website, who is actually a spirited elderly man in his 70s; at 83, orthopedic professor Gong Jinyuan still insists on playing two football matches every week... These elderly people, who leave young people in awe, dare to live even more vibrantly!
Unable to speak English, yet dared to backpack across 10 countries with an electric rice cooker; not tech-savvy, yet wrote a 300,000-word online travel guide... Many things that young people wouldn’t dare try, 65-year-old Ding Baiqing has accomplished.
In 1975, he took his wife on a trip across over 10 cities in China with just 600 yuan. He had always been looking forward to a second “youth journey” with his wife, and he waited 35 years for that day. In the past three years, the Ding Baiqing couple, relying on modest retirement income, have traveled abroad seven times, backpacking through 10 countries including Malaysia and India.
Recently, Ding Baiqing has started preparing to take his wife on another budget European trip.
Back then, he took his wife on a honeymoon trip across 10 cities with just 600 yuan
“Brother Ding” is Ding Baiqing’s online alias. He says he likes the name because it makes him sound “a bit younger.” Brother Ding’s trendy style can be traced back 38 years.
In 1975, Ding Baiqing got married, and even then he had the idea of a honeymoon trip. That April, he took his wife from Chengdu to Chongqing, traveled along the Three Gorges by boat via Wuhan, all the way to Shanghai, and finally returned to Chengdu via Beijing. In Shanghai, they bought over 10 pounds of pork to bring back to Chengdu.
“By the time we got to Beijing, it was starting to smell a bit, but we still ate every last bit of it, even the cracklings,” Ding Baiqing said. This 20-plus-day trip cost just over 600 yuan, and popsicles were only one fen each back then. “That was our first youth journey. We miss it a lot. I never thought it would take 35 years to do it again,” Ding Baiqing said.
Now reliving their youth, they take their spouse and backpack the world with an electric rice cooker
A few years ago, Ding Baiqing and his wife retired, and life suddenly slowed down. In April 2010, the discovery of cheap flight tickets reignited their lives, and the couple decided to backpack around the world.
They spent four months preparing: their daughter helped with paperwork, currency exchange, and booking flights; Ding Baiqing focused on learning English, browsing forums, and drafting travel plans. “Our hearts began to revive; we began to come alive,” Ding Baiqing wrote in his travel diary. In the following three years, the couple traveled abroad seven times, backpacking through 10 countries including Malaysia and India. At one point, they spent just 2,900 yuan per person to explore Malacca, Penang, Bali, and other places in 12 days.
Now, Old Ding has transformed into the online persona “Brother Ding,” sharing his budget travel adventures online with photos and text, and has written a 300,000-word budget travel guide. In the guide, he reveals that the low expenses were due to meticulous preparation. “We kept costs to the absolute minimum, bringing an electric rice cooker every time we went abroad,” Ding Baiqing said. They used the rice cooker to cook rice, meals, and even to make braised eggs. He also once bought 50 packs of instant noodles in one go while overseas.
Amazing People, Amazing Stories
Looking for a toilet in India? Squat and pretend to unzip your pants
For the couple, the biggest challenge of traveling abroad is the language barrier. Before departure, Ding Baiqing practiced intensively for nearly four months using the “Self-Study Handbook for Overseas English Situational Conversations,” even copying phrases multiple times in his notebook to reinforce memory. Yet, during several trips, his heavily Sichuan-accented broken English led to quite a few embarrassing moments.
He had prepared three or four different ways to say “toilet,” but in India, where the English is even more “spicy,” despite trying all the words he knew while urgently looking for a toilet, the police still couldn’t understand. Finally, in a stroke of quick thinking, he squatted and pretended to unzip his pants, making the police burst out laughing—only then did they get what he meant. Once in Malaysia, while going through security, Ding Baiqing, worried about overweight luggage, put all his winter clothes on. After clearing customs, he immediately took them all off one by one, leaving the security staff both amused and bewildered.
Now, Ding Baiqing’s budget travel experiences have gained the admiration of tens of thousands of netizens. He said, “If what we’re doing is considered brave, then we hope to keep being brave, and we also hope more retired seniors will follow our example and try new things.”