ESF teacher's quest to visit every province in China

The strangeness of English Schools Foundation teacher Chris Taylor's quest to visit every mainland province dawned on him as he sat down on a bench in a town square in Ningxia - an obscure northwestern chunk of China most foreigners have never heard of, let alone considered visiting.

Alone and nearly 2,000 kilometres away from his family in Hong Kong and his job as head of senior school at Sha Tin College, the 43-year-old suddenly found himself surrounded by a throng of locals. "They just sat really close to me and stared and stared," he recalls.

"As soon as I did anything like get my notebook out, everyone would be really interested and lean over and stare. I distinctly remember just wanting to be left alone and sitting there doing nothing until people finally dispersed and gave me a bit of space."

Being the object of intense curiosity is an experience Taylor relived in different ways throughout 10 years visiting all 27 provinces and five autonomous regions of the mainland, an adventure recounted in his newly published book, .

"People are really intrigued and want to see what you're doing," he says. "That's great most of the time - but there are occasions when you just want to be left alone, for pity's sake.

"But it was never threatening. Not a single time did I feel I might be attacked or robbed. The attention I got was always welcoming and friendly. It was just a bit overwhelming at times."

From eating goat's head in Xinjiang to countless run-ins with universally obdurate taxi drivers, Taylor's 600-page book is a mixture of travelogue and history and the culmination of a mission to understand the world's most populous nation by visiting every corner.