Ostrich rodeos. Leprosy villages. Disaster zones.

Robotic dinosaurs. Heroin addicts. Yak herders - who break dance.

Catching bees in my mouth - the deep-fried kind that "buzz" between chopsticks pinched by ethnic Miao women, who sing until guests snap them into their maws. (That's after guzzling Miao moonshine from an ox horn.)

This has been my life as a journalist in China. A life of stories shared - and lived.

Sleeping next to yak dung in a Tibetan nomad's tent beneath a glacier in an isolated swath of Qinghai province's Yushu.

Eating horse intestines on the floor of the house of an elderly Kazakh nomad, who hunts with golden eagles on horseback in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Discussing sexual rehabilitation with Sichuan province's Wenchuan quake survivors paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. Reporting from Beijing's Paralympics opening ceremony. Heading China Daily's Sunday edition on such frantic nights as when MH370 vanished.

I arrived to "do my year in China" a decade ago. I never left. That's because the country has so much to offer. And there's so much foreigners can contribute to its development.

I'm shadowing the head of the UN in China as he tours Jiangsu province's wetlands. I'm releasing a book about the Wenchuan quake zone from the podium of the Shanghai World Expo's UN Pavilion.

The night before, I'm sleeping among goliath beetles on the floor of a school in one of Anhui province's poorest mountainside communities.

I'm in a cave with a monk. I'm with a boardroom with a Fortune 500 CEO. I'm listening to heroin addicts in Sichuan province's Emeishan.

Journalism has shown me China is a country best discovered from the backs of yaks, ostriches, horses, elephants and camels. That is, to navigate its deserts, mountains, grasslands and farmlands.

There are opportunities to get involved beyond work. Colleagues and I started a volunteer group in Wenchuan in 2008. This inspired me to generate another group in Yushu's quake zone five years ago.

During the past half-decade, we've delivered literally tons of clothes, food, medicine, computers and the like to Yushu's nomadic schools.

Last summer, we brought a girl from the desolate highlands to Beijing for a cleft-palate surgery. This summer, we brought a boy to Qinghai's Xining for ear surgery.

We also fully fund underprivileged university students' educations.

A highlight of my time is - a decade after arriving in the country, knowing nothing about the language and actual society - winning the China Government Friendship Award, the country's "highest honor for foreign experts".

Sometimes, I take our tykes on my lap and tell them about adventures I've had in China. I'll perhaps someday do the same with their children. Maybe here. Maybe they'll also be raised in China.

I'd hope so. Grandpa will have many stories about our times in China. Ten years into China, I'm not planning to do another year. I'm hoping for 10 more. At least. There are many stories left to tell. And to live.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/24/2016 page2)