At every age we reach in this walk of life, time passes us by just the same. Yet we still find ourselves, over and over again, asking where it went. Leaving Beijing today feels surreal, to pack up my two suitcases (plus a few carry-on bags…) and move out of my apartment, my neighborhood, my country that I’ve grown to adore and call home.

I’ve developed a love for China, or, as my brother put it, “God, you’re obsessed with this country.” My experiences here have taught me about culture-specific values, personal identity, and the essence of our greater humanity, lessons that simply can’t be taught in classrooms.

The China that I’ve lived in and traveled through for these past five months is not the China I expected to experience when I first stepped foot on that plane in August. Because of American media, China is misrepresented and extremely misunderstood. “Do you ever see blue skies in Beijing?” or “Isn’t traveling alone in China dangerous?” are questions I hear far too often from friends back home. Stereotypes like these, ingrained in our brains, are far from the truth. Not only is this country misconceived, but it’s got a hell of a lot to offer. Here’s why you should make a trip out to the wild east at some point in your finite years of life:

THE “WHAT THE HELL” MOMENTS

Maybe it’s when you’re sitting in a guesthouse on a mountain at 9pm with no electricity, surrounded by 60-year-old Chinese men who are rowdy, drunk, trying to pour you shots of Baijiu, and telling you how handsome of a husband your brother is. Or maybe it’s when you’re in a coffee shop with a friend, and you look over to the table next to you to see a grown couple playing with a cricket. No matter what happens to you in China, it will be absurd. It will be hilarious. Just go with it.

THE COMMUNISM

This is a big question I always get: is China communist? In a way, no–it’s not the communist nation that it used to be under Mao Zedong. But in another sense, it absolutely is. China’s government is feared by its people (quoted from one of my Chinese friends). Executions per year in China are greater than the rest of the world combined. If you sing a certain song in Tiananmen Square, you get sentenced to 10 years in prison. If you take a picture of a police car, officer, or station in Tibet, they break your camera in front of you and you get kicked out of China for life. The one-child policy still exists. They have a super interesting relationship with North Korea, high on the list of U.S. enemies.

It’s hard to deny that communism still exists in China. But here’s the thing: American textbooks and media have brainwashed us to think that communism is wrong. Historically speaking, that’s what we’ve always thought, just like the Cold War or Vietnam. But, if you come to China, you’ll begin to understand that, in a sense, communism is one of the only effective ways to control a country of 1.4 billion people. You may realize that, for America, yes, communism wouldn’t work due to our past and the direction we’re headed in. But for China’s case, in a way, communism works.

THE VIEWS

China is massive. I didn’t realize how enormous it was until I took a 46-hour train ride through the country and realized that I’d only passed over two-thirds of its width. And, with this size comes incredible geographic diversity. Whatever scenery you may fancy, China has it. Mt. Everest, the Gobi desert, Hainan island (the “Hawaii” of China), elephant-filled jungles, world-renowned ice sculpture festivals, a 3,700 meter-deep gorge, red beaches (yes, red), quaint villages, or stunning rice terraces? You name it. The list never really ends. It’s all beautifully dramatic, and it’s all wonderful. My Chinese visa kept me landlocked in China for all but one week of my time abroad. This turned out to be an absolute blessing–not only did I get to know this country extremely well, but it had so much more to offer than I had ever imagined.

THE OTHER PERKS

50 cents for 660ml of beer. All-you-can-eat pizza buffets. A history that is 10 times older than our country. A language with characters that look like their definitions. Fried chicken stuffed with melted cheese. A giant, delicious pancake for $1. A cuisine that is undefined because it’s so tasty, massive, and wonderful. These aren’t reasons alone to come to China, but they do make it even more wonderful.

THE PEOPLE

The woman on a train who told me to put on a sweater and wash my fruit, the old Chinese man who stayed up with me until 3am on a train because he was so fascinated in the video I was working on, the random man who went out of his way to make sure I got off the bus at the right stop, the two old couples who took me in and fed me yak meat en route to Tibet, the incredibly friendly basketball and swimming teammates in Beijing, and all the others in between. The warmth of Chinese people during my time in China simply cannot be measured. I never knew that just a little bit of a foreign language could go such a long way.

THE CHALLENGE

No matter what happens to you when you visit China, one thing is guaranteed: you will be challenged. In your ways of thinking, your mission to find cheese in the grocery store, your attempt to order food at a restaurant from a menu with nothing but Chinese characters, or your attempt to become a squat toilet master. Embrace the challenge and take the plunge out of your comfort zone. It will give you more perspective and more respect for other cultures. I promise.

But, you may not like China. Hell, you may hate it. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with it like I have. The truth is, China isn’t for everyone. Life here might be too different, bizarre, absurd, or unmanageable. The language barrier may drive you out of your mind, or you’ll just miss Western toilets too much to function. And you know what? That’s okay. At least you gave it a shot. I promise you that you’ll have at least one experience here that will make for an epic story. And, if all else fails, one more thing is for certain: your time here will leave you smarter and more open-minded than you were when you first stepped foot on that airplane. Surround yourself with the people that make up one fifth of the world’s population, in one of the largest economies with a fascinating set of political, economic, and population-centered problems. Today’s China will be nothing like China 20 years from now.

Yes, you should still go to Europe. Stand under the Eiffel Tower, take a picture in front of Big Ben, do all of that stuff that plenty of Americans have done before. But if you want to go somewhere where every day is a surprise (including what you blindly ordered on the lunch menu because you couldn’t read it), where you can trek to places few have been and challenge your mind, body and way of thinking: come to China. Crazy happenings await you.

Thanks for everything, China. I’ll be back soon.