Journey of a lifetime

Q+A | Liu Guosheng

Rally drivers seek adventure on the Old Silk Road, Matthew Fulco reports in Shanghai

Liu Guosheng favors the road less traveled - or at least one that has not gotten much use in the past millennium. The Henan province native's Hamburg-based travel company China Tours Hamburg GmBH organizes transcontinental car rallies along routes of the famed Silk Road, named for the lucrative trade that first brought China into large-scale contact with Central Asia and Europe.

The first rally in 2006 started off in Hamburg and finished in Shanghai 72 days, 18,000 kilometers and eight countries later. Participants drove 47 "classic" cars, which were more than 20 years old, including vintage BMWs, Mercedes and Volkswagens. Aside from one vehicle that broke down in Russia, all the cars reached their destination.

Since then, China Tours Hamburg has organized a car rally between Hamburg and Shanghai every year, but 2013 marks the first time for the rally to start in China and follows a westward route to Europe.

With the 26 rally participants in the arduous 56-day, 16,000-kilometer route, China Daily caught up with Liu Guosheng in his Shanghai office for the inside story on traveling "the New Silk Road".

How did you come up with the idea for a transcontinental car rally?

I have lived in Germany for more than 25 years and worked in the travel industry almost as long. My company, China Tours Hamburg, is the largest of its kind in Germany and specializes in providing distinctive China travel experiences to German visitors.

Before 2006, we did do some private car rallies, but that year we decided to do it on a larger scale because it was the 20th anniversary of Shanghai and Hamburg becoming sister cities.

The reaction from rally participants and media covering the event was so positive that we decided to make it an annual thing.

Are there any other reasons you have chosen Shanghai and Hamburg as the departure and arrival cities for the New Silk Road rally?

The ancient Silk Road stretched from Xi'an (then known as Chang'an) to Rome and thrived during the apex of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) in the second half of the seventh century and first half of the eighth century.

At that time, Xi'an was the cosmopolitan capital of China and the center of Eastern civilization. Rome was its counterpart in the West.

Today, the importance of trade along the Silk Road remains but the biggest players have changed. Shanghai and Hamburg are the most important port cities and commercial hubs in their respective countries, which enjoy an enduring friendship and robust commercial ties.

In that sense, the two cities are good representatives of the modern East and West.