Thank you for your interest in our company. I would like to take the liberty to give you some information on my background and share with you some of my aspirations and goals in founding Encore China.

Among many of the blessings I count everyday is that I am Chinese by birth and American by choice. I am richly blessed with the best of both heritages. I was born in Chongqing, raised in Nanjing until I was four and half years old when my father put the entire family on a ship in Shanghai for Hong Kong. I came to the United States when I was seventeen years old.

I am very fortunate that my father was the last generation of Chinese scholars educated in the Chinese classics dating back to the dawn of the Chinese civilization. He spent his youth in preparing himself for the Chinese civil service examinations in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty. He never took those examinations as he joined the revolutionary movement led by Dr. Sun Yatsen and helped to overthrow the Qing Dynasty.

I learned a lot from my father even though I lost him in my teenage years. What I learned from my father prepared me well for my early years in Virginia and West Virginia. Back in those days, there were hardly any Asians in the south. Very often I found myself to be the only Asian in town.

I missed my Chinese food, but I was very fortunate that I became thoroughly Americanized without trying. I surprised more than a few fellow students and professors when I showed up in English literature classes as an English minor in college.

You should have listened to me discussing the works of Shelly, Tennyson, James Joyce, Faulkner, and Hemingway in my Chinese accent! I went on to graduate school at West Virginia University and completed my doctoral in psychology. I taught for eleven years at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

My love for travel led me to establishing a full-service travel agency in 1976. I returned to China for the first time in 1987. I was impressed by what I saw. China had just opened up to the outside world, and I could sense the joy and excitement of the Chinese people I encountered. Everyone was looking forward to the future. They had that unshakable faith that tomorrow would be better. Of course, they were right.

As much as I was impressed by what I saw in China, I did not pursue developing tourism to China then. I concluded the infrastructures were just not ready for most American visitors. Also, I became preoccupied with raising two children who were born in 1986 and 1989.

I did not return to China again until 1999. That trip turned out to be a life-changing event. I made up my mind then and there that my mission was to introduce China to my fellow Americans.

The United States and China are the two dominating world powers in the years to come. America is a modern state in search of a civilization. China is an ancient civilization in search of a modern state. The more we know and understand each other, the better the world will be.

Members of our team and I are upset when visitors return from China with unpleasant or unsatisfactory experiences. Our goal is to give our guests the best experience possible within the parameters we work with. Our tours are not designed for mass marketing or maximum profit; they are designed to give our guests the best and most meaningful experience in China. We are constantly learning ourselves.

China is a very dynamic country. It is literally changing right in front of our eyes. We are very fortunate to be living in such an exciting time. We invite you to explore and experience China with us. It will be our honor and privilege to show you the land we so love.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Robert C. Cheung, President