Your Incredible Neighbors: GV resident shares experiences in China

Larry and Cene Backus have always enjoyed traveling.

The Backuses spent several weeks in China last September as part of a guided tour. Larry Backus will recount his experiences in a special series of articles for the Green Valley News. The four-part series, counting down to the Olympic opening ceremony Aug. 8 in Beijing, will run Fridays, beginning this week.

Larry said he has been interested in the Far East for years, and his interest in China began to develop when he returned to college.

“I went back for a master’s degree in political science in the early ‘90s at the University of Colorado,” Larry said, “and they had connections with China. “So I got really interested at that point.”

Cene, Larry’s wife of almost 45 years, said they finally got the opportunity to go when they discovered a travel agency that did tours of China in January 2007. The tour was a chance to learn more about the country and its people.

“The only thing we usually hear about China is that everything’s made there,” Cene said. “I don’t think people look beyond that, and that there are nice people in China.”

Larry said he feels that there is a general lack of trust between the two countries due to various reasons.

“I think there’s a very minimal understanding of what China is, what it’s all about and what the people are like,” he said. “Historically, I had been brought up with the idea that the Chinese are somebody that you’ve got to look out for.” But, Larry said, his travels gave him a first-hand experience of the lives of real Chinese citizens.

“We were just so pleased with the very positive reception that the Chinese gave to us. Wherever you would go, they were always very positive.” Their tour took them to many of the major historical areas and cities of China, including the Great Wall, Shanghai and Tiananmen Square.

One of the only downsides to their visit, they said, was the pollution. Though they were only there for a few weeks, Larry said he fell sick briefly because of the large amount of smog found in the major cities.

“It was that bad,” he said. “I ended up even having to go to the hospital in Hong Kong for a shot.”

The Backuses have spent years indulging their love of travel, including spending over four years traveling across North America in a motor home after their retirement in 2002.

Both Larry and Cene are originally from Michigan, where Cene worked as a teacher and Larry served a stint in the military. Eventually they made their way to Colorado, where they spent three decades doing various things. Cene was a Realtor in the Denver area, while Larry worked with the youth organization Adventure Unlimited as a national field director. All the while, they were running their own business.

“Our principal business was we owned some postal instant press—PIP—printing franchises in the Denver area,” Larry said.

Larry hopes that his experiences will help others better understand China and the Chinese people, and believes that a healthy relationship between the two countries is beneficial to everyone.

“I think now that China has really become an economic competitor, that it could really put a strain on the relationship,” he said. “Every generation grows up with a threat of somebody. Right now the threat is Iran. When I was a kid it was Japan. There’s always got to be an enemy. It seems like society always needs to feel like there’s somebody that they’ve got to defend themselves against.”

djordan@gvnews.com | 547-9732