Bitten by the bug

In 1982, his interest in China was definitely piqued when he saw the Jet Li movie Shaolin Temple, which led him to start learning martial arts, especially tai chi. He finally got to make his first trip to the country in 1985, thanks to a small inheritance that funded the journey. He persuaded his tutors at the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communication) where he was studying photography to allow him to travel during term time to undertake a photojournalism project.

He recalls that first visit — made during the early years of the reform and opening-up policy — as "alienating, overwhelming, filthy and depressing", although he concedes that was mainly because he was determined to travel to less-developed areas and also because he spoke no Mandarin, so basic amenities were hard to arrange.

He found life easier during subsequent visits, though, as China was developing in leaps and bounds, and also because he addressed the language problem by taking intensive Mandarin courses at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and Sichuan University in Chengdu, the provincial capital.

His photojournalism experience in China was rewarded when the publishers of the Rough Guides travel series selected him to write about the southwest of the country.

That first assignment sparked an ongoing fascination with Guangxi and the provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan. In addition to the Chinese mainland, Leffman has written guides to Hong Kong and Macao, and has even ghosted a cookbook for a Chinese author.

He estimates that he has visited China more than 15 times since those early trips, often in the company of his wife, spending his time traveling, observing, learning and writing about a country that continues to fascinate him. Each visit usually lasted about six months, occasionally broken into two blocks, but the longest was nine months.

"So far, the best moment was finally seeing golden monkeys after 14 years spent looking for them (obviously in the wrong places). The worst was being a passenger in a bus which ran somebody over," he recalled in a previous interview with China Daily.