Not your typical tour guide

The short version

I grew up in Chongqing, studied software engineering, spent years writing code for a living, then switched to teaching English to kids. Somewhere during that time I developed an unusual hobby: memorizing foreign folk songs — hundreds of them, in German, English, Irish, American, and more. German Volkslieder are my specialty.

Then, a few years ago, I started showing travelers around "my" city — friends of friends, backpackers who had nowhere to go, expats looking for something real. I found I was genuinely good at it. And I liked it more than coding, more than teaching.

So now I'm doing this full time. No agency, no script, no bus. Just me, a city I know completely, and people who want to experience it properly.

Why my background matters to you

A programmer thinks in systems — and a city is a system. I can read a transportation network, understand how neighborhoods connect, spot the patterns others miss. That's how I design routes.

Years of teaching children taught me something harder: how to explain a place to someone who has never been there. Not just facts — the feeling of it. The right metaphor at the right moment.

And the songs? I can't explain it, but knowing hundreds of folk melodies from cultures around the world means I understand something about what it means to belong to a place. Travelers often feel like outsiders here. I help them feel less like tourists and more like guests.

What I actually do

• ✓ Truly personalized. Every tour starts with you — your interests, your pace, your questions. I don't have a template.
• ✓ Flexible on the ground. See something interesting? Let's go. The best moments are the unplanned ones.
• ✓ I know both the famous and the real. The tourist spots, sure — but also the riverside teahouse where locals have gathered for fifty years, the hot pot alley that only taxi drivers know, the hilltop temple with an unobstructed view of both rivers at sunset.
• ✓ Languages — fluently. English, German, and Chinese. No accent barrier, no misunderstanding what you actually mean.

The song collection (a party trick)

If you happen to know a German folk song and hum the first few notes, there's a good chance I'll recognize it and sing along. This has surprised more travelers than I can count. It's completely useless information for planning a tour, but I include it anyway, because it's true — and because genuinely unusual is the best compliment I've ever received.