I felt I had hit the jackpot when I became a stewardess for Delta Air Lines in 1965, a few months after turning 20. I flew mostly in the U.S. when I was working, but took advantage of world travel on vacations—from Egypt to Thailand, from Peru to Hong Kong, from Italy to East Africa, and more. Traveling, with all its distractions, became an escape and provided some mental relief.

And then…China

I had been a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines for 18 years, unmarried and without children, when a colleague convinced me to go to China. A year later, I arrived there unaware that the country would become my life’s passion. Eventually I divided my life into before China and after China.

In the fall of 1983 I spent my first night in Hangzhou, China. Five months after that first trip, I returned without the safety net of a tour, facing many rewards as well as challenges. My experiences in Tibet a year and a half later resulted in a deep knowing that if I could survive Tibet, I could do just about anything. My trip in 1986 culminated in my desire to share China with others and to study Mandarin Chinese.

Deepening and sharing my love of China

Studying Chinese brought me to the US-China People’s Friendship Association—New England Chapter, where I volunteered teaching English as a Second Language to Chinese scholars and their families. I thought the friendship organization was a way to promote peace. I took airline employees and their families to China on friendship tours between 1991 – 1994.

My father passed away in 1993, leaving a small inheritance that enabled me to take a three-year leave to teach English in China. The trials and tribulations of living in a foreign country were challenging as I came to realize that living in China was not the same as visiting China.

Awakening the Dreamer: Two Passions Meet

After returning to the United States, I lived in Marblehead, MA, and taught English at a local community college. In 2011 I attended the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream (ATD) Symposium developed by the Pachamama Alliance. The purpose of the ATD Symposium is to “bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on our planet.” I was deeply moved by the Symposium and wanted to take it to China. Over the following nine years, until 2020, I accomplished this goal.

The video below gives a background to my volunteering adventure in China.

China revisited

I returned to China in the fall of 2023 when Delta flights resumed to Shanghai after the hiatus of the Covid 19 pandemic. Older, I wondered whether I would have the stamina to deal with all the changes there. Most importantly, would I still have a place in my heart for her? As it had so many times in my life, the hand of synchronicity took charge, and I returned again in 2024.

A memoir emerges

At 12 years old, I had declared to my family, “I’m going to write a book about traveling the world!” I knew even then that my life wouldn’t follow a predictable path that women of my generation were expected to follow. While I didn’t know how that book would be written, I journaled about all my travels and took many photos, as I’ve chased my dreams over the last 60 years. Butterfly Dreams is that book, now published thanks to Green Fire Press, that captures the enduring passions of my life: preserving our beautiful earth and loving the land and people of China.

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Order now from your favorite independent bookstore or purchase online.

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Thank you for visiting. I hope what I share in the blog and in the book enrich your life as it has mine in living it!

With gratitude,
Mary E. Klug