A BACKPACK with several articles of clothes, a phone charger, some water and dry food was all Chen Zhijun carried with him for 30 days as he walked the 1,700 km from Shenzhen to his hometown in Shaanxi Province, Chinese-language media reported.

    The fitness coach departed from Bao’an District at 5 a.m. Dec. 27, aiming to arrive in his hometown of Zhen’an on Jan. 27, the Chinese New Year’s Eve.

    After a month walking across four provinces, Chen managed to arrive home to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his family.

    “I cycled from Shenzhen to my hometown two years ago,” said Chen. To achieve his goal of arriving on the Chinese New Year’s Eve, Chen walked between 60 and 80 kilometers per day.

    “My walking pace was around five kilometers per hour,” he said. He kept an even pace so as not to harm his ankles and knees as he didn’t want to risk his health to meet his arrival goal.

    Chen said all the three pairs of quality shoes he had bought were worn out along his journey. He didn’t walk at night. Every morning, he got up early and embarked on the road.

    He encountered a person who deliberately bumped into him and lay on the ground in order to blackmail him. Chen wanted to teach this man a lesson, but was concerned it would take too much of his time, so he ran away instead.

    “It cost me around 8,000 yuan (US$1,165) for accommodations and meals along the journey,” said Chen, who also wanted to remind people of how vehicles had become an excuse not to walk. He said that reminding people of the importance of exercise was one of the goals of his action.

    Not everyone, however, should walk as much as Chen. In fact, a professor from a school of physical education in Xi’an suggested that people walk at most 6,000 steps each day, because extensive exercises could do harm to the body if the practitioner is not professionally trained. (Zhang Qian)