Preamble:
People have asked me why I wanted to go to China. The short answer is simple
enough, because, like a mountain, it's there. The long answer is
another matter. I had been to China only once before and only to
Shanghai in 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics. But that was like
peeling only the outer skin of an onion. Shanghai is a bustling,
cosmopolitan, smog enshrouded city caught up in China's emergence as
a major world power once again.
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| New Year decoration in hotel lobby - red is the predominant color in China |
What accounts for the longevity and durability of Chinese
civilization, a civilization that has endured for some 4000 years? Gone are the Sumerians and the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the
Romans, deflated the Spanish and British Empires and seemingly losing
influence the American Empire; yet China as a definable culture with
a written history that can still be read in the same characters
endures, and like the Phoenix rises again and again with that
substratum of culture intact, seemingly indestructible. Maybe China
is like a willow that can bend but is strong and doesn't break
easily.
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| New Year building decoration near People's Square in downtown Shanghai |
I
wondered what the “real” China, the hinterlands, would be like.
Living in Japan, China is easily accessible by air. It is
only a couple hours from Okayama to Shanghai and about four hours
from Shanghai to Dali in Yunnan Province in the eastern foothills of
the Himalaya Mountains not far from the Tibetan border where we
decided to spend the winter months from mid-February (at the end of
the Chinese New Year of the Monkey) to early April. From Dali we planned to travel
north to Shaxi, Li Jiang (Shuhe) and Shangri La. Whether or not I can
learn something about what makes this country “tick”, perhaps my
impressions and experiences and thoughts may show.
To be continued...
