This is the fourteenth in a series of articles and images from NDH correspondent, David Sand, on the road in China with John-Roger, John Morton and 106 traveling peacemakers.
August 28
A lot of us are up on deck by 6:30 am for a view of some more gorges, and then a view of the new dam in construction. Cups of coffee are served in the bar as we watch the sun rise over the steep mountains on the shore.
And then we cross the dam site. It’s a monumental structure that will provide a great deal of hydroelectric power and will also create a deep enough channel for oceangoing vessels to sail inland from Shanghai to Chongqing.
It’s quiet day on the boat, with people staying in their rooms a lot, packing, resting, doing spiritual exercises. At 4:00pm we disembark and board buses for Wuhan. It’s a long ride through endless rice paddies and farms, with guide Bill Ratliff’s knowledgeable commentary on Chinese politics.
We get off the buses at the Oriental Hotel, billed as a “5-star” hotel, and head to the restaurant. It’s most of the same dishes, in the same grease, that we get everywhere. The rooms are more nicely furnished than at the cheaper hotels, and their pervasive smell of mildew and insecticide is absent. It’s amusing to see how China, which has performed something of an economic miracle in the last 15 years, is trying so hard to catch up with the west and doing an admirable job, but not quite getting it. Funny anomalies occur–a “jazz band” billed at our Shanghai hotel turns out to sound like an off-key polka band; phone connections cut out unexpectedly; a hotel’s “business center” turns out consist of an old PC and a Xerox machine.
But in all fairness, what’s happened here since the mid-eighties is extraordinary. Cities like Shanghai have exploded; there are decent hotels where there used to be nothing; cars, phone lines, shops and businesses have appeared here almost overnight, and a market economy is churning. How the Chinese psyche will handle all of this remains to be seen. Our China expert Bill Ratliff tells us that some people here feel a sense of spiritual loss–that they feel as though the days of a common sense of purpose are gone and that mercenary values have taken over. But on the other hand people are much better off than they were 15 years ago, of course much freer and fully exposed to things western. Most important to me, there is still a real sweetness and gentleness in the people here, especially in the smaller towns.
Tomorrow we leave for Hong Kong and our re-introduction to the west.
Click here to view Children of China Special Feature
Click here to view Day 14 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 13 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 12 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 11 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 10 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 9 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 8 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 7 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 6 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 5 of the China Trip
Click here to view Day 4 of the China Trip
