The China Express
21 November - 7 December, 2001
(print version)

China is a land of mystery as much to those who live there as it is for those of us traveling through. Barbaric from the onset yet so refined, China, is discovered in the little pockets of civility stashed away like veins of gold in a dark mine.

With the raw interpretation of our five senses we perceive how grotesquely dirty the land and air are in the cities and among the industrial districts where the world's factories work feverishly, pumping pollutants into the air and water to cheaply satisfy the cravings of our materialistic and consumer bent western society. Unfortunately I didn't really get a good look at the "real" Chinese country side, but from what I did see from the train in the daylight, still hours away from a major city was a land which looked simple, clean, and untarnished by the evolving world around it.

But even in the dirty cities, after a few days letting your eyes and nose adjust to the environment, a people and nation with such phenomenal potential meekly peaked out at me through the grime and smog; it was almost frightening.

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