你好(Ni hao)

   Yesterday afternoon, we went to the cultural lecture on Chinese history; and no, I will not bore you with 3,500 years of history but there were some very interesting points. China is actually one of the youngest cradles of civilization dating back to 1,500 BC on the Yellow River.  When you think that Mesopotamian’s recorded history started 3,500 BC on the Tigris River; Egyptian history 3,000 BC on the Nile River; and India, 2,500 BC on the Indus River. The Emperor Qin Shi Huang is considered the father of the tourism in China because he was the one who built the Great Wall of China and had the Terra Cotta Warriors and the Forbidden City. These are the reasons we tourists come. However, he was quite the tyrant. He wanted complete control, so he tricked the scholars of the time and ended up burying them alive in a cave. Then he burned all of the books except for the ones on agriculture and Chinese medicine.  History does repeat itself.

    Today we took smaller boats and went off on a tributary through the Three Gorges. It was such a special treat to hear the birds singing this morning and breathe fresh air.   Our local guide, Lily’s family had lived in the old city for four generations. Before they flooded the city, the government tore everything down so they could then reuse it in building the new Wushan city. The house she grew up in was 700 square feet, and the one she has now is 1300 square feet, so she is thrilled. Plus her new home has a bathroom. In the old city, her family had to use a public facility, so again she is thrilled. She did talk about how difficult it is for the older generation to move and lose everything they had.

    The gorges were beautiful and we could actually see them which was nice. We also saw monkeys and goats. Besides recycling doors and windows from the old houses the farmers brought fertile soil from the farms to cover the rock laden land of the steep mountain cliffs. It makes for interesting looking farm plots. There were lots of caves in the gorges and this is where the local people lived during the war. The caves made good bomb shelters.

Life is uncharted territory, it reveals its story one moment at a time.Leo Buscaglia

Confucius say – I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

再见 (Zaijian)

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Tom & Holly