The U.S. media and government loves to paint China as an egregious suppressor of human rights that is home to sweatshop factories, copyright violators, and gross polluters; a country that is dangerous to American interests. The real China, then, was a big surprise when I visited it in 2002. The country is beautiful, cities are modern, people are peace-loving and welcoming — and one is free to criticize the government as long as you aren’t talking about overthrowing the commies.
“Look,” said John as we navigated through the streets of Chongqing replete with open-air markets. “A 10-pack of chicken!”
This 10-pack wasn’t quite like one of those buckets you might pick up at KFC, however. These chickens were alive! And their new owner was taking them away on a leash… Continue reading »
We briefly hopped off of the cruise ship and jumped onto some motorized sampans in order to go through the Lesser Three Gorges. The Lesser Three Gorges are the three separate valleys of the Daning river and are comprised of the Dragon Gate Gorge, Misty Gorge and Emerald Gorge. It was very scenic and thankfully, no one got seasick on the sampans. More photos are here.
Here are some memorable lines from the China ‘02 trip. Most things are inside jokes, sorry. Please email me to have more quotes added to this list (if you are Karen, Martrese, or John…) Continue reading »
I had never gone a cruise before, so this was real treat! We spent five days on the river that, supposedly, Mao Tse Tung had swam in. The Victoria Cruiseliner featured three-star rooms and stopped at various towns along the way to Xian from Wuhan. Continue reading »
We flew to Wuhan from Beijing to start a cruise on the Yangtze River. We also got to visit Mao Tse-Tung’s Villa in Wuhan and afterwards the village of Yeuyang. I took particular interest in Wuhan because this is the town that my friend Sarah had taught English for a year.
