I am fascinated by a book which I am reading since last week. This book is called China Road, a journey into the future of a rising power, from Rob Gifford. It is a nice journey along route 312, the Route 66 of China. He speaks Chinese, meet local people and gives his opinion about China's religion, politics and the fast developing economy.
His journey starts in Shanghai and while he is on the road heading to the west, he meets garrulous talk show hosts, tragic prostitutes, yuppies, drivers, peasants, AIDS patients and Tibetian monks. His book bring me now in Tibet, where he tells the stories of poor tibetans farmers and tibetans children who are trying to study Chinese very hard and pray for a better living for the future. The Chinese are on one mission in China: science and progress. Get them out of their "barbarian" way of living and throw their own civilization to them. "Revive the nation through science and technology"!
While he is on the road, Rob Gifford described the things he sees on the road. He finds the following propaganda on the roads: "one child less will save 3000-5000 yuan" or "speed up road construction. speed up the development of the west. There is no copper in roadside cables. Thieves will be severely punished"
Another interesting story is when he meets a prostitute and talks with her about the reason why she is doing the job she is doing. He expected a sad story how she had to leave school, because she didn't have money. Something like; I must do this or won't be able to eat! But then he says (quote of the book): "but there is a dangerous tendency for everything in modern China to be given an economic impetus, as though financial pressure is the only reason anyone ever does anything. We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners."