CHINA

There is a quality you feel throughout China which is best described by the word, muscularity. It doesn’t matter if you are in the big cities or in the “boonies”- you are aware of an underlying pride and power everywhere you go. We were first aware of it in Shanghai, just before it was due to be turned over to the Chinese by the British.Everywhere we went in Shanghai there was construction. Workers swarming over bamboo scaffolds put up around buildings being built all over the city. It was infectious; you could feel it permeating everything around you.
Even in the countryside, massive housing projects were being put up, bringing electricity to the fortunate ones who would soon be moving from huts with dirt floors into the 20th and 21st Centuries.