China Road: A Journey Into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford

Author:Rob Gifford
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: International Relations, Social Science, China - Description and Travel, Travel, Economics, Essays & Travelogues, Asia, General, Customs & Traditions, China, Economic Conditions, Gifford, Political Science, International, Rob - Travel - China, China - Social Life and Customs, Business & Economics, History
ISBN: 9780812975246
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2007-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Broadband changes your life.

If you’re going to bring life-changing inventions to this part of the country, it seems that some kind of basic agricultural mechanization might be a better place to start.

The road is being widened between Linxia and Xiahe, perhaps in anticipation of more tourists, and the bus frequently has to pull onto a stretch of uneven dirt track beside the road. The bumpity-bumping on the dirt track causes the large watermelon in the luggage rack to fall onto the head of a child. The child lets out a squeal but seems not to be seriously hurt. No one gets angry. No one threatens to sue. Falling watermelons are just an occupational hazard of travel in China.

Finally I decide to strike up a conversation with the two princesses behind me, feeling rather sheepish at my own rather dirty state.

“We’re going to Xiahe,” Princess Pinky answers my inquiry.

“How long are you staying?”

“Probably just one night, then we are heading on to Hezuo.”

“Are you on vacation?”

“Sort of vacation,” says Femme Fatale, “but working too.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“Cosmetics.”

It emerges that they both work for a Shanghai makeup company called Meisu, which this year has opened a branch in Lanzhou and now also has stores in both Xiahe and Hezuo, the regional capital of southern Gansu. The women are cosmetics missionaries.

“Wherever there are women, there is Meisu,” says Princess Pinky with a smile. “That’s our slogan.”

“So is there a market among the Tibetans?” I ask.

“No, it’s the Han Chinese who buy cosmetics,” she says. “The minority peoples aren’t really interested in that sort of thing.”

“What do your stores sell? Just lipstick and rouge and the usual stuff?”

“Yes, but also lots of whitening cream, to make your skin paler. We hate dark skin.”

I tell her how Western women buy suntan cream to make their skin look darker. She looks repelled, not seeming to care that every face on the bus is either the dark skin of a Tibetan or Hui Muslim, or the darkened skin of a Chinese farmer who works all day in the sun. “Dark skin is ugly. White skin is beautiful,” she says.

Then she actually asks the young Tibetan man next to her why his skin is so dark.

“I don’t know,” he replies graciously in perfect Mandarin. “We are just born that way.”

The bus crosses through a sort of wooden gateway. This is Tumenguan, the entrance into southern Gansu province. Almost immediately, the countryside becomes greener and there are temples in the villages and on the hillsides, as though, in some sudden Narnia moment, we have passed through a door into a different kingdom.

I mention this, and the young Tibetan man who has just been quizzed about his dermatological details chips in. “We’re entering Gannan,” he says. “This is a Tibetan autonomous region.”

“How’s life here?” I ask him.

“It’s getting better. There is more investment here these days. There are now two factories here. One making medicine, the other processing milk.”

“Do people here want xiaokang? Moderate prosperity? As in the government slogans?”

He looks at me, bemused by my query.

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