Yellow River Odyssey by Bill Porter

Author:Bill Porter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chin Music Press Inc.

HISTORIANS AND SAGES

Early the next morning, I walked across the street from my hotel to the Weinan bus station and caught the next bus heading north. It was bound for Hancheng, 100 kilometers to the northeast. As we left Weinan and crossed the Wei River, I looked out the bus window in the direction of the rising sun. About seventy kilometers to the east, where the Wei joined the Yellow River, the rulers of ancient China set a maiden adrift on a bed of sedge every year as an offering to the Lord of the River. I’ve never understood why humans did that, why humans alone among all creatures treated their own kind with such cruelity. I didn’t have an answer. I don’t think anyone else did either.

Two hours later, I got off ten kilometers south of Hancheng and walked down a paved road to the right. It led downhill toward the Yellow River. Halfway there, I stopped to ask directions from a farmer, just to make sure the road led to where the bus driver said it did. The farmer put down his mattock and insisted on leading me the rest of the way, until the road ended at a parking lot at the base of a hill that looked out on the river. He then spent the next hour showing me the shrine built in honor of China’s greatest historian, Szu-ma Ch’ien.

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