World walk blog China 18

Late at night having walked 44 kilometres I arrived at a small grocery store. Inside the owner and some customers were playing Chinese dominoes. 

I ate pot noodles for dinner. As I was still six kilometres from the next town I asked if I could camp outside the store.

In the morning as I sat on a chair having my breakfast the thoughtful owner played Danny Boy on his laptop. He followed it with a Chinese version of the Irish song! 

A tough 41 kilometres with a lot of climbing followed in the mountains. 

Men and and women of all ages worked their small cabbage patches. They used makeshift tools, shovels and picks. I waved, sometimes they smiled but more often than not I was greeted by stone wall silence as their eyes followed me down the road, for they had rarely if ever witnessed such an unlikely arrival in their villages. Sometimes I stopped to shake their hand and more often than not this raised a smile, always a special moment for me. 

That night I was between towns.

I came up a steep hill in the dark and came to a family restaurant. It was closed but they were cleaning up. I asked if I could eat there and they cooked me a huge meal. I ate it with the family sitting around me. The eight year old girl as sharp as a tack asked me where I was going to pitch my tent. Can I pitch it outside? I asked. They allowed me to sleep on the floor on my air mattress. 

Walking through China there were days when old men proudly wore their uniforms from their days under the rule of Chairman Maos Cultural Revolution. They carried heavy loads on their backs. Young fashionably dressed people drove nice cars, SUV's and ride motorcycles. I don't find them as interesting as their parents and grandparents.
Perhaps some of these older people are the survivors of Maos Great Leap Forward, his Great March, a sustained drive to modernise China in a time when he considered neighbouring Stalins regime to be too soft.
Maos targets were unrealistic for those manual workers to achieve. More food was required to feed hungry workers and the country didn't have it for so little of the land even today is arable. This resulted in a famine which killed some 70 million people. Every time one mentions a number in China, it's always a staggering drastic.

Today, China has 20% of the world population and only 3% of its land is suitable for farming.
I find it remarkable that a man responsible for such pain and suffering is still held in such high regard by many, his picture is on Chinese banknotes. A couple of people I spoke to have mentioned to me that he cleared the path for others to eventually modernise the country.
Today China has the worlds second biggest economy and is vying with the western world for respect and to be viewed as a true superpower. The country has led the way ( as I mentioned in a previous post) with programs to deliver food to its huge population. They are driving forward with their One Belt One Road revival of the Silk Road by rail and sea. Big business has bought up whole farms in France and ship the resulting produce back to China by rail, one of just 15 freight rail connections to Europe. They have bought meat processing plants in the USA and want to not only own but run and export back to feed the Chinese people. Like wise as in France the Chinese are buying up farms in America. There is no shortage of Chinese investment either. When the local government in Vancouver imposed a tax hike on foreign investments. Chinese investors responded by moving their business a short drive across the border to Seattle. That created an unexpected boom for the American city.
While all this is happening I wonder what the other overpopulated county India is doing to feed its people for India population is expected to overtake China's within the next 10 or 20 years.