Most Three Gorge tours start in Chongqing (used to be Chunking before Mao started changing things. Short history lesson: (source, LP) In 1958 the Chinese adopted a system of writing their language using the Roman alphabet, known as pinyin. The original idea was to eventually do away with characters. However, tradition dies hard, and the idea was abandoned. Nowadays most don't even know how to use it. This shouldn't surprise us. We can't even make the switch to the metric system, which the whole world, other than us, uses. Sounds, though that have helped me: Q=ch, and ZH=j and X=sh as in ship, Z-'dz' and in suds. You may not even need that much information, though, or care. But, currently, I am in Qingdao....Chingdao....old spelling Tsingtao= good chinese beer!! As I said in the last blog
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