Small Wild Goose Pagoda

Pingyao and Xi'an

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July 23rd 2007
We were glad to put Taiyuan behind us; we saw a fatal auto accident, road chaos, and monkeys on a leash. The whole city was so chaotic that we felt frankly unsettled. What we saw there, however, was pretty amazing; sometimes it is hard to sort out all the contradictory images--especially when the past and the present collide without any obvious connections. Before we left for Xi'an on the overnig ... read more

Asia » China » Shaanxi » Xi'an

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For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more