Han Suyin’s China

Han Suyin

China: her size roughly that of Canada or the United States. Her population one billion one hundred million, 22 per cent of the planet’s human beings.

China: very young, 60 per cent of the Chinese under 25 years of age. Very old, millennia of accumulated and still potent history, pride of remembered greatness motivating her march towards the new technological era which is changing the world, and changing her.

China: her history not unitary, but made up of many histories; as she is made up of many different peoples, altogether 56 nations. Yet she is a oneness, coherent, whole. THE GREAT WITHIN.

There is a china of plains, easily traveled, a tourist delight. Here are the wealthiest, the most advanced metropolises: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou,,,fertile alluvial lowlands which seem vast, yet are less than 15 per cent of her total territory. And China’s arable, cultivable acres make up only seven per cent of the world’s total acreage. On this she feeds almost a quarter of the world’s people. A prodigious achievement!

This China of the plains stretches from Manchuria to Hong Kong; most of it lies eastwards, with easy access to the ocean. Here both urban and rural areas have greatly profited from the recent economic reforms. Most of the foreign investments, the special economic zones, the new industrial plants, are sited here. Here are the skills, the manpower, the markets, the communication network. Most of the universities are also here, and more than 80 per cent of the population. Prosperity is evident—-over 60 per cent of new houses in the villages, over 20 per cent of families with television installed in the last ten years, large new apartment houses for urban dwellers, modern hotels…

But there is the other China, 85 per cent of the total surface of the land. This China is not easily visited, for communication is still a problem. It stretches in an immense bow from North to South, and in it live, besides the “typical” Chinese, who call themselves the Hans, fifty-odd other races or ethnic groups, called “national minorities”. These hark back to China’s very beginning. With them the Hans both warred and traded; co-existed, intermarried or ostracized, for nearly 5,000 years.

This other China has many mountain ranges, thousand kilometer long chains stretching from west to east dividing the land into enclosed plateaus and basins whose rivers never reach any sea. It has many deserts; more than a million square kilometers of deserts—almost 15 per cent of her total area of nine million six hundred thousand square kilometers. It has immense grasslands and steppes, oases and salt lakes, jungles and troughs lower than the Dead Sea in Palestine.

This China we must know in order really to know china. It is this conglomerate of many nations, mosaic of peoples, languages and customs, which shaped Chinese culture as we know it today and it is in developing and modernizing this area that her future lies.

North, Northwest, Southwest... for administrative purposes, this other China, nearly seven million out of the nearly ten million square kilometers of the land, is conveniently divided into regions, each one holding several provinces. I have walked, ridden, jeeped, explored this China several times in the course of the last three decades. I have learnt the local names of mountains, rivers, deserts; for everything here has two names, the Han Chinese name, and the name (or names) given by the national minorities which inhabit the area.

Mountains: the majestic Altai, whence came thudding on thick-legged Mongol ponies so many nomad hordes. The Bogden or Heaven’s mountains, sitting in vast skirts of their own crumbled stone. From their slopes flow streams feeding the oases strung along the rim of inland deserts. The Kunlun and the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Himalayas—here Mount Everest is known as Chomolungma.

Deserts: the stone deserts of the Gobi and the Ordos, the Tanguli and the Kurban Tungu and the dreadful Taklamakan.

Plateaus and basins: Dzungaria and Tarim and Tsaidam, and the Roof of the World, the immense plateau of Tibet.

译文：

韩素音笔下的中国

中国面积大致相当于加拿大或美国，人口11亿，占全球人口的22%。

中国非常年轻，60%的中国人年龄在25岁以下。中国又非常古老，具有数千年累积起来、现仍具有强大影响的历史，对往昔文明鼎盛的自豪激励着她迈步走向新技术时代。这个时代正在改变世界，改变中国。

中国的历史并不是一部单一的历史，而是由许多部历史组成，因为中国是由许多不同的民族组成的——总共有56个民族。然而她却是一个紧密完整的统一体。真是一个伟大的、自成一统的国家。

中国的一部分地区是平原，旅行便利，为游览胜地。这里有最富庶、最先进的大都市：北京、天津、上海、南京、广州……肥沃的冲积平原似乎广阔无边，而实际还不到总领土的15%。中国的耕地面积只占世界耕地总面积的7%。她凭这么少的耕地却养活几乎占世界人口四分之一的人，真是一个了不起的成就!

中国平原地区从满洲里一直延伸到香港，多半位于东部，临近海洋。新近的经济改革使这里城乡地区都受惠匪浅。多数外资企业、经济特区、新兴工厂都在这一地区。这里拥有先进的技术、充足的人力、广大的市场和发达的交通网络。多数大学也在这里，还有这个国家。80%以上的人口。繁荣景象是显而易见的——农村60%以上的房屋是新建的，20%以上的家庭在过去十年中添置了电视机，城市居民住上了宽敞的新公寓，还有现代化的旅馆……

但是中国还有另外一部分，占国土总面积的85%。中国的这一部分出入不便，因为交通仍然是一个问题。它由北向南伸展，构成一个巨大的弓形，其中除了自称汉族的“典型”中国人之外，还居住着另外五十几个民族或种族，称为“少数民族”。这些少数民族早在中国形成之初就已存在。将近5，000年间，汉族和少数民族既有战争又有贸易，或与之共存，或与之通婚，或相互排斥。

中国的这一部分有许多山脉，一座又一座绵亘千里，由西向东伸展，把土地分隔成一个个山峦环抱的高原和盆地，其中河流一向不通大海。这里有许多沙漠，沙漠面积有一百多万平方公里——几乎占国土总面积960万平方公里的15%。还有一望无际的草地和大草原，有绿洲和盐湖，有丛林和比巴勒斯坦死海还低的地槽。

我们要真正了解中国，就必须了解中国的这一地区。正是这个不同民族、语言、风俗荟萃的多民族聚集体，才形成了今天我们所知道的中国文化。中国的未来就在于这一地区的发展和现代化。

中国的这一地区在将近1，000万平方公里的国土中占了近700万平方公里，为了行政管理方便划分为华北、西北、西南……等几个区域，每个区域各拥有若干省份。在过去30年中，我曾数次徒步、骑马或乘吉普车考察过中国的这个地区。我学到了不少山脉、河流、沙漠的本地名称，因为这里所有的东西都有两个名称，一个是汉名，，另一个是居住在当地的少数民族给起的名称。

山脉：有巍峨的阿尔泰山，当初不知有多少游牧部落在那边登上腿脚粗壮的蒙古马，轰隆隆一路奔来;有博格多山，又称天山，坐落在山崩地裂造成的广阔地段，从山坡上淌下条条溪流，源源注入内地沙漠边缘上的一连串绿洲之中;还有昆仑山脉和喀喇昆仑山脉、帕米承山脉和喜马拉雅山脉——这里把埃非尔士峰叫做珠穆朗玛峰。

沙漠：有戈壁滩和鄂尔多斯沙石滩，有腾格里沙漠和古尔班通古特沙漠，还有那令人生畏的塔克拉玛干沙漠。

高原和盆地：有准噶尔盆地和塔里木盆地，有柴达木盆地，还有“世界屋脊”——辽阔的西藏高原。