China Stories · Time

Author: Zitu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-10-01
Features: In China, there is a group of people who, to most of us, we are accustomed to learning about the world vaguely from television and newspapers. This habit proves that we are fortunate, because the environment we live in is peaceful. When we hastily scan the distant disasters and misfortunes in the news every day, we rarely think deeply, let alone realize the state of the entire society and the fate of other groups behind these events and stories. However, there is another group of people who must directly face these challenges. They travel tirelessly to remote or dangerous places, year after year, engaging in lonely waits or arduous tracking—not just to fill news time or space, but more importantly, to become witnesses to the history we are living through. The story of humanity is first and foremost a story of time and space, and the story of China is even more so. Because of time, there is history and destiny; because of space, there is society and emotion. To narrate the tumultuous contemporary China, time is indispensable; to understand the true China, one needs to step into many spaces that we cannot see or see but overlook. Because of the rapid changes and the large population, time and space are actually China's two most scarce resources.