Reading this book has brought a lot of new insights and has also made me grateful for all that I have. In Beijing and traveling out of the city you can see how poor families are. There are stories that I’ve read that the conditions people live in appear to be the worse. Then I read this quote and it brought to my attention that maybe it isn’t as bad as it appears. One of the men Rob sits next to at a bus station in Jiayuguan exclaims, ” Life is so much better now. There are so many more opportunities. We used to have to scavenge simply for food during the fifties and sixties.” Many people in the late 1950’s experienced the famines and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Times have gotten better just as Gifford addressed. He posed the question, “Compared to what?” And Rob knows instantly that for this man ” probably has seen and suffered things, and participated in events, that few Westerners have ever had to bear. Now he can choose what he does. And that, for him, is progress.” Coming from a country that has developed more than the country your visiting gives you a sense of gratefulness. I’ve realized all that I have and how much I take for granted each day. Both times coming to Beijing has been an eye opening experience.  The stories Gifford tells in China Road has made me think how thankful we should all be. There are many people in the world that are living in worse conditions.

Reflecting back on chapters in China Road my favorite was about the Caves of a Thousand Buddha’s. I have loved all of the fascinating stories in the book but I found this the most intriguing. In 1900 Aurel Stein traveled from India along the Southern Silk Road. He found “clay seals on wooden tablets depicting Greek deities, showing that Western artistic images had traveled east along the Silk Road. Up until that time, no one knew European influences had reached that far.” I thought was so amazing and wished I could have been there with Aurel. Aurel Stein had heard of a Taoist monk who had discovered hidden caves. I loved the way Gifford painted the picture of the caves; he stated, “They were secret grottoes that had been sealed for centuries. Word in the bazaar was that the cave was full of ancient manuscripts.” The sight of these “secret grottos” was “heaped up in layers, but without any order, there appeared in dim light of the priest’s little lamp a solid mass of manuscripts bundles rising to a height of nearly ten feet, and filling, as subsequent measurement showed, close on 500 cubic feet.” Another fact I found interesting was that the manuscripts were in good condition since 1000 A.D because “the dry desert air helping to preserve the manuscripts. One of the documents turned out to be the world’s oldest known printed book, the Diamond Sutra, a scroll made of seven panels of paper, on which carved wooden blocks were used to print.” The British Museum has housed these manuscripts and they still have not given of these manuscripts back to China. After reading a lot Aurel Stein adventures I was very jealous. Reading this made me wish I had born in that time era so that I could have experienced be the first to discover something. I wish that there were still hundreds of pieces to be found and discovered. I’m happy that I’ve had the opportunity to read this book and discover all the wonderful history of China.