Three decades of documenting China

Although I had to return to Scotland in 1993, China had become my life and frequently being asked to talk about my experiences again to people who had little previous knowledge but were keen to learn and find out what was happening. Personally I retained a desire to discover more, particularly away from the developing southern coasts.

To discover a country, to witness daily life and routine, a river journey can be an answer. Not by luxury tourist vessels but by local boats serving riverside communities. In 1994 it was still possible to follow the Yangtze River from mountainous Sichuan all the way to Shanghai. I went as far as Wuhan, but although much remained traditional changes were happening with high-level bridge construction and early works on the Three Gorges Dam. Returning to Chongqing in 2017, apart from the river’s physical geography much felt unrecognizable with so many new bridges and an advanced monorail system.