For millennia China's great rivers have snaked their long meandering courses across the country, providing lifeblood for Chinese civilisation. Along the banks of the Yellow River to the north and the Yangtze to the south, five thousand years of history and culture have unfolded, with agriculture flourishing in otherwise inhospitable terrain and trade bringing prosperity…
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It’s Olympics Time: Rains Can Wait
AFTER WEEKS of watching the mercury soar, hardening the already cracked earth of their wilting orchards and farms, several farmers gather in the Fragrant Hills that line the western fringe of Beijing. Unlike their ancestors they do not assemble to perform a rain dance or to pray to the Buddha for rain. Instead, they grab…
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