Extracts from Walk for Peace:
‘The recent YouGov Opinion Poll found that the Chinese were the most optimistic people in the world, with 41% responding to say they thought that the world was getting better and 33% responding to say it was getting worse; the figures for Britain were that only 4% thought the world was getting better and 65% thought it was getting worse. I realised that if I were to accurately view the real China, then I needed to change the lens I was observing it through from cynical and pessimistic to sentimental and optimistic. Not to do so would be akin to trying to understand the meaning of Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet.’
‘My chosen mode of getting around on my three-month visit to China was an unusual one—walking. I was undertaking a charity walk from Beijing to Hangzhou, roughly following the Grand Canal connecting the two cities and extending some 1,000 miles……. When you walk, you need to engage with the communities you walk through in a real way—seeking food, water, shelter and advice on directions.’
’In each country I walk through, eighteen so far, what strikes me most are not our differences which are trivial, entirely cultural and massively over-stated, but our similarities which are vast, awe-inspiring and largely unexplored.’
This is the 2
nd
volume of the Transcultural experiences with ‘three eyes’ book series, published by Global China Press (GCP). GCP is the first UK-based publisher specializing in dual language publications that focus on Chinese perspectives of the world and human knowledge and non-Chinese perspectives of China in a global context. This book series is jointly edited by Lixing Chen, Professor of Sociology, Kwansei Gakuin University, and former President of Japan-China Sociological Society (JCSS), Japan; Xiangqun Chang, Director of CCPN Global and Honorary Professor of University College London (UCL), UK.