Now that I'm snug back at home, I'm ready to tackle another long (69 pages!) article in the next issue of the National Geographic Magazine (NGM), November, 1932. In order to even read this article, I've had to search through my previous blogs and re-read two of them, "Getting Ready for a BIG Trip!" this blog, Saturday, December 28, 2013, and "The Original ATVs" this blog, Tuesday, January 14, 2014. If you like, read them first, then proceed with this entry.
This next article is the conclusion of an incredibly long and tortuous, adventurous, in reality, fool-hardy in some ways, journey made mostly by 'motorcar' across the world from Beyrouth (Beiruit, Lebanon) to Peiping (Peking, China) started in April, 1931. I feel like the author, Maynard Owen Williams, Litt.D., is an old friend I've met through his previous articles in the NGM. The imposing title is From the Mediterranean to the Yellow Sea by Motor: The Citroen-Haardt Expedition Successfully Completes Its Dramatic Journey.
All in all, there were eleven vehicles that appear to be hybrid Model-T trucks in the front and tractors with trailers in the back which finished the trip. One group went 3,257 miles from Kashgar (in Chinese Turkestan) to Peiping. Another group went 7,370 miles from Beyrouth to Peiping (one way!). Mr. Williams, from the National Geographic Society, was the lone American. Can you imagine this distance traveled now? Now can you imagine this trip when there were very few roads or bridges!! Add this to the equation: the speed of the vehicles ranged from one to twelve miles per hour.
Mr. Williams tells us now of part of the epic journey, beginning in Kashgar, Turkestan. The expedition needed to cross Russian territory but was denied permission by the Soviets. Now they need to cross Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang, an independent province of the Peoples Republic of China). They were totally dependent on the whims of the local rulers, "for this was the very heart of a continent into which occidentals (white people) have gone only through the cooperation or consent of those to whom it belongs," (p. 515). In addition to the motorcars, hundreds of the double-humped Asian camels were used to carry their supplies.
At one location, the troupe narrowly missed being a casualty of a local military skirmish. "Suddenly we came upon the wreckage of war: horses killed, carts overturned, corpses lining the road and in the ditches, soldiers, women and children huddled together in utter disorder. . . we continued our way amid burning homes," (p. 528).
One goal of the expedition was to study the culture of the vast continent of Asia. "For more than 2,000 years Taoism, "now a conglomeration of animism, polytheism, and magic," has been the popular religion of the Chinese. Its philosophy is responsible for Chinese passivity in the face of suffering and emphasis on culture rather than possession," (photo caption, p. 529).
In Mongolia, an educated princess who also spoke French and English, commented on the view of we Westerners by the Orientals, "The Oriental has his psychological Great Wall, whose protection is beginning to seem less sure. The man behind it doesn't want to be loved or even appreciated. He wants to be undisturbed. People seek to protect not only property, but modes of life. Perhaps your way of life is right for you, but it threatens ours. You are in a hurry, and hence, barbaric (my emphasis). You are entranced by mechanical toys, which you haven't mastered. You like frankness; but until real understanding exists, even formal politeness helps. You dominate world ideals, which differ from ours. You are men of auto, railway, radio. You find this a backward land, without roads, speed, a free press, a balanced budget, sanitation, or familiar forms of justice. Hence you pity the Chinese. But they live in the Celestial Kingdom, the center of all the world that counts. Your progress is chaotic, at least in its impact on orientals, because its spiritual values are not recognized. We Mongols are emancipated. 'A good horse and a wide plain under God's heaven,' that's our desire, and we realize it," (p. 535.) What an insightful young lady for her time and our times! Have we made progress together in the last 80 years?
This is a good stopping point for today in this very long trip.
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