Cruising the Yangtze and the World’s Most Dangerous Hike

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China. Switch an “e” for an “i”, throw in a gee (whiz). Change. A country with recorded History stretching her back into the past more than any other. A country attacking its future with a misplaced religious ferocity - replacing gods with commerce. It took the west centuries of evolution to industrialize, commercialize, commoditize. We have our share of mistakes and fiascos, scandals and witch-hunts. Stock booms, depressions, bulls and bears - Capitalism didn’t appear overnight, and is far from a perfect system. Yet here in the world’s most populous country, counting 1/6 of every human on the planet, the Communist party has opened its doors and allowed this unwieldy capitalist beast to run amok amongst the Ming vases. It is not just in Shanghai or Beijing where you see the crater from the sudden impact of this decision. World cities are, after all, world cities. Xian, Wuhan, Chongqing might be places you’ve never heard of, but they also happen to each have populations of 8 - 10 million. Chongqing is now known as the world’s largest municipal area, containing a staggering 32 million people. And if they’re not world cities now, they soon will be. Through the sudden full-scale embrace of consumerism, the world is coming to them. Shopping malls and neon skyscrapers, city streets lined with Chinese fashion brands, night markets being replaced by Nike stores. Authentic product too. And not particularly cheap. The middle class has been unleashed. The Chinese Century has begun.

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