Environment

Nat Geo goes ‘inside the dragon’

(Image via National Geographic)

The May issue of National Geographic is devoted entirely to China.

“Inside the Dragon,” as it’s called, covers a variety of topics, from the Olympic Games architecture boom to the dismal state of the Yellow River.

The Yellow River story, titled “Bitter Waters” by Brook Larmer, shines light on the urgency of the pollution crisis in China’s legendary waterway.

Few waterways capture the soul of a nation more deeply than the Yellow, or the Huang, as it’s known in China. It is to China what the Nile is to Egypt: the cradle of civilization, a symbol of enduring glory, a force of nature both feared and revered. From its mystical source in the 14,000-foot Tibetan highlands, the river sweeps across the northern plains where China’s original inhabitants first learned to till and irrigate, to make porcelain and gunpowder, to build and bury imperial dynasties. But today, what the Chinese call the Mother River is dying. Stained with pollution, tainted with sewage, crowded with ill-conceived dams, it dwindles at its mouth to a lifeless trickle. There were many days during the 1990s that the river failed to reach the sea at all.

The demise of the legendary river is a tragedy whose consequences extend far beyond the more than 150 million people it sustains. The Yellow’s plight also illuminates the dark side of China’s economic miracle, an environmental crisis that has led to a shortage of the one resource no nation can live without: water.

There are other contributions by famous writers, including a piece on China’s emerging middle class by Leslie Chang, a story about the vanishing Dong minority in Guizhou Village by Amy Tan, and ruminations about China’s future by Peter Hessler. And, of course, stunning photography.

And I got a good tip from Marilyn Terrell, chief researcher from National Geographic Traveler:

The online edition has two stories from the archives of NatGeo that don’t appear in the print edition: a 1955 story by Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian soldier who escaped a British POW camp in India during WWII and hiked over the Himalayas to Tibet, and became tutor to the young Dalai Lama.

and a 1971 story by Canadian Audrey Topping who attended college in China before Mao’s revolution, then returned years later to find the country transformed in many ways.

The stories are rich, engaging and informative. If you can’t get your hands on the print edition, no worries — the online version is rich in multimedia and interactive tools. And there’s even a “How to Help” section, in line with the publication’s mission to “inspire people to care about the planet.”

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