Second?Thoughts（轉念之間）（英文）
王浩,孫尚武,陳智明,王茜
Chinese?workers?helped?unite?the?states?
By?Tom?Clifford?
They carried out a Pharaonic feat of labor. Few in history have done so much but been credited so sparsely.
For decades, the contributions of Chinese railway workers to the most important construction project in mid-19th century America, the transcontinental railroad, were largely ignored. On May 10, 1869, Chinese employed by the Central Pacific Railroad hammered in the final rails before the famous golden spike was driven in atPromontory Point,Utah. Physically and symbolically the completed rail linked what had, just a few short years earlier, been a nation ripped asunder by the Civil War. The Chinese workers were officially recognized in May 2014 at a ceremony inWashington.
More than 12,000 workers from southernChinawere hired by the Central Pacific Railroad. They made up the overwhelming majority of its workforce, far outnumbering other nationalities. The iconic photo, with two facing, almost menacingly impatient, locomotives surrounded by white workmen, depicts the moment when the line was completed. The company did actually honor the Chinese workers at Promontory Point. As the photo was being organized, they invited representatives to meet company executives in a special rail car. However, at that precise moment, either by design or fault, Andrew J. Russell shouted "smile and look at the camera" to those who had been meticulously assembled by the locomotives. It was one of the images that definedAmericabut it was not a definitive depiction of what had gone before.
Would history have been different if the Chinese workers had been in the photo and publically credited for their immense input? Possibly.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese laborers from entering theUnited States. Chinese immigrants already inAmericawere barred from obtaining citizenship. The act was repealed in December 1943.
The Pacific Rail Bill that Congress passed in 1862 committed the nation to the completion of a line that would span the continent to help the country get closer to Asia and, ironically, in view of the photo, China in particular. The outbreak of the Civil War made it imperative to deliver a sense of unity. Congress selected the Central Pacific to build east fromSacramentoand the Union Pacific to build west from theMissouri River.
The Union Pacific had the less arduous task with relatively flat terrain to cross and hiring labor was no problem. The Central Pacific section had few workers and the Sierras to overcome.
Thousands of Chinese toiled in scores of labor gangs. Facing two of the worst winters on record, the Chinese tunneled through solid granite cliffs, felled trees and laid the track that knitted the country together. The line was like a bandage over a war wound, a sign of healing.
They used primitive equipment, pick and shovel, and explosives to hack outSummitTunnel. Disease, explosions, land and snow slides took a cruel toll.
Relations between theUSandChinacan sometimes seem fraught. But an understanding of those who helped forge theUScan provide an insightful counterbalance and a narrative of inspiration.
Contact the writer at tomclifford@chinadaily.com.cn
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Second?Thoughts（轉念之間）（英文）
王浩,孫尚武,陳智明,王茜
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Saihanba: Proof our planet can be healed
By Greg Fountain
Before we visited the "Green Lung of North China" earlier this summer, I'd never heard of Saihanba.
A vast forest almost three times the size ofMalta, this seemingly boundless ocean of green sits at the border of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and northernmostHebeiprovince.
What makes Saihanba special is the way it was created－the land on which the forest now thrives was effectively reclaimed from the desert, starting 55 years ago.
Back then, the arid landscape acted as a funnel, channeling sandstorms that had emanated in Inner Mongolia all the way toBeijingand beyond. With the capital under threat of burial from the fast encroaching desert, it was decided that something had to be done.
In centuries past, Saihanba had been a royal hunting ground, prized for its extensive grassland and tree cover. But by the mid-19th century, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was already in decline and Saihanba, which translates as "beautiful highland", became anything but.
Abandoned by the aristocracy, opportunistic loggers moved in to clear away the trees. It would take almost 100 years for the landscape to be reborn.
Believed to be one of the world's largest man-made forests, Saihanba today is a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance.
Official records show that in 1962－when the area was designated a national forest－the average age of its 369 inhabitants was just 24. About one-third of these were graduates, fresh from technical schools and colleges, bent on greening the barren wasteland once more.
Bitter winters, the harsh natural environment and sheer physical exertion made it a challenge.
Fewer than half of Saihanba's occupants from the 1960s survive to this day. Their average lifespan: an abnormally short 55 years.
Progress on the Saihanba project could be painfully slow, as severe frosts, long droughts and plagues of insects wreaked havoc with the fledgling forest at various times over the decades. But the workers persisted and adapted their techniques until, eventually, they had brought a halt to the desert's advance.
Those brave men and women gave everything, including their lives, to tame a wild frontier. But it's telling that their actions were only necessitated by those who had come before, who had unknowingly incurred nature's wrath in the first place.
We all have a responsibility, as caretakers of this planet we call home, to ensure its survival for future generations.
Saihanba shows that the world we share can heal, if we allow it, no matter the damage wrought.
Contact the writer at gregory@chinadaily.com.cn
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