The Forever Walk: China (2022) s01e02 Episode Script

1
Some people think I'm crazy.
Fair enough.
My name is Paul Salopek.
I'm a biologist by training,
a foreign correspondent
through long experience,
and a National Geographic
writer and explorer.
Since 2013, I've been walking continuously
from the human species' birthplace
in Africa,
all the way to where our wandering
ancestors ran out of horizons
at the tip of South America.
Except, my trek is about
more than ancient migrations and survival.
The journey I'm on is about slowing down,
taking the time to listen,
to learn,
and interact with humanity
in the most immersive way possible.
People are my destination.
Regardless of who I encounter,
it's the daily lives of the individuals
along my trail
who offer windows
into the big issues of our time
Their stories form a mosaic of meaning
that can connect us all.
Now, my journey is taking me
and my local walking partners
deep into China.
Who will we encounter?
Where are they from
and where are they going?
The answers always
are revealed one footstep at a time.
What a view.
-Not too many people get this view.
-Yeah.
Sometimes people ask me
if I ever get lonely.
The truth is,
this walk is probably the most social
I've ever been in my life.
Since setting foot in the Middle Kingdom,
I've been following the Hu Line.
It's an imaginary boundary
that divides East and West China,
and it'll steer me some 6,000 km
across ten provinces.
Now it's brought me here to Lijiang
in Yunnan Province,
in China's southwest.
And like everywhere else I walk,
I invite local people to join.
So far, I've had more than
50 walking partners across the world,
Companions who have turned
into lifelong friends.
The moon!
Moon!
-Where?
-On the sky.
-Behind the tree?
-No. Here.
-Look, look.
-Yeah.
-Beautiful.
-Okay.
Marina Zhang is my first female
walking partner in China,
someone local who helps
to navigate, interpret,
but more importantly, who also contributes
a crucial perspective of her own
that enriches the journey.
We can go this way.
She's great.
She's a photographer from Kunming.
And she's been teaching me
a lot about, you know, her life
and her upbringing in Kunming
as a city woman,
who's now coming back
from international travels
to rediscover her home, right?
So she has been traveling to Peru,
she's been traveling to India.
She lived in Canada for a while.
And she's now kind of realizing,
kind of, the riches that are here
right at her doorstep as it were.
Marina is usually 750 to
Meters to a kilometer ahead.
She's very tough, she's very strong.
And she's a very powerful walker.
When I was young, my greatest strength
was that I loved walking
and my classmates often complained that
I walked too fast.
When they went shopping with me
it was as if they were shopping alone
because I'd walk so far ahead of them and
disappear in an instant.
So for the first time there is a person
who sees my walking as an advantage
and is willing to let me work with him.
This is a first-time event for me.
Of all the mountains in the area,
the Jade Dragon Snow Range
is a shining landmark.
At a towering 5,596 meters high,
the massif's 13 peaks
dominate the skyline.
It's considered sacred to the ethnic
Naxi minority who live at its base.
After constant nomadic migrations,
the Naxi managed to create
a distinctive culture
which was well documented
by an eccentric westerner
who lived among them
for almost three decades,
and became the chronicler
of their language and folkways.
Her name is Li Jinhua.
I'm gonna let you do
-the Chinese characters under her name.
-Okay.
One thing Paul told me is that Rock
an Austrian American had been in Yunnan
during 1921 to 1949.
He also went to Sichuan, Gansu and
the edge of Tibet for example
to document our country using
both text and images.
But his deepest feelings were for Lijiang.
Look at this photo.
That's that photo, yes,
and these are his photographs.
These are the negatives.
This is a picture of him wearing
Tibetan clothes.
Rock's research can be divided
into two stages.
In the first stage, he studied plants
by referencing botanical specimens
and write geographical magazines.
His funding was provided by the
United States Department of Agriculture.
Okay.
He liked the Dongba culture of our Naxi
people and studied it at his own expense.
He spent the rest of his life
writing these books.
And Ms. Li, how many people in Yuhu
can still write the Naxi script?
In our village, almost none.
Is it difficult to learn this script?
We haven't studied it before.
In the past, it was carried on through the
men and not the women in the family.
We could speak it
but couldn't read or write.
Now our kids can study it
if they are interested.
The schools teach them
simple Dongba scripts.
Are little girls or younger women
starting to study this now?
Are there younger women
studying Dongba script now?
As long as students are interested,
and yes there are girls
studying Dongba script now.
Languages contain meaning,
languages contain ethics,
they contain geography,
they contain biology,
they contain identity.
Cultures contain vast amounts of wisdom
that are unique to them,
but also that can be lessons
from other cultures.
We can teach each other.
In a sense, my walk is a learning journey.
The culture and history of a place
and its people
the politics, economics,
environment and folklore,
revelations from the personal
to the global,
all are only possible
through encounters like these.
-100,000 birds, one year.
-Really?
-Every year?
-A year. Yeah.
Winter time.
Most of birds come here for winter.
One of the emotional survival mechanisms
that I think I have adapted as a kid
who had to grow up in a different culture
is to make relationships
that, while brief,
actually have a depth to them
that is surprising.
Turks, Uzbeks, Ethiopians, Indians,
Burmese and now Chinese,
who are always in my heart,
this community gives me
the strength to keep going.
The stars are out. Venus, Saturn, Jupiter.
They add their voices to the walk.
And in this way,
the walk becomes like a song.
It changes from a solo into a chorus.
Paul, how are you feeling?
-I'm feeling like top of the world, man.
-Really?
Yeah. With 20 kilos on my back.
But, you know, it took me nine years
and 24,000 km.
-To get to this place?
-Yeah.
I'm not sure it's a wise investment
of anybody's time.
How hard is this road?
-It's not bad.
-From
-It's not bad?
-It's a road.
Try using an indigenous trail.
Try using the Naxi trail. It's like
-Bai trail.
-Yes. Yes.
Yi trail.
And you've
This is a road, this is
This road is going
Dancing up and around.
And you've walked roads,
like, way harder than this?
Yeah. This is a walk in the park.
-Compared to what?
-Coming through Afghanistan
in November,
-Okay.
-6,500 meter peaks
with snow above your knees.
On the sides of mountains like this
where you're digging footsteps
and pulling a donkey
Yeah, it's pretty tough.
The donkey rolls down the mountain
and you have to go down
and lift it up and push it up.
The The French guy I was with,
he went to the hospital.
As people who've never hiked before,
I'm almost going to the hospital
right now.
We forgot to bring the wine.
That was the mistake.
-Paul, I need your biscuit.
-Yes.
I've got something even more powerful.
A Snickers bar.
I have three of them.
Look at this.
How much? How much are you gonna pay me?
What if I just need a bit water?
Will you give me that?
This project attracts
a certain kind of people.
They're diverse,
but they share many,
many of the same qualities.
Whether my Indian walking partners,
or even the Ethiopian nomads,
they're people who take risks,
they're people who are willing
to set aside their ordinary life
to do something that's kind of unusual,
and some would even say crazy,
which is to go walk across your home.
So, just think of it this way, even
Even a pastoral camel shepherd
in Ethiopia,
who might not have a formal education,
who spent his whole life
out in the desert moving camels around,
for him to come say,
"Paul, I'll come walk with you
for three weeks," is highly unusual.
His family, his villagers say,
"Man, are you sure you wanna do this?
Who is this guy?"
There's a spark in them that says,
"Yeah, I wanna do this journey."
I think my Chinese walking partners
are very much like
the rest of the walking partners.
They're very diverse,
but unified by this kind of wanderlust,
and a little bit of risk-taking.
-Paul, caution, slippery.
-Yeah.
Outdoor guide and educator Yang Wendou
is my first walking partner in China.
He left the walk in Dali, Yunnan,
because of a foot injury.
Now he rejoins the alpine trail towards
the neighboring province of Sichuan.
He's very thoughtful
and also very unselfish.
He always puts others before him.
He's a very generous man.
I joined him before the Spring Festival.
When I departed from Dali
many people were just returning home from
elsewhere for the Spring Festival.
I was the only one leaving home
so it made a deep impression on me.
Real thing.
This is the champagne of the mountains.
Yeah.
This water
Little of this journey is really planned.
From the weather to who we meet,
where we eat, where we stay,
certainly not this.
So, Sonam, what's your assessment
of that bridge-building of yours?
Here are the Remember the corrals?
-Oh, yeah.
-This is the corrals.
Unable to cross the river,
we need to find another way forward.
And as always, there's someone nearby
who can show us.
You can go up from there.
There's a pathway
and you can go up like so.
Most people told us, "Paul, don't do this.
It's the wrong season."
The sky couldn't be bluer,
and the air couldn't be more clear.
Even alpine climbers,
mountaineers said, you know,
"Wait till spring. Wait till April."
But unfortunately, I don't have
the luxury of waiting around too long.
So I had to keep going.
And it was remarkable. Two things.
The natural beauty of moving through
mountains in the winter.
It was physically breathtaking,
and exciting to wake up every day
to see what was coming next.
The second thing is the incredible
hospitality of the local people.
Hello.
And walking is a very humbling way
to move through the world.
Because you are vulnerable.
Because you are kind of throwing yourself
at the mercy of strangers
and of the weather, of the land.
And I think people see that
and they respond to it in a positive way,
with generosity.
-Come on, this way.
-Yeah.
We didn't know anybody,
as is often the case
when we're walking into a new community.
We spent a few nights with a family
that was keeping a few rooms open
in their house.
They took me and my walking partner
Yang Wendou under their wing,
and made us members of the family.
And we felt like, you know,
maybe cousins or brothers,
who shared not only their roof
and their beds and their eating
and their wonderful cooking,
but also told us about their lives,
you know, how much this part of China
had changed in just their own lifespan.
There are 18 households
in this part of Shade town.
One person from each of those households
is in this photo, 18 people in total.
This picture was taken 30 years ago
This is my father
and this is my older brother.
These are our kids.
There are four of us.
This is my wife
this is my elder son
and this is my younger son.
This is my family.
What he wants is authenticity.
He wants to experience an authentic China.
I think that as his walking partner
I am like a bridge.
I hope to connect him
with the most authentic natural landscape
history and culture
and folk customs in China
so that he can see for himself
and pass it on to the rest of the world.
So, I have this idea,
once I reach the tip of South America,
which is my destination,
when I reach there,
I'm gonna try to fly everybody
who has this connection
to the tip of South America
to walk together to the Antarctic Ocean
to close the circle
of the journey together.
That sounds like it's coming back
to kind of a poetics closing
of the other project,
but it's more than that.
It's a reaffirmation of our friendship
and a lifelong bond.