The landscape is now below us, as our plane is on the final approach to Guiyang, the provincial capital of Guizhou. The terrain is very different from the level, arid northern part of the country. A rich green foliage, radiates natural beauty with its varying shades, contrasted by tier upon tier of yellow ripening crops. These are terraced fields, dotting the rolling hills of green, making a picture perfect scene, as one would see in a beautiful landscape painting.

The plane touched down at half past three in the afternoon. Greeting us at first as we left the plane, was the air temperature in Guiyang, a mere 14 degrees Celsius, a good 15 degrees colder than Beijing!

But this is only natural that Guizhou would have lower temperatures than Beijing, considering the elevation. About 90% of Guizhou Province has mountainous terrain.

Out of our entire group of twelve people, only my colleague Yang Yong, who is a native of Guizhou, knows the area. None of us have ever visited this province before. However, since our childhoods, we are all familiar with one scenic place in Guizhou, and two famous expressions, also three famous sayings about Guizhou Province. First the well-known scenic place would be the Huangguoshu Waterfalls, which happens to be the largest in China. Next two famous expressions from Guizhou, these are - "Qian Lv Ji Qiong" roughly translated as: the donkey in Guizhou has used up all its tricks, meaning he has run out of his resources. Then there is - "Ye Lang Zi Da" meaning "conceit stems from pure ignorance". This expression was also drawn from a story which relates to Guizhou. And the three famous phrases about Guizhou ? - well it is widely believed that three consecutive days never pass without rain, there are not three consecutive li of road that is smooth, and few local inhabitants could come up with three coins.

Wang Suhua, an official with the provincial government, says almost everyone who visits Guizhou for the first time, tells her about all these things. But Wang says people in Guizhou are not conceited at all. In fact, quite the opposite is true, if anything there is more of an inferiority attitude here.

"Mountain range after mountain range and rolling hills make transportation a continuous challenge in Guizhou. The natural obstacles hinder, not only transportation, but also our economic development. However, matters are improving lately with the introduction of our, ?Western Development Program?. Guizhou is one of the twelve provinces in the country on this program. And one of our top priorities is "Road Construction". During the past few years, high-grade roads have been completed to link Guizhou with Sichuan Province in the north, Yunnan Province in the west, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south".

Wang explains that it is a difficult job to construct highways through such mountainous territory as they have in Guizhou Province. To compound the construction problem ninty percent of the terrain is extremely rugged with rolling hills. Although this results in spectacular landscapes, it presents workers with an especially difficult task. They must flatten completely one hill to build a road bed, then finding it necessary to build a tunnel through a larger hill to maintain direction. In some cases workers must fill in caverns to enable access for road beds.

According to Wang Suhua, construction workers has managed to overcome all these engineering difficulties with innovation. Now highways have doubled in capacity since 1998, which at that time covered only about 1000 kilometers.

"In the past, even we felt it was a chore and a problem to leave Guiyang the capital, to travel to other places in the province. You can understand what a visitor to the area would feel. Seafood is a good example, at one time it was very expensive in Guizhou, mainly because of the difficulty transporting it from the coastal area. Now seafood can be found on every family's dining table. If they want it, it's available. This can be attributed to the newly constructed high-grade highway which has linked us to Beihai, a coastal city located in Guangxi, in the south."

Wang adds that in addition to the construction of the high-grade roads, older roads linking villages and counties have also been upgraded. It is estimated that by the end of this year, highways will connect every town and reach 70 percent of all the villages in the province.

Better transportation has brought more business opportunities to the province and this means increased income for the local residents. Unlike many cities in northern China, the evening market in Guiyang is still very crowded and it is now after midnight! In this market you would expect to find only local specialties, like La Ran, or wax print handicraft. Wrong! It is all here, all those modern, fashionable items I thought I would only find in the great marketplaces of Beijing and Shanghai.

Guizhou covers an area of 170,000 sq kilometers. In addition to its natural wonder, the highlands and mountain scenery, it also attracts many visitors with its colourful and diversified charm, charactor and culture - this is the home of 16 different ethnic groups.

During our stay, we have visited the most famous scenic places in Guizhou. We've explored its agriculture restructuring and environmental protection programs. We?ve made some new friends in different ethnic communities and seen first hand how they are doing with the country's on-going Western Development Drive. I'll tell you more about them in our future programs.

(CRI February 17, 2003)