In four months or less, a 1,700-year-old village, and the mountain life it preserves, will see water seep through the ancient wood homes, rising higher and higher, until it is completely submerged beneath the jade shoals of the Wu River.

Gongtan of the Youyang Tujia-Miao Autonomous County in southeast Chongqing will unfortunately meet the same fate as countless other unprotected historical sites across China being leveled in the name of innovation.

In its place, the Pengshui Hydro Power Plant will be resurrected, not exactly an attractive replacement for the antiquated beauty of Gongtan, but nonetheless a much-needed jolt for a municipality suffering from regular power outages.

Controversial waterworks are nothing new to Chongqing, the largest inland river port in West China. The Three Gorges Dam project along the Yangtze, one of China’s crucial transportation arteries linking the country’s interior with coastal provinces, is essential to the region’s freight and power industries, but as a result saw numerous small towns and nature reserves sacrificed to the river gods.

Now, one of the Yangtze’s chief tributaries, the Wu River, has also been targeted for its hydro-electrical attributes, sparing neither nature nor culture to ensure that all of Chongqing’s neon lights continue to glow brightly.

Ironically, Gongtan has never known neon and was only recently introduced to electricity. For centuries accessible only by boat, Gongtan is home to the Tujia people, one of China’s more isolated ethnic minorities who hale from the surrounding Wuling Mountains.

Founded in 200 A.D., the rustic village is a living museum that might seem more destined as a World Heritage Site than a construction site. Designed entirely out of stone and wood in the diaojiaolou-style stilt architecture, the Ming dynasty-era homes are perched against the sloping gorge, facing the sheer, misty palisades which flank the Wu rapids.

Steep, mossy steps lead up from the rocky banks and a single, black flagstone path, polished from centuries of footsteps, traces the 2 kilometer length of the quiet village, a veritable portrait of mountain life as it has been for almost 2,000 years. The slat-wood buildings progress vertically, each offering an increasingly attractive panoramic vista of slate rooftops, the hallmark site of this ancient village.

Unfortunately, the intricately carved work of art that is Gongtan will soon be thrown together in a fateful pyre as the Tujia populous move several kilometers upriver to a white-tiled eyesore already suffering from the noise, pollution and congestion indicative of so many new side-of-the-road Chinese communities.

The land expropriation was in fact opposed by Gongtan residents, who successfully petitioned the central government in Beijing over the property confiscation and were awarded financial compensation for their centuries-old homes. Nonetheless, many Gongtan villagers still refuse to evacuate the aged neighborhood, thus delaying power plant construction until at least the fall of 2007.

This last-ditch effort to damn the dam is of course no match for the bulldozers, but it at least leaves an extended window of opportunity for travelers with an affinity for Chinese history to catch one last glimpse of the real deal before Gongtan is inevitably sent to its watery grave.
Travel Tips Getting there: From Chongqing, catch a morning coach from the east bus station to Pengshui (six hours, ¥90), then a taxi to the local ferry terminal for an upriver boat to Gongtan (five hours, ¥20).

Where to stay: There are several family-run guesthouses directly overlooking the Wu River with simple, creaky wood rooms wallpapered with old newspaper (¥30 per bed).

China photographer Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, 888 snapshots of life and humanity from the 33 provinces of the People’s Republic of China, due out this winter from Hong Kong publisher Blacksmith Books.

Murmuring an unbroken stream of prayers, and focused intently on a scarlet and silver monastery bathed in morning light and incense smoke, four Tibetan women fell to their hands and knees in succession. They laid face down before standing up to clasp their hands in prayer for their three hundredth prostrate atop the snow-dusted hilltop on the Sichuan side of Langmusi.

But the solemn chants of these devout Buddhists soon dissolved into the self-conscious giggles of young girls upon sensing the presence of a foreigner. Using the moment as an entertaining respite from their prayers, they beckoned to see the pictures I had just taken of them, the site of themselves on my digital camera bringing even louder laughter.

Located at an altitude of some 3,000 meters in the mountains of western China, and literally straddling the Gansu-Sichuan border, the rustic, plank-rooftop settlement of Langmusi, and the two glittering Buddhist temples of which the town architecturally and spiritually orbits, is one of those places that can best be described as heavenly.

Gansu itself is one of China’s most dramatically varying regions both topographically and culturally, extending in a long, narrow arch from the mountain-sized sand dunes of Dunhuang in the northern Hexi corridor to the verdant Ganjia grasslands in the provincial interior.

South of the Muslim metropolises of Langzhou and Lingxia, gleaming mosques become sub-bleached stupas and the white-capped Hui people relinquish the landscape to prismatic Tibetans spinning prayer wheels beneath the surreal blue sky, living up to its provincial sobriquet, “Little Lhasa.”

Following their morning prayers, the three pretty sisters and their mother, each regally draped in heavy, black cloaks and adorned with layers of florescent orange coral necklaces and hefty belts of silver, invited me back to their home.

It wasn’t their real home, they explained, but temporary living quarters. Like so many of the Sichuanese-Tibetans who comprise the town’s nomadic population, they were completing their pilgrimage to the Langmusi and Labuleng monasteries in nearby Xiahe before making their way back home to northern Sichuan.

Nestled within a small community of shanties, their humble clay dwelling was no larger than the sleeper cabin of a train and housed this family of six. Keeping the fire burning, preparing lunch and babysitting his baby granddaughter when we arrived, was the patriarch of the family.

His own three daughters ranged in age from 16 to 25 and received only basic schooling, preferring to raise families and follow their parents on their spiritual pilgrimages. Income, most which was spent on such journeys, is earned by the father and the elder sister’s husband, who breed horses in the Sichuan highlands.

I asked the father and mother to which Tibetan ethnolinguistic category they belonged (i.e. Aba, Chabao-Jiarong, Zhugqu), but the father admitted he didn’t know; he was, he said, simply Tibetan. Indeed, such classifications are made by a government on the other side of the country, not Tibetans themselves.

For Tibetans, family and faith, not politics and ethnic divisions, are the most important aspects of their lives. Unfortunately, only the family’s father and mother have made the arduous and expensive pilgrimage to the holy capital city of Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region, a journey that takes many Sichuanese- Tibetans years to save for, lest they must beg on the streets for alms to make their way west. But the three sisters are saving their jiao and listened in awe as I told of my own extensive travels the previous year across Tibet.

Promising to send them the family portraits I took, we professed our mutual thanks and respect and parted ways, they to spend the second half of their day making 400 koras (spiritual walking circuits) around Langmusi and me to watch, though now with a better understanding of who I was watching.

Travel Tips / How to get there: From the capital city of Langzhou in Gansu, buses for Hezuo leave the south bus station every half hour and take approximately five hours. An overnight stay in Hezuo is necessary as there is only one bus per day to Langmusi, departing at 7 a.m.

Where to stay: There are a growing number of inns and hotels on Langmusi’s only thoroughfare, from ¥20 to ¥150 per night.

What to eat: Leisha’s is a favorite with backpackers, boasting massive yak burgers and homemade apple pie.

Where to play: Pilgrim watching around the Sezhi Monastery on the Sichuan side or the Geerdeng Monastery on the Gansu side is always fun, along with a scenic walking trail and fairy caves to explore around the Namo Gorge.

China photographer Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, 888 snapshots of life and humanity from the 33 provinces of the People’s Republic of China, due out this winter from Hong Kong publisher Blacksmith Books.

“Let’s see your Tiger-Crane style match my Eagle’s Claw!”

Ah, the immortal words of dueling Shaolin warriors. Though dialog like this is mainly the stuff of low-budget Hong Kong movies, there is in fact a place where such challenges are still uttered. Not to the death, of course, but between students at Shaolin Si, China’s most famous Kung Fu temple.

Located atop the western peak of the sacred Song Shan Mountain in northern Henan province, 800 year-old Shaolin Si has been destroyed and rebuilt time and again, weathering attacks by emperors, warlords, cultural revolutions, and now its most reoccurring invaders – the modern tour group.

In fact, not until the advent of the 1970s Kung Fu movie craze and the popular 1982 film “Shaolin Temple,” did annual tourism perform a CGI-like leap from 200,000 to 2 million, prompting the Chinese government to list the temple as a protected heritage site.

But while the venerable temple gates see an almost endless stream of tourists wishing to get a glimpse of a real-life Shaolin monk and take in a demonstration performance, a more permanent residence of Kung Fu enthusiasts exists in the outlying hillsides.

These are the sons and daughters of Shaolin, young students who have given up secular life for a strict regimen and forsaken conventional curriculum for physical conditioning. At Shaolin Si, the sword is truly mightier than the pen.

-CROUCHING TIGERS-

Kung Fu (Gungfu in Mandarin) was originally a Chan Buddhist practice with the dual purpose of purifying the soul and building strength through Zen spiritual doctrine and martial arts.

Shaolin priests complimented their monastic ways by harnessing their life force with meditation and releasing this energy, or Qi, through practical offense and defense maneuvers, something traditionalists complain has been diluted over the centuries for the thrill of competition and the vanity of exhibition.

Opening up the temple to outsiders began in the mid-16th century, whence military officers of the Ming Dynasty court attended Shaolin to study the monks’ unique fighting techniques. Resultingly, today’s Kung Fu schools have become big business.

The oldest and perhaps most visible school, the Wushu Institute at Tagou, is at the front entrance of Shaolin Si itself. One mountain may have no space for two tigers, says the old Chinese proverb, but the privately-run Tagou boasts over ten thousand! The courtyard is at any given moment a killer-bee swarm of students of all ages deftly demonstrating the fluid movement of forms, gravity-defying aerial assaults, an arsenal of weapons techniques and the brute force of striking and grappling.

As it does not seem likely that the People’s Republic will have future need to employ martial monks to defend the country from Wokou raiders as it did in the old days, Kung Fu students of the new millennium will eventually end up common businessmen (with a hell of a roundhouse), some will become police officers, and the bottom percentile relegated to rent-a-cop.

But in all their fearless eyes is that youthfully high hope; the desire to become the next Jet Li, China’s “national treasure” who attended a Kung Fu training school from age 8 and went on to become a five-time Wushu champion and silver screen sensation.

But is real life at a Kung Fu school as glamorous as its on-screen personification?

-WUDANG CLAN-

A few kilometers away from Shaolin Si against the placid waters of Song Shan reservoir, the 11 year-old Shuiku Martial Arts School, with only 200 students, may be dwarfed in both size and reputation by its estimable red-suited rival, but the daily drill is virtually the same.

Whilst the rest of the working world operates on a 9-5 schedule, life at Shaolin Shuiku is literally backwards, from 5am to 9pm. In the blue light of dawn, barking instructors rouse their respective teams for a run in the brisk morning mountain air as Chinese patriot songs echo into the surrounding mountain range.

Stretching, sprinting, fist pushups and other exertive exercises to forge their young bodies into steel take place beneath the rising sun, the packed-earth schoolyard a veritable army of green-uniformed students lined up in formation. A quick cafeteria breakfast is followed by two hours of requisite textbook classes including Chinese, Math and perfunctory English.

Before lunch and then into the evening is the fun stuff – basics, forms, applications and weapons – components of the external (Shaolin) and Wudang, or internal, styles of Kung Fu training. Most can be rudimentarily learned in a matter of years, but take a lifetime to perfect.

Forms, which are actual fighting techniques with the appearance of a choreographed dance, are the most elegant. The animal styles, for example, involve strength, speed and psychology; the Tiger for external force and a strong attack, the softer Crane style for patience and concentration, and so on down the animal kingdom.

For the less graceful student, competitive Sanda sparring more resembles street fighting than poise, whereby the biggest and bravest don protective gear and launch into each other with fists of fury under the corrective eye of their shifu.

Led not by a wizened Master Po, a cruel Pei Mei or any such mythical elder with long white eyebrows, today’s Shaolin shifu (master) are young, burly and surly, some fresh out of Kung Fu school and quick to take a bamboo cane to the backsides of their junior trainees.

-YOUNG GRASSHOPPA-

In the dark chill of night, the spent students finally retire to their dorm rooms for a semi-normal albeit brief adolescent life – reading comics, watching movies, or, most precious, sleep. The boys share up to ten bunks per room, which look, and smell, accordingly.

Conversely, there are only 7 girls at Shuiku, though none admit feeling uncomfortable around the pubescent testosterone of so many “brothers.” With narrow eyes and long, silky black hair, Feng Jing Jing of Shanxi has been a Shaolin student for one year and plans at least another four.

Despite her quiet demeanor, the 17 year-old novice shares a tempered conceit with the rest of her male and female classmates, disdaining an ordinary teenage life of classrooms and tests. “Kung Fu is much easier than English,” Feng Jing Jing asserts while slashing a broadsword in the air with lethal precision.

And what of the parents who are paying for these classes? For them, Kung Fu is an alternative investment into their child’s future. And the earlier they begin, the larger the payoff – they hope.

Cao Xu, 7, who likes doing cartwheels instead of walking, doesn’t seem to mind being away from his mother and father back in Shanghai. Nevertheless, their adult ambitions have obviously been instilled in this little grasshopper’s mind: “I want to be a hero…and earn lots of money!”

-WHITE LOTUS-

Demonstrated by its box-office strength in the western world, the Shaolin lifestyle isn’t only popular with Chinese. 20 year-old Felix Klemisch studied martial arts in his native Germany for four years before hopping on a China-bound plane to pursue his affinity for Kung Fu.

And towering over every other student and trainer at Shuiku is the 190cm Stephan Beck, the school’s foreign veteran with a combined 9 months between two Shaolin schools (he quit the first school after making him stare into the sun for ten minutes a day “to build up [his] Qi”). Also 20 and from Germany, Stephan defies height, gravity and conventions, often training alone while the Chinese students are in group formation.

The two young Europeans confide that communication is a bigger obstacle than the physical ones, and were practically forced to learn rudimentary Chinese to understand their trainers. “We had no choice,” says blonde Felix in heavily accented English. “It was either grasp basic Mandarin or get left behind.”

Neither is sure of what they want to do when they go home and admit the possibility of drifting their way back to Shaolin. In the meantime, shaved-headed Stephan is looking forward to getting away from Song Shan for an upcoming respite in Beijing.

So which will he do first, a climb on the Great Wall? Shopping at Silk Market? “Find a Chinese girlfriend,” he decrees with Shaolin bombast. “I’ve been on top of this mountain too long!”

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Photojournalist Tom Carter spent 2 years backpacking across the 33 provinces of China. He is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People.

Having little luck finding an attractive job offer in the U.S. in 2004, I decided to take my skills where they were wanted — abroad.

Enticed by the “Teach English in China — No Experience Necessary” ads saturating the online classifieds, I emailed my resume with one hand and packed my bags with the other. I had no idea what to expect, but then, the great unknown can be what makes a job like teaching English in the People’s Republic so appealing.

As the world’s largest economy opens to foreign investment, education has become one of China’s thriving sectors. Confucius probably wouldn’t stand for it, but he wasn’t wearing pinstripe suits and driving a shiny black sedan. The country may be Communist in theory, but the renminbi — Chinese currency — is emperor.

A Chinese adage says that the best advice is often born from the most challenging experiences. After three years helping the sons and daughters of Han learn English, I’ve had my share. Westerners looking to teach in China may want to consider the following before packing their bags.

Some foreign English teachers may be shanghaied at least once during their time in China. Baiting unsuspecting Westerners to China with false promises of a high salary, deluxe apartment, airfare reimbursement, visa or other incentives is a common online scam. Blame it on temptation. Often Chinese laws are too fluid and relationships (”guanxi” in Mandarin) with authorities too intimate, leaving some foreigners with little protection against scams.

The moment I arrived in the Middle Kingdom I had what some seasoned expatriates call “the complete Chinese experience.” The “school” that had accepted my application turned out to be a nickel-and-dime operation run out of an apartment by a guy in his bathrobe. I’d come half way around the world for a job and found myself out of work.

I was literally lost in translation. Despair and a desire to return home to Mom set in. But I quickly learned that, commensurate with its sizeable population, China has a profusion of kindergarten, primary, middle and high schools and universities in even the most remote cities. In short order, I wound up with a position and salary more attractive than the one I had originally accepted.

Chinese parents may work night and day to pay for pricey English lessons so that their child can get a head start in this competitive society of 1.3 billion. Unfortunately, academics are not an issue to many of China’s new educational entrepreneurs who put profit before curriculum and quality. Classroom experience and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification is nice, but in many cases a Western face is all a native English speaker needs to land a teaching job in China.

In more reputable schools, most prospective English teachers don’t have it so easy. I endured a weeklong interview process, including a series of teaching demonstrations before 300 stern-looking parents, all while I was still jetlagged and suffering from culture shock. I must have done something right, because I was chosen to teach at a top school in the province.

Being rice-wined and dined by my prospective employer over 30-course banquet dinners did not distract me from negotiating a fair salary. Many foreigners (”laowai”) prefer to live in a cosmopolitan city like Beijing or Shanghai than a small town such as the one I had chosen, and I was able to use this preference as leverage during contract discussions. All deals in China, like the price of fruit at the marketplace, can be negotiated.

Most English teachers in China needn’t speak Mandarin in the classroom. Instead, we instruct students through a process of language immersion and simulation, which in time invariably leads to proficiency. Diligence and a little creativity are all that are really needed, but like performing on stage five times a day, it takes its toll.

Over the next few years, I would meet a number of disappointed young Westerners who came overseas as English teachers expecting to party all night and spend their free time pursuing adventures in the countryside. That, I would tell them, is a lifestyle for tourists, exchange students and embassy brats, not the hardworking teacher.

As a foreign expert English instructor, I’m scheduled for up to 30 classes a week and spend most of my free time planning lessons. I’m up at dawn with the older folks practicing their Tai Chi and not back home until after 10 p.m., about when the migrant construction workers also are getting off work.

I never thought I’d be an educator. I didn’t like most of my teachers when I was a kid. Teachers the world over are typically low paid, overworked and underappreciated. But the fatigue and the hit on my income — compared to what I might earn in the U.S. — are what I pay for being part of a rapidly-changing China. As it turned out, I’m not so bad in front of the chalkboard — I actually like it.

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Photojournalist Tom Carter spent 2 years backpacking across the 33 provinces of China. He is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People.

Perhaps the foremost reason why so few travelers make the journey to northwest China’s Xinjiang province is quite simply its vastness. Aside from being located on the exact opposite side of the country from Beijing, which itself is a long journey even by plane, the arid autonomous region is the largest territory in China, spanning over one-sixth of the second largest continent in the world.

It’s also a long journey in terms of the cultural shift the traveler will experience especially when one spends a whole day in its street markets. And conversely, considering its proximity to central Asia, sharing borders with an astonishing eight other nations, one wouldn’t believe that Xinjiang is the People’s Republic’s least touristed province. But it is this solitude in fact that makes the provincial desert a distinct oasis in Asia.

Not far from the scalding sands of the Tarim Basin is the region’s political and commercial center, Kashgar. What Marco Polo called Cascar and the Han now refer to as Kashi the Asian outpost has fashioned itself over the centuries into one of the Silk Road’s most vital international crossroads linking China with northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan by way of the Karakorum Highway. As such, Kashgar more closely resembles the Mid-East than the Han culture we are familiar with; the city is a veritable tapestry of central Asian cultures, as reflected in its massive weekly bazaar. Located in the Kona Sheher old town, the famous Sunday market is, like all things Xinjiang, China’s largest.

Approaching the market district, one is immediately beset by a commingled scent of smoke and fruit. If China is famous for its cuisine, then Xinjiang is responsible for half of its success. Lamb kabob roasted throughout the day over sizzling coals against an undulating landscape of spicy lamian noodles topped with peppers, tomatoes and garlic, goat’s head soup, deep-fried fish and yellow mountains of pilaf rice, all washed down with boiling vats of satiating cinnamon tea.

There may not be as much bread in the whole of China as there is in Kashgar and one is oft tempted by stacks of lightly seasoned nan or pyramids of sesame seed bagels fresh out of the oven. Scarlet slices of watermelon, Xinjiang’s most abundant fruit and pink peaches blushing like a child’s cheeks are the perfect desert dessert, with market patrons walking away with comically dripping chins.

Gorged on the regional fare, one must then dodge the merchant calls of “kilinglar!” (Turkish for “come!”) while browsing the endless displays of useful household wares, useless souvenirs (genie lamp anyone?), outdated electronics, knockoff clothing and eye-catching textiles, the latter being the most popular among the women of Kashgar. It’s quite a sight to see a Muslim lady shrouded in an hijab headscarf burrowing through hills of shimmering silk and other fine fabrics to further veil herself in.

Xinjiang’s predominant nationality, the Uyghurs, flavor the region with both their unique Turkish-influenced culture and devout religious faith. With more then twelve million Muslims in China, Xinjiang naturally accounts for over half the national total. Kashar’s Id Kah is the largest mosque in the People’s Republic; the city literally comes to a halt five times a day when the faithful respond to the calling of the adhan and rush to mosque for a congregational series of Mecca-facing prostrations and Islamic prayer. Half an hour later, the city is again screaming with activity and commerce.

Despite the traditional lifestyle of the Uyghurs, Kashgar has developed itself over the years into a white-tiled mercantile metropolis, where even the famed weekly bazaar is now held in a modernized indoor facility of thousands of identical stalls. Though still quite a spectacular site, this refinement has left many enthusiasts desiring something a bit more…authentic. Not to be discouraged, the answer to anyone dissatisfied by the comparatively tamer and more contemporary Kashgar is Xinjiang’s lesser known, yet arguably more impressive souk in Hetian, a day’s scenic drive south along the lethally hot Taklamakan, the second largest desert in the world. The shaded, tree-lined respite is renowned throughout China for its jade, silk and carpets – the three treasures of Hotan (as the Uyghurs spell it), which translates into “place that abounds in jade”.

Indeed the first site anyone will happen upon at the Hetian marketplace is an entire street of jade dealers, either from storefronts, on blankets spread out on the ground, in the trunks of cars, or out of their pant pockets. The rabid riots of precious stone peddlers and prospective buyers haggling in their Turkish tongue over every size and color of jade imaginable add to the chaos that is only the beginning of Hetian’s bazaar. Extending countless kilometers in all four directions, the traffic-stopping market literally takes over the city streets; ass-drawn carriages contending with big bad buses and motorcycle taxis navigating through scores of preoccupied people. An entire boulevard of fragrant fruits and prismatic vegetables intersects an avenue lush with carpets and rugs, which is then separated by the canals of the Hotan River.

Beyond the medieval blacksmiths pounding on their anvils asphalt soon turns to dust. Livestock both alive and freshly slaughtered trample the dirt or turn it into crimson mud, and baying horses, camels, mules and bulls excrete freely onto the ground while being industriously inspected by interested human parties. To a pulsating background score of 200 beat per minute Arabic tabla drums and the two-stringed dutar, the bizarre bazaar dramatically segues into heaps of faux jewelry, henna hair dye and cheap cosmetics ravaged by young, olive-skinned women wearing heavy black eyeliner who prefer neck and arm-revealing (gasp!) western fashion to their more conservatively concealed counterparts. Meanwhile the local men get a shave and their head scalped by an outdoor barber or go browsing for a new knife or an embroidered dopi cap.

The blazing desert climate begins to cool at sunset, which in the summer months is about 11pm, and the mad market in Hetian winds down. Beggars seek those last few alms, exhausted vendors relax with a few chapters of the Qur’an, and the rest of us return home to look through our treasures.

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Photojournalist Tom Carter spent 2 years backpacking across the 33 provinces of China. He is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People.

In late December of last year, a 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan severely damaged Asia’s undersea fiber-optic cables, disrupting telecommunication circuits across the continent.

China and Southeast Asia saw their communications capacity fall to between 2 and 10 percent, and though a portion of service has since been rerouted to alternative fixed lines and suicidally slow satellite transmissions, the P.R.C. has yet to fully recover from the technological aftershocks, what Mainlanders are now referring to as the “World Wide Wait.

Repair status is conflicting, with Chinese telecom officials publicly alternating between evasive (“the work is slow because of complicated conditions”), blameful (“the repairs are done by other companies we commissioned”) and unrealistically optimistic (“a few more days”), as quoted in the state-run media.

International news sources cite a more likely and longer completion date of early-March for a return to full capacity, perhaps due to what global news service AFP disturbingly reports as China “relying on 19th century technology to fix a 21st century problem.

In an effort to downplay the crisis, China precipitately announced that it expects to become the world’s largest Internet user, overtaking the United States with an estimated 137 million users. That’s quite a bullish forecast for a country that has suffered nationwide telecommunications outages since the new year.

In fact, internet blackouts are nothing new to foreigners residing in the People’s Republic, who are accustomed to limited access to overseas sites that have been blocked by the central government’s web monitoring entity, commonly referred to as The Great Firewall of China.

But the newest online paralysis resulting from the recent natural and technological calamity has most certainly affected international businesses in Mainland China, many whom rely on consistent online communications and B2B transactions to stay above international water. Even multinational conglomerates Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, who are already struggling in the Asian market, are now regularly met with “cannot display” time-out errors.

Conversely, China’s e-commerce giants just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. China News Service reports that amidst the first several weeks of Internet outages, Chinese-based ISPs boasted a 99 percent uptime as the country’s largest web corporations including Sina, Baidu, Alibaba, Tom and Tencent saw their site traffic, and earnings, multiply.

But for China’s Internet-deprived expat community from Beijing to the Bund, hope is literally on the Verizon. A consortium of international telecom providers including China Telecom, CNC and U.S. carrier Verizon have jointly invested $500 million in the construction of a new Trans-Pacific Express (TPE) Cable Network connecting Mainland China directly with the United States.

The next-generation submarine optical cable system, expected to be completed in 2008, will span the Asia-Pacific at 60 times the present capacity, rendering obsolete the damaged FNAL cables beneath the Taiwan Strait.

Indubitably, China’s easily-crippled telecommunications infrastructure and the prolonged aftermath can be blamed on poor foresight and co-dependent technology and is both a devastating episode for foreign companies in China and a chin check for a nation striving to compete as a 21st century world player.

But if the completion of a bigger and better trans-Pacific cable network has anything to do with the cause for the delay, then foreign and Chinese companies alike will just have to wait that much longer to resume to normal operating speeds.

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Photojournalist Tom Carter spent 2 years backpacking across the 33 provinces of China. He is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People.