Not long ago, I visited Shanxi Province
of China during my vacation. That was my first trip to
Shanxi. Five days’ visit changed my view towards the
province, which used to be merely a yellow plateau abundant
in pitch-black coals.
Generally speaking,
the economy of Shanxi Province is still less developed.
However, there are so many wonderful things totally out of
my expectation. With my own eyes, I found lots of priceless
and unique heritages kept as old as their origination; and
the old city of history built as modern as their new birth.
The old and the modern show from different angles that
Shanxi is not as it was and is developing with the advance
of the times and preparing its might for the coming
future.
Shanxi, located in the middle flow
of the Yellow River, is one of the cradles of the Chinese
ancient civilization. Abundant cultural heritages are left
by the long history. According to the statistics, the wood
buildings built before Liao and Jin Dynasties now existing
in Shanxi take 72.6% of the sum of those in China. Shanxi
also embraces the only 4 Tang Dynasty wood buildings
throughout the country. There are still numerous magnificent
stone sculptures, color paintings and wall paintings. The
number of tourist resorts in Shanxi is 148. So it is not
strange that Shanxi enjoys the title of Museum of Chinese
Ancient Building Art.
Rich is resourses,
Shanxi is known as Chinese Coal County. Shanxi has
discovered more than 120 kinds of minerals and 26 kinds rank
the first ten places in China and coal, bauxite, refractory
clay, pearlite, gallium, zeolite, etc. take the first place.
The total reserves of coal and bauxite occupy 1/3 of the
total in China. Iron, copper, cobalt, gallium not only has
large deposits but also have mining advantages.
All in all, Shanxi has lots of unique resources
and advantages and she welcomes the Polish friends to go for
a tour or cooperate for development.
Amdassador of the People’s Republic of China
to Poland
Zhou Xiaopei