Travelling by train in China shakes the concept of what are masses.
Going to the huge train station of Beijing means seeing thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Chinese all going somewhere.
It only compares to the train station as was seen in Mumbay in India.
An incredible amount of people channelling into one building to spread out to their trains.
It means being with them.
Going through gates showing tickets.
Putting luggage through X-ray machines.
To become one of the 1,3 billion inhabitants of China.
Special is that there are hardly any non-Chinese people in the railway stations and in the trains the day that was travelled to Tian Jin.
But because everybody is focused to go where one needs to go, hardly any attention of the millions of Chinese is directed towards the rare foreign traveller.
It would be easy to feel lost and overwhelmed among so many Chinese.
Among a mass of Chinese of never experienced proportions.
To become a needle in a haystack.
But the photographer is safe.
With him is the wise and caring Yan Zhang.
And on his footsteps the team of the Chinese TV who are his friends now.
The special experience can come fully because there is safety and protection.
Arriving and entering the big city of Tian Jin is a shock.
In Beijing they have been trying to reduce the pollution with a relative positive success.
But in Tian Jin, where only as Olympic Games activities the football competition will take place next year, the focus is on growing and building without too much attention to the environmental consequences.
There are over 12.000 industrial enterprises in Tian Jin.
Focusing on producing more and making more profit forgetting about environmental impact.
Hence, the sun cannot shine in Tian Jin.
There is a pollution never seen before.
The whole city is covered by a greasy fog of pollution that makes the body refuse to breathe and that makes one wonder about the quality of the eyesight.
The sun is a vague round light in the dark grey sky at noon.
Nothing bright about it anymore.
People living in a gas chamber.
Smoking cigarettes anyway.
In this highly polluted city of Tian Jin the lovely Xiao Lu was met.
Living with her kind and loving parents in a one-room apartment.
Xiao Lu is a student of 21 years old.
And having an incredible opinion about beauty.
Xiao Lu was saying:
"I am the only Xiao Lu in the world and every aspect of me is special, unique and beautiful. Even my bad aspects. Because I will overcome those bad aspects by working hard on them. To let them be beautiful too."
Even for the photographer, who has documented over 150 persons in 8 different countries all believing to be the most beautiful, this is a stunning statement.
Incredible that a 21-year-old woman is already so wise.
How inspiring.
How motivating.
How hope giving.
Back in the hotel room in Beijing, the phone doesn’t stop ringing and e-mails keep on coming in interrupted by SKYPE-calls.
This is a wild time.
More journalists want to join the experience and the issue becomes how to remain the axle of the wheel spinning.
To remain focused on what is the most important: to document as best as possible people who have announced themselves as the most beautiful.
Not to be overwhelmed as could have happened among 1.3 billion of Chinese in the train station.
For this the MacBook Pro software program iTunes is loaded with the music of Cliff Martinez he wrote for the film “Solaris”: the 2002 film by Steven Soderbergh.
This hypnotic music keeps the things together.
Centered in the heart.
Remembering the ultimate love story “Solaris” tells.
As dear friend Kixe told yesterday: everybody is beautiful.
That wisdom calms down.
Whatever happens.
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Picture on this posting by Yan Zhang.
If interested in Cliff Martinez and his music for the film “Solaris”, click on:
http://www.amazon.com/Solaris-Score-George-Clooney/dp/B00007J8C7
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