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LNDRO
All'ombra
A 1 1 A 1
della grande muraglia
Avevo vent'ott'anni nel '56
quando fui mandato in Cina: un
poveraccio calato a Roma dalla
I was sent to China in 1956 at the tender age of 28: a greenhorn from the
provinces of Venice who had just arrived in Rome. I went to China for two
months, and wound up staying there fourteen! My first contact with that
magnificent country was incredible, as it was the old China: lunch with
Chou En-lai, and with his Prime Minister, an extremely refined man who
had studied in France. The emotional impact was also extraordinary, as
I was the only member of the crew who actually "became" Chinese, living
with the Chinese all the time, with a Chinese interpreter etc.
I discovered a completely new world, a world that was perhaps similar to
the peasant ivorld of the Veneto district Not that a Chinese and a peasant
from Treviso or Belluno are identical, of course! However, they are very
similar, in that they both have wonderful peasant qualities — in the most
positive in the most positive sense of the word Thus, my relation ship
with the Chinese was excellent
The following episode will give you some idea of what I mean: We were on
the Yellow River (there is also a Blue River, but the Yellow River is further
north, nearer Mongolia). In the spring, the frozen waters in Tibet melt,
bringing with them enormous masses of ice, which form dams across the
river and block the flow of water.
And from where I was standing on the bank, I could see just how wide the
river was, its far bank being several kilometres away. When the ice dams
melt, the waters inundate an area as big as the three Venezia regions put
together, causing the deaths, by drowning, of4,000 to 5,000people, and
sometimes as many as 1,000,000.
At that time, the Chinese possessed Russian Uiuskin aircraft, and they
used to bomb the dams, to release the water and allow it to flow
downriver.
We had gone to the river to film the bombardment, and had already set
provincia Veneta. Vi andai per
due mesi, e invece ve ne restai
quattordici! Un impatto
violentissimo con la Cina, la
vecchia Cina che ho conosciuto.
A pranzo con Ciu-En-Lai, col