【正确答案】A Mud Map of China
by reporter Jiang Shu
Anyone who sees this map made with mud would be struck by its novelty, by the soil colours in particular, as the colours were not painted on, but were the natural colours of the soils themselves. Altogether the soils come in 34 different colours and every bit of them was collected by Gu Lipeng in the capital cities of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China. For example, the Liaoning Province in the map was represented by the soils in Shenyang, Beijing by the soils from the Temple of Heaven and the Palace Museum, Tibet by the soils from Potala Palace and so forth.
The motive behind Mr. Gu's painstaking effort to make this mud map was at the beginning not to set a Guinness record, but for something else. It all happened that Mr. Gu had an uncle who was a Kuomintang general and fell in a battle against the Japanese army in i944. Gu's family came to know all of this only several years ago with the help of Song Xilian, a high-ranking general of Kuomintang who was then residing in the United States.
Gu met Song during a business trip to America. In order to show his gratitude as well as alleviate the homesickness of the old man, Gu began thinking about making a present for Song.
On his way home from New York Gu made a stopover in Hong Kong. In an outing to the Ocean Park there, Gu was attracted by the growing flowers and grass and the uncovered earth. He could not help but gather some soil in a handkerchief. Just at this moment an idea occurred to him. He decided to make a unique mud map of China by using soils from all the Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and give it to Song as a gift.
Unfortunately, Song died only 36 days after their meeting. But Gu did not change his mind and decided to finish the making of the map. He asked craftsmen to make a copper plate into a sketch map of China and mark out each province, autonomous region and municipality with a separator. Then he embarked on the long journey of gathering soils from across China. He collected soils himself during business trips and asked his local friends to collect soils for him in places where he could not make a trip to. The gathering process continued until the latter half of 1999 when he had come by the soils from every part of China except that from Taiwan.
Back in Shenyang Gu decided to try to paste the soils already in his possession onto the map. He had thought it would be very easy: just mix up the soil and glue and then put the mixture onto the map, that's all. But, he realized immediately that he was wrong once he started. The soil lost its cohesiveness when it dried up and began to peel off bit by bit. As soon as Gu tried to place the map in an upright position, the soil representing Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region fell plopping to the ground, and then Qinghai followed suit. When he moved the copper plate a bit, other places fell off too, one after another.
"Where there is pain there is gain," as the proverb goes. Gu finally succeeded, after many failures, in gluing the soils onto the places on the copper plate they belonged. Gu was pondering over another question now. How to best represent the Yangtze and Yellow River. He came to the conclusion of using gold and silver necklaces for the purpose.
To do this he would need a dozen necklaces. So far in his life he had only bought his wife a gold necklace of 14 karats, would his wife agree to spend fortunes on buying so many gold and silver pieces just for making a map? His wife finally agreed, succumbing to his patient persuasion. With her support, the glittering gold and silver necklaces were embedded onto the map. Gu was beside himself with joy when he looked at the shining Yangtze and Yellow River. Now the only regret was Taiwan. Without the soil from that province, the map is not yet complete.
In September 1999, Mr. Cui Hui, a shipping manager, told Gu that one of his Shenzhen friends named Cai Kun would come to Shenyang on a business trip and suggested that Gu approach him to see if there was any hope.
When Cai arrived, Manager Cui threw a banquet for the visitor and invited Gu to join them. Three cups of wine later, Gu mentioned the matter in detail and asked Cai if he could help. Cai agreed without a moment of hesitation. "No problem," he said. "We in the Shenzhen Shipping Company maintain business ties with Kaohsiung of Taiwan and the US. I would ask sailors bounded to Taiwan to gather some soil for you."
Some time later Cai brought to Shenyang some Taiwan soil that Gu had been waiting for so long. Gu felt extremely warm and excited. The soil was a component part of his efforts of making a unique mud map. With the Taiwan soil in hand Gu succeeded in completing his mud map of China, which took him 7 years and over 60,000yuan.
Here now before his eyes stood a map of China made of soils in 34 different colours representing the 34 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of China. Gu felt very proud in his heart of hearts.