Walking Storyteller Begins Historic Trek Through China’s Heartland徒步中国腹地，开启历史之旅

YUSAN， YUNNAN， CHINA—My walk restarts at a crossroad.

中国云南省雨伞村——我的徒步之旅从一个十字路口重新开启。

The crossroad is charred by a subtropical sun. It quarters a village of tiled roofs called Yusan. Yusan means “umbrella” in Chinese. It is located in Yunnan Province， in far southwest China， close by the Myanmar border. How old is the village？ Like many things Chinese this is difficult to know. Yusan once straddled the antique frontier between Ming dynasty China and the outside world—the bazaars of Southeast Asia and India. But roads are older than empires2 in Yunnan. A hundred generations of long-legged3 mountaineers have hauled jade， tea， copper， and ivory atop the crooked lanes of Yunnan. Centuries of mule caravans have carved divots4 into the roads’ grey basalt. Roman emissaries to the Han may have passed through this crossroads. Marco Polo， if you believe him， might have walked here. Majestic 20-foot walls once girded5 the nearby fortress town of Tengchong. American bombers， targeting Japanese， ground them to dust in World War II.

这个十字路口被亚热带的烈日烤焦了。（剩余9609字）