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Standing on a wharf high above the swirling Yangtze River in Chongqing, central China, the water I needed was frustratingly out of reach.
My hands were black with coal dust. Wiping them on paper made it worse, only pressing the fine particles into the whirls of my fingertips. Rubbing them together burnished the black shine of my palms.
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I had acquired a coal layer clambering up and over a locomotive engine – a shortcut across the busy Guoyang Port’s railway yard. Dressed in black, the only urgent problem was my hands.
I was about to be introduced to Guoyang Port’s wharf manager, to talk about the steady flow of river barges docking here to unload goods for transfer to the trains on the other side of the port.
The trains were bound for Europe, the first tangible evidence that China’s grand Belt and Road Initiative was beginning to take shape.
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