There was news.

Last night there was news that brought back memories.

When I was in college at VCU, all the pictures of China were dreamy. There was always a haze over everything, making it a magical place that maybe Disney created. The mountains were tall with a river curving through them and a moon hanging romantically at just the right place. It was a mystical place like no other.

Those pictures flooded my memory as I looked at artists' renderings of the same mystical scenes when I was in China in 2005. On the small cruise ship going down the Yanghtze River every view from the windows and top deck was covered with that same filmy haze. It was like wearing foggy lenses. For 3 days I went down the river, passing ferries, coal barges and funny looking boats. Modern cities loomed on the top of ridges, replacing the villages where people lived for generations. Locks near the Three Gorges Dam, an engineering marvel, facilitated getting to the next port.

I felt like I was in one of those filmy pictures! Being a romantic at heart, it did look dreamy and romantic. The truth is that it was anything but dreamy and romantic. It was air pollution!

The water itself was green and looked good to my untrained eye. Knowing that the air was dirty and knowing that there are few, if any, environmental controls on businesses there, I guessed the river was probably dirty, too.

The news last night was about the Yahngtze River. My ears perked up only to hear more news. The river is so dirty that it is deemed to cause cancer! Cancerous was the word used.

How can something that looks so romantic be so toxic? It is the source of water for tons of people! The news made me sad.