True stories of courage lie beneath the facade

There is an old Chinese proverb which says that traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books, which suggests that one can learn more from travel than sitting at home and reading related books. Little did I realize that these words would come true, when I got an opportunity to closely interact with sailors as part of my recent interviews with China COSCO Shipping Corp Ltd in Shanghai and Guangzhou of Guangdong province.

I must confess that until these interviews, I had little knowledge of sailors or their lives, except for the vague impressions gleaned from books I had read earlier.

One of the impressions was that sailors are tall and strong as they have to face strong winds and storms at sea, an illusion that was shattered soon.