You may have assumed this story would be about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family’s financial investments in China, but this story’s roots go back many more years than that.
On Friday, during a press conference in Tokyo, Pelosi made a comment about China when reminiscing about her youth: “When I was a little girl, I was told when at the beach that if I dug a hole deep enough, we would reach China — so we’ve always felt a connection there.”
NANCY PELOSI: “When I was a little girl, I was told at the beach if I dug a hole deep enough we would reach China. So we’ve always felt a connection there.” pic.twitter.com/YIj0MdxhXC
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 6, 2022
Many American kids have been told the same story Pelosi remembers. The origin of the “digging to China” folklore may be with America’s iconic Henry David Thoreau. In 1854, he wrote in Walden: “As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow in town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.”
Pelosi’s comment doesn’t really make sense geographically. If you could theoretically dig a hole straight from China — and make it through the hard inner core of the earth — you would end up closer to South America than to the United States.
Pelosi also said in the press conference that America needs to work with China to confront the climate “crisis” and that “we can learn a lot from China in that regard.” Interesting choice. It is doubtful that China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world, is the ideal teacher.