Bryan Stumpf's China Journal

Bryan Stumpf's China Journal

Cruising Down the Yangtze River
July 23rd-27^th, 2004

The first time I really started considering a Yangtze River cruise was when I read the book “River Town” by Peter Hessler. It was Bon Voyage gift from my Highline colleague, Ruth Windhover, given to me right before I left for China. Ruth taught at Jiao Tong University herself in 2002.

I started reading this book on my flight to China, and didn’t finish until my third week of classes. It’s not necessarily a long book, but it’s one to savor.

It’s about a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English to Chinese students in the Yangtze River town of Fuling. The author, Peter Hessler, spent two years in Fuling, 1996-1998, and writes a lot about the Yangtze during that time. He took a few cruises down the river, but since he had little money for traveling, the boats were usually rat-infested and the sleeping quarters were small rooms with cramped bunks.

Though Hessler had less than desirable experiences on these river cruises, I was drawn to the idea of riding a boat down the Yangtze River. I even bought a map of the Yangtze River and tacked it up on the wall of my apartment.

And I also did some research on river: It’s the third longest river in the world. The Yangtze starts at the glacial slopes of Mt. Geladandong - about 500 miles due north of Mt. Everest - and flows nearly 4,000 miles until it drains in the East China Sea near Shanghai. I didn’t realize the Yangtze flowed so close to my home in China. I wanted to get a closer look.

I started looking into the chartered trips down the river. There are many different routes one can take down the Yangtze. Pretty much all downstream tours start in the city of Chongqing. Chongqing is located in the heartland of China. It’s about 900 miles due west of Shanghai. Though it’s possible to travel downstream from Chongqing all the way to Shanghai, most cruises only ride to the halfway point of Wuhan. Many travel agents will tell you that the stretch of river from Wuhan to Shanghai is too boring for touring.

I was tempted by the ride all the way to Shanghai. I imagined a journey narrated by Mark Twain - a boat meandering through the heart of China. And at the journey’s end, I saw the boat docking at the pier just down the block from my apartment. But when I saw an industrial arm of the river while riding to Hefei, I realized I was romanticizing the river beyond reality. A trip from Chongqing to Wuhan would be the better choice.

Yaping and I chose a tour package that would fly us to Chongqing on Friday, July 23rd. Then, we’d ride down the river for three days before docking Yichang. Then, we’d take a bus 200 miles east to Wuhan. After one night in Wuhan, we’d fly back to Shanghai and arrive on the morning of Tuesday, July 27th. It seemed strange we were taking a bus instead of a boat from Yichang to Wuhan, but I guess we were seeing the most important parts of the river between Chongqing and Yichang.

On the night before our trip, Yaping decided to disclose some interesting information: the Chinese consider three cities to be the “furnaces of China” - these three cities are considered the hottest places in China during the summer: Nanjing, Chongqing, and Wuhan. So as it would turn out, we would begin and end our trip in two of the three furnaces of China.

Day 1

So Yaping and I flew into Chongqing on morning of Friday, July 23rd. We met up with our tour guide in the airport lobby, and were soon introduced to Greg and Ann Tang, an Australian couple that would be our traveling companions throughout the trip. The Tangs were actually Australian by way of Hong Kong. They were born in Hong Kong, but had been living in Sydney for the last 20 years.

After introductions, we boarded our bus, and our guide announced the day’s schedule – first, we’d visit parts of Chongqing, then, we’d board our cruise boat in the evening.

I actually found the city Chongqing quite charming. Fortunately, on this day, the city didn’t seem to be fulfilling its “furnace” reputation – the temps were around 90. Prior to our visit, the heat waves were so intense the city’s World War II bomb shelters were opened to provide heat relief for its population. After living in the sweltering 110 degrees of Shanghai, Chongqing’s 90 degrees was a cool breeze. The poor Australian couple, however, had just left wintertime in Australia with temperatures around 50.

I also appreciated Chongqing’s geography of rolling hills and converging rivers. The city is actually surrounded by water - it’s where the Yangtze and its branch, the Jialing, meet. I’ve always found cities surrounded by water to be charming. I guess they remind me of my hometown Cape Vincent, where Lake Ontarion and the St. Lawrence River meet. And the steep, winding streets crisscrossing through timbered hills reminded me of Seattle.

We stopped in downtown Chongqing and our guide led us through a commercial district. We stopped to watch some dancers performing in a sidewalk tent with a stage. The venue was advertising Motorola cell phones. To really educate the public on the merits of Motorola, three young women strutted onto the stage and started gyrating to a Toni Braxton song - all while holding a Motorola cell phone in their right hand.

These sidewalk commercials with young dancers are actually quite popular in the big cities of China. In Shanghai that summer, I once saw break-dancers selling Saucony sneakers.

We stopped for some lunch and tried the traditional summer food of the Sichuan Province. Sichuan summer food is not your typical summer food – it’s very hot and spicy. The Sichuanese believe that hot and spicy is appropriate for summer because the food makes you sweat, and the sweat cools you off.

We then went to one of the highest points of the city – a tall pagoda at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing. I recognized the brown water of the Yangtze River right away – brown like milk chocolate from all the silt from the mountains. You can also recognize the river from its furious current. When considering the elevation of its sources – high in mountains in Southwest China - you understand why the Yangtze is one of the fastest flowing rivers in the world.

Near the pagoda, our guide showed us a 300-foot long indoor mural that depicted the roughly 1,000-mile section of the river between Chongqing and Yichang. I had heard about the controversial Three Gorges Dam Project, but the mural made the controversy more vivid. The mural depicted the river before the dam construction, but at each city and town along river, there was a red thread indicating how high the river’s water level would be after the dam’s construction. Practically, every community would be two-thirds under water.

From the start of the construction to its end, the river’s level would raise about 130 feet above its pre-dam water-line. By the dam’s completion, the raising water will have submerged 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1,352 villages, and it would swamp 650 factories and 139 power stations. But these numbers didn’t mean much until I walked along the mural, and saw the red gash of string hovering high above streets and homes.

In total, about 1.3 million people will be relocated. But according to the plans, no one will be made homeless – everyone forced into relocation would be given new homes with modern conveniences. There was a frequently mentioned upside to this relocation: many homes would have clothes washers. No clothes dryers though. But that’s no big deal since clothes dryers haven’t really caught on in China. Few Chinese own them or see the point in needing them - everyone prefers to hang their wash out to dry year-round. But a new clothes washer – now THAT makes relocation worthwhile.

And there will be financial support for anyone choosing urban housing in a nearby city. In Shanghai, I often see the effects of the Three Gorges Dam project. There’s been a huge influx of farmers migrating into the city. The streets are overflowing with relocated farmers.

Relocation efforts also included the removal of buildings and trees. It’s not like whole buildings will be submerged – if they were, there would be a risk of ships running aground on underwater apartment buildings. All the buildings will be razed and the building materials will be recycled. So it’s not like all the human progress that went into building and designing these cities will be forgotten. There’s even a large-scale efforts in transplanting trees. For example, many of the trees from these cities were uprooted and replanted in the streets of Chongqing.

However, many ancient relics along the river would unfortunately need to remain submerged under water. In the book “River Town,” Hessler writes a eulogy for the White Crane Ridge near Fuling. The ridge is an island of sandstone, one kilometer from Fuling’s shore, on which Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) sculptors carved 163 pieces of poetry. They also etched records of the Yangzte's rising and falling water levels during a span of 1,000 years. In 1997, Hessler was told the ridge would soon be submerged. Now in 2004, the White Crane Ridge is completely submerged, hidden under several fathoms of brown water.

But there is still hope for the White Crane Ridge. Our Chongqing guide explained that Tianjin University would soon begin construction of an underwater museum that would house the strip of sandstone in transparent Plexiglas material. Tourists will be able to access the museum via a tunnel on the shore. But completion of this project could take more than a decade – and so far there’s been little support for this attempt at historical preservation.

As we finished walking the mural, I was both stunned and awed by the magnitude of the Three Gorges Dam Project. I understood why so many tourists had been flocking to this part of the river for the last decade – within years, entire spans of riverbanks and human progress would be washed away, and this was your last chance to see it.

To perhaps lighten the mood, our guide then drove us visit Chongqing’s concentration camps from pre-communist China. At Chiang Kai-Shek’s behest, the camp imprisoned many communists and tortured them for information. As Yaping explains it, communism was a beacon of hope for the Chinese because Kai-Shek’s rule was rife with corruption. The Chinese saw communism as a means to finally end the government’s corruption.

In each prison cell of the camp, there were stories of prisoners not willing to reveal names of other communists, even under the most excruciating torture. Many of the prisoners were in their 20s, probably just out of college and feeling idealistic about China’s future. The torture included shoving long needles under fingernails and spackling a paste mixture of the spiciest peppers into the prisoner's mouth and nose.

We also visited a villa that was occupied by American officers during World War II. Chongqing was China’s capital during WWII, and within the first few years of the war, Japanese air raids had practically leveled the city. But an American flying squadron known as the Flying Tigers arrived to help defend the Chinese against the Japanese. During this time of American assistance, a few high ranking officers chose the villa as their living quarters. After the war, however, the villa became another concentration camp for communists.

Our guided tour of Chongqing ended with a short visit to the Chinese Congress Hall and dinner. Then, we were finally taken to our cruise boat.

At around 6pm, we boarded our cruise boat, the “Oriental Emperor.” I was quite impressed. It was nothing like the rat-infested barge described in Hessler’s book. In fact, it was like a floating four-star hotel. Yaping and I got our keys from the concierge, and walked up to the second floor to settle in our rooms. The rooms were carpeted, had two beds, a TV, and a bathroom. It was just like your typical hotel room.

The only flaw with my room was that a sheet of metal beneath the carpet had warped, so that when you stepped on a certain spot between the beds, the floor would buckle a little. And when you stepped away, the metal buckling back made a loud THWUNK!.

Yaping and I spent most the time on the top deck – the viewing deck. We discovered the boat would remain docked until well after dark. So we stayed on the viewing deck to watch the sun set over Chongqing. And stayed just a little longer to watch for the first stars in the night sky. That night was my first time spotting the Big Dipper in China.

Once night had settled, and all of the passengers were accounted for, the Oriental Emperor undocked and slowly turned starboard to head downstream. It was a great feeling to see the city of Chonquing drift out of sight - and then be left with nothing but river and the silhouettes of the hilltops on the night sky.

Around this time, we were introduced to the boat’s extremely loud foghorn. It made a lot of people jump, including me. That foghorn became my enemy throughout the trip.

Late in the night, we would be passing the city of Fuling – the city Peter Hessler describes in “River Town.” I asked the front desk for a wake up call when we would be nearing Fuling. I got the call around 3am – they said we would be drifting past Fuling in about 15 minutes. I tried to get up to the viewing deck, but it must have been locked sometime after midnight. So I went back to the room and pulled the curtains back to see if I could see Fuling’s city lights. I saw a few campfires along the riverbank, but no city. I gave up at 3:30 and fell quickly asleep.

Day 2

The next morning I awoke to the pleasant sound of Greensleeves being streamed into my cabin through the boat’s intercom system. We would awake each morning to a different traditional song – on our last morning, they played Auld Lang Syne. They also used these songs preceding all announcements.

At breakfast, Yaping and I discovered that we were on a very international cruise. Listening to other conversations at the breakfast buffet, I recognized a French-speaking contingent to the tour. And seated at our table were Greg and Ann, the Australian couple, and an Irish family – a mother, a father, and two 20-something daughters.

For the first time in our travels together, I had the chance to act as translator for Yaping. Whenever members of the Irish family spoke, Yaping needed me to translate the Irish blarney. And whenever we overheard the French talking, I actually was able to translate bits and pieces - my high school French teacher, Mr. O’Reilly, would be so proud.

I also liked the more international cuisine available on the cruise, especially the international choices during breakfast. They had Chinese breakfast choices, but they also had all the right fixings for an American breakfast. Yaping and I had a debate about which is better – the American pancake or the Chinese pancake. She couldn’t argue against how much importance Americans place on pancakes – what other country devotes a whole “international” chain of restaurants to pancakes.

And for lunch and dinner, along with the usual Chinese dishes, they also served choices like chicken cordon bleu, British-style fish – they even had sub sandwiches. This cruise was so concerned with its culinary presentation that after every meal the chef and his assistant would go to each table and ask for comments. The assistant did most of the talking, but you could see the chef listening intently, sweating under his little chef hat.

After this morning’s breakfast, we docked at the riverside city of Fengdu. The mountain that overlooks the city is said to be haunted by ghosts. There’s a story about two men who lived on the mountain in the Han Dynasty (9-23AD). One man was surnamed Yin, the other was surnamed Wang. The locals all claimed that the two mysterious men were actually part of one entity – the King of Hell. The believed this because their surnames combined created the word Yinwang, which in Chinese means “King of Hell.”

Because of this legend, the nearby mountaintop is known as Ghost City. Scattered about the mountaintop are numerous temples containing sculptures of demons and devils. Most of the temples were built during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). The temples have heartening names like, “Between the Living and the Dead,” and “Bridge of Helplessness.”

We had to walk through the deserted city of Fengdu in order to reach the chairlift to the top of the mountain. Among the rubble of vacated buildings, we found many vendors selling food, drink, and souvenirs. The people on these streets were there only for commerce with the tourists – no one had any homes on this stretch of land. The people who had once called this area home had all been relocated to a newly constructed city on the opposite bank of the river – courtesy of the Three Gorges Dam project.

It was strange walking through the lifeless former city of Fengdu. I imagined how the Fengdu would be totally flooded and submerged under several fathoms of water within seventeen months. It was like walking through the streets of Atlantis, knowing its demise was coming soon.

Yaping and I didn’t take the chairlift because we thought it would be a nice hike to the top of the mountain. But on our way up, I made an observation: “If most of the chairlift will be underwater in a year, how much time and money do you think they spend on maintenance?” I’m glad we decided against taking the lift.

As we bounded up the steps, we would stop periodically to check the view of the river. At about one-third the way to the top, we saw 4 foot by 4 foot white sign with the big number 175 in red. We had seen signs like this all along the way down the river. They indicated where the water-line would finally reach - 175 meters. I looked back at the old city of Fengdu and all the riverbank below where I stood. I couldn’t believe it would all be underwater, all the way up to here.

We met up with the rest of the group and entered Ghost City. In a lot of ways, it looked like your typical Buddhist temple. But as our tour guide would point out, most of the artifacts are devoted to death and the afterlife. To raise the kitsch factor, our guide introduced us to various “tests” that were supposedly intended to reveal whether a person was going to heaven or hell. There was one test where you had to stay balanced for 5 seconds standing with one foot on a rock the size of a baseball. And for another test, you had to hold your breath all the way to the top of a 35-step stairway. One other test reminded me of Pin the Tail on the Donkey – keeping your eyes closed, you had to step three paces away from an obelisk with an engraved Chinese character, then you had to spin around three times, then try to return to the obelisk and touch the character.

The guide also led us to a test that was supposed to prove your betrothed’s faithfulness. We stood over what looked like a stone sombrero with a bowling ball sitting on it’s curved brim. Our tour guide said that to prove your fidelity, you had to roll the bowling ball around the sombrero’s brim two times. Then, you had to balance the bowling ball on the cone-like center part of the sombrero.

Our Australian friend Greg decided he wanted to prove his fidelity to his wife, Ann. He was able to roll the bowling ball around twice, but then tried to pick it up. After a few grunts, and huffing and puffing, he finally gave up. Ann looked at him through squinted eyes - until the guide confessed that the bowling ball actually weighed 400 pounds.

Then, our guide introduced a little guy about half Greg’s size, and said the man would show us how to balance the stone. He rolled the stone and, using the momentum, plus his weight, and a little bit of gravity, he brought the stone to the top of the cone and balanced it perfectly. Our guide hinted that this was the man’s primary livelihood – in other words, any donations would be accepted. Greg begrudgingly gave the man a tip.

The final stop in Ghost City was visiting the “Palace of the King of Hell.” Our guide tried to explain that the King of Hell is actually a benevolent figure in the local sect of Buddhism. However, the whole palace and the statue of the king looked pretty sinister to me.

And right outside the palace, there were two long dioramas depicting sinners being tortured in hell. A lot of the torture was quite gruesome – not appropriate for the kids. Each sinner was receiving his or her appropriate punishment. Yaping particularly liked how the playboy was being sawed in half, right down the middle.

Thus ended our tour of Ghost City. Yaping and I skipped down the steps while the others took the soon-to-be-extinct chair lift. We all met up at the bottom, bounded through town, then boarded the boat.

After lunch we passed by the ShiBaozai Pagoda. The 11-story pagoda is actually built into a 90-foot high cliff – it looked as if the pagoda had grown out from the rock. The construction of the pagoda was intended to appease the sea monsters of the Yangtze River. The early settlers of the area believed sea monsters were responsible for the devastating floods that wracked the area.

Flood season in China is between June and August, and every year there is a death toll from the flooding. Already this year, there’ve been almost 500 deaths due to flooding. And one of the worst flood seasons on record was in 1991 when more than 2000 died. Supposedly, one of the benefits of the completed Three Gorges Dam will be floodwater control, but only after the waterline reaches 175 meters, I guess. And fortunately, 175 meters will be well below the base of the ShiBaozai Pagoda.

After passing the pagoda, I actually attended a lecture about the river. This was when I finally met up with the Cruise Host for the English speakers - a young Chinese man by the name of Peter Pan.

Here are some of the things I learned from Peter Pan:

- The river is actually called Chiang Jiang (Long River) by the Chinese. It’s called “Yangtze” by outsiders because when 19th century missionaries first spotted the river, they asked some locals the name of the waterway. Misunderstanding the question, the locals said, “Yangtze,” providing the name of the nearby village instead.

- Up until 1976, the Mississippi was longer than the Yangtze. But then, the Yangtze took the title of “third longest river in the world” when an expedition discovered there was more to the Yangtze than previously charted.

- Total cost of the dam so far – 22 billion American dollars.

- Total human cost so far – a little over 200 people have died in the construction of the dam. And that included an engineer who fell into a quick drying concrete mixture. Workers tried to pull him out, but the concrete solidified too quickly - thus he ended up becoming part of his own engineering project.

After the lecture, Yaping and I attended a cocktail party for the captain. Drinks and hor d’oeuvres were served and we met the captain – who fortunately seemed like a responsible-looking fellow. Then, it was time for dinner and a “Crew Show.” I stayed for only about 10 minutes of the show – it was basically a talent show for the young members of the boat’s staff.

While most people were on the upper deck watching the Crew Show, I just hung out in my room, reading my book and watching the nighttime riverbank stream past my window. I fell asleep sometime before midnight, while the boat continued to glide downstream, toward the dam.

Day 3

The first thing I did this morning was open the curtain, slide open the window, and stick my head out into the morning air. I could really lean out the window because there was a railing about two feet from the windowsill. Gripping this railing, I could lean half my body out the window.

The pre-sunset morning beauty of the river was almost too much for me. There’s something about watching the sun come up on a large body of water. To tell you the truth, this moment left a deep impression on me – it would be my most memorable part from the trip. It was the peacefulness, the tranquil flow of the river, the mist hanging along the river bank, everything. Yet, I also felt melancholy because the river reminded me of my childhood on the St. Lawrence River. All at once, I felt really alive and really sad.

Before breakfast, some people were able to wake early enough (5:30am) and shuffle to the viewing deck to see our entrance into the first gorge of the Three Gorges – Qutong Gorge. Qutong is the smallest and shortest of the three gorges. In the caves and crevices of this gorge, coffins can be seen from the river. It is believed that an ancient tribe of this area had the custom of depositing their dead in these caves.

We tried to find the best vantage point for taking pictures from the viewing deck. There were too many crowds at the bow and the air wasn’t breathable at the stern. Yaping and I agreed that the cruise’s only real flaw was the viewing deck – you couldn’t walk all the way to the front of the bow because of various navigational equipment, and if you stood at the stern, you would be choked by diesel fumes coming from the giant exhaust pipe at the top of the ship. But other than that, the cruise’s services were impeccable and the food was flawless.

After the cruise through of Qutong Gorge, we adjourned to the lower deck for breakfast.

But within one hour we were back on the viewing deck for the second gorge, the Wu Gorge. This was the deepest part of the river, with a depth of 600 feet. The name “Wu” does not derive from the Wu Tang Clan, but from the Chinese word “wu,” meaning “wizard.” The name felt appropriate – you could almost imagine Gandalf gazing down from one of the peaks. The whole gorge area reminded me of the Anduin river scene in “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

At around 10:30am, the boat docked for the second time of the trip, near the city of Badong. We disembarked from the Oriental Emperor to board a smaller cruise boat that would take us down the Shennong Stream.

Shennong Stream flows downstream from the Daba Mountains, which are north of the Yangtze. Many could say that the raising water level of the river was devastating the people along the Shennong – due to the dam, dozens of communities along the stream have been submerged in the past decade. Yet the people remain optimistic, they have been relocated to homes high on the riverbank and the new influx of tourists has been profitable.

The stream’s main tourist draw is riding with the Shennong boatmen on their wooden sloops. After riding the small cruise boat upstream for about an hour, we docked along a bank where a dozen wooden sloops awaited passengers. We split into groups of 10 and the Shennong boatmen helped each group aboard a sloop.

Among the people of this community, there’s a time-honored tradition of rowing their handmade wooden boats upstream to the rapids at the foothills of the Daba Mountains. And there, the boatmen have a strategic way of navigating the boats up through the rapids – a rope is tied to bow and five men go ashore to pull the boat along. In the past, the boatmen used to do this in the buff – they considered the wet clothing too constricting. But of course, the outsiders came in and taught them shame. So now, tourists don’t have to worry about being subjected to naked boatmen as they are pulled through the rapids.

I was impressed by the teamwork and stamina needed for this arduous task. The current is very strong and there are several submerged stones to navigate around. One boatmen stays at the stern, steers with the rudder, and shouts instructions at the five boatmen on shore. I felt guilty I couldn’t get out and help pull the boat.

Once we were above the rapids, all the boatmen piled into the boat and we all shot through the white water. We bounced easily through the rocky parts and gracefully glided into smooth water again. There were other sloops around us – this boat excursion proved popular with tourists – and one boat’s passenger was so exuberant after the rapids, he shouted, “I love you!” in Chinese.

We coasted downstream and soon sidled up to our small cruise boat. After docking the sloop, the boatmen, wet and exhausted, laid out on the grass on the riverbank to rest – it was probably only a short time before the next cruise boat full of tourists came along.

Back on our small cruise boat, we rode downstream back to the Oriental Emperor. After boarding the Emperor, and then lunch, we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves.

I spent the afternoon hours just sitting at my bedroom window, propped up on pillows, sidled up next to the headboard, and watching the river and the river’s northern bank stream by. I spent practically all my free time in this fashion. Sometimes I’d spot the occasional hilltop pagoda. Coal barges often puttered past. We once rode passed a coal mine – from a hilltop cave, loose coal spilled down a chute into a barge docked below. Once in a while, I’d interrupt my gazing to take a picture, or to read a few chapters in my book.

This was my first cruise, and I was really loving the whole cruise set-up – the scenery comes to you; you don’t have to go seek it out. And if you ever desire down time, you can retire to your room whenever you want. And on a cruise, you are part of an exclusive floating community - you never had to worry about overcrowding. But what I loved the most was the slower pace. While jaunting to Chinese cities in the past four months, I hadn’t found much time for peace and quiet– and so I savored the stillness of the river.

But I also made sure to be social during my free time. I befriended various members of our tour group, particularly a French man from Paris. He knew very little English, so we talked mostly in French. Though our conversations were limited, I picked up on enough words here and there to understand his sentences. But really, our conversations weren’t much more than:

Bryan: “Hello.”
Frenchman: “Hello. That’s a nice gorge.”
Bryan: “Yes. That’s a nice gorge. Good-bye.”
Frenchman: “Good-bye.”

We entered the third gorge, Xiling Gorge at around 5pm. Xiling Gorge is the longest gorge – about 47 miles. The Three Gorges Dam is located right in the middle of this gorge. But before reaching the dam, our tour group gathered on the viewing deck so that the tour guide could show how certain cliffs resembled a reclining monkey or sleeping pig. This seemed to be the ritual in all natural sites in China - there’s seems to be no value in the natural world unless it is linked to man’s imagination.

At around 7pm, we finally reached the Three Gorges Dam. From a distance, the size of the project drew gasps from the viewing deck. The dam spans a distance of 1.2 miles and is 600 feet high. The legendary immensity and strength of the dam was now vividly clear - when the mighty Yangtze meets the dam, one of the most powerful and fastest flowing rivers in the world suddenly becomes a stagnant lake.

Though construction began in 1992, the Three Gorges Dam has a long history. Chinese leader Sun Yat-Sen proposed the idea of damming the Yangtze in 1919. And Mao Zedong had his engineers drawing up plans for a Yangtze dam during the 50s and 60s.

But all throughout the dam’s history, there have been critics. During his leadership, Mao Zedong sent critics of the dam to labor camps. The critics most commonly mentioned environmental concerns and the risk of the dam being a military target. But also, many worried about possible dam failure. In 1975, excessive rain caused sixty-two modern dams to fall like dominoes, and 230,000 people died. But concerning the Three Gorges Dam, it seems there is no turning back now – besides, the topic has been banned from public debate in China since 1987.

The commonly cited benefit of the dam is the increase in hydro-electric power. About 10% of the China’s population will receive power from the Three Gorges Dam. At first that seemed like a small percentage of people for such a monumental dam, but considering China is a country of over 1.3 billion people, 10% means over 130 million will be getting power from the dam.

As we drew closer to the dam, I noticed that the Chinese who had stayed in their cabins while passing through the gorges, now streamed to the sides of the boat and stood entranced at their country’s creation. They seemed to stay on the viewing deck from the moment the dam came into view and all the way up until the dam faded into the distance.

I only stayed on the viewing deck up until the first step of the five-step locks. I had seen boat locks before in Lake Ontario and Seattle, so figured I wouldn’t find the whole process too exciting. But the size of the locks was astonishing. The doors were so immense, they reminded me of the doors that the islanders used to hold back “King Kong,” in the 1930’s movie. After snapping a few pictures of the first step, I figured it would be redundant to stay for the next four, so I went to my room and read.

But Yaping and the other Chinese stayed on the viewing deck for all five steps. They seemed to marvel at every aspect of the dam - the locks, the loading cranes, the piles of stones. They seemed determined to see every inch of the dam they could – it didn’t matter that most of the passage through the locks was under the gauze of nighttime.

Yaping actually left the viewing deck long enough to tell me that there was a problem with the lock's doors closing. We were in the third step, and we couldn’t move onto the fourth step until the doors from the second step were completely closed. It took a few openings and closings until the doors finally sealed shut. And these doors don’t move quickly – we were delayed for almost an hour because of the faulty doors.

Sometime before midnight, I made one last visit to the viewing deck – we had finally traversed all five locks of the Three Gorges Dam. And with the dam drifting into the distance from our stern, our tour of the Yangtze River had come to an end. We would be docking for the night in Yichang, the city just east of the dam, and disembarking in the morning.

I stood for a moment longer at the stern. The moonlight glinted off the water and the dam was silhouetted against the night sky. For a moment, I wished that we had booked the cruise all the way to Shanghai.

Day 4

Next morning’s breakfast was our last hour on the “Oriental Emperor.” I said “good-bye” to the pancake chef, a burly Chinese man who had given himself the name Peggy.

On the pier in Yichang, we boarded a bus for a guided tour of the dam. We drove straight to the dam’s tourist complex – basically, the gift shop with a model of the dam. But the complex was perched on a cliff that overlooked the entire span of the dam.

We also drove right down to the southern edge of the dam for a closer look. You could see there was still some construction going on. River water was gushing from just one of the dam’s 26 turbines. After completion, the dam will be expected to generate 18, 200 megawatts of hydro-power. By contrast, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State generates 6, 800 megawatts of power.

We then rode back to downtown Yichang. After lunch and quick stop at a museum – where we were expected to buy expensive antiques – it was time for our 6-hour ride to Wuhan.

Throughout the morning, the passengers from the Oriental Emperor splintered off into their different tour groups. By the time Yaping and I boarded our bus to Wuhan, our group was now whittled down to just four – Greg, Ann, Yaping, and me.

I had really enjoyed traveling with Greg and Ann for the last three days – they were always happy and smiling. But after settling into our seats on the Wuhan bus, I noticed their smiles had faded away. And I could understand why. The bus was not quite the world-class coach we expected. The seats had a sticky residue. The floor was crawling with cockroaches. The bus actually had a bathroom - but it emitted such a powerful smell, passengers refused to use it. What was worse, there was no air-conditioning. Yaping and I considered opening a window, but we didn’t want to touch the curtains - they were smeared with what looked like bearing grease. Greg grumbled the loudest and kept muttering, “I’m going to complain. I’m going to complain.”

We arrived in Wuhan, at around 7pm. And true to its reputation, it definitely felt like the hottest city in China. It felt hotter than Shanghai.

From the outside of our hotel, it looked like four-star digs, but there lurked inside some of the most tip-hungry attendants this side of the Silk Road. While Yaping was finishing up with our room accommodations, I grabbed my room key and headed eagerly to the elevator. Just as the elevator doors were closing, a bellhop hopped in next to me. I knew what he had in mind, but I didn’t really know how to say, “No thanks. I don’t need assistance.”

I figured maybe I could express my sentiments through my actions. When he reached for my room key, I didn’t hand it over. I showed him that I could push my own button for my floor. Once we reached my floor, he tried to reach for my luggage, and again, I showed him that I could carry it myself. But he still followed me all the way to my room. When we reached my door, he tried to reach for my room key again. I showed him I knew how to work the key.

Though I thought he would get the hint by now, the bellhop followed me into my room. I just stood there with my arms crossed, trying to show him that his services were not needed. He started to point out things that were already obvious, like the location of the light switch and the closet. But I still stood with my arms crossed - it’s not that I’m stingy, I just I don’t like paying for services that I didn’t ask for.

Perhaps as an act of desperation, the bellhop went to the bureau, pulled out a pair of hotel slippers, and placed them at the foot of my bed. He lingered for a moment, then, started looking around something else to do that would earn him a tip. Finally, I gave in – if a tip would get him out of my room, I’ll give him one then.

But the tip-mongers of our hotel weren’t through with me. After dinner, Greg, Ann, Yaping and I all decided to get foot massages at the massage parlor on the fourth floor. I was immediately suspicious when the parlor’s receptionist insisted that Greg and I change into bathrobes before the massage. I especially didn’t see why I needed a bathrobe since I was already in shorts.

The receptionist showed Greg and I to the locker room, and a young man handed us our bathrobes. The man tried his hardest to make it seem like we needed his help in changing into our bathrobes. Just like with the bellhop, I tried to express through my actions that I didn’t require any assistance. I found my own locker, tossed my clothes in, and locked it myself.

Then, Greg and I went to the parlor where Ann and Yaping were already waiting. And then all four of us waited for the masseuses. And we waited. And waited. Eventually, the masseuses for Greg, Ann, and Yaping arrived. But I would have to “wait a little longer” for my masseuse. So I waited. And waited.

Finally, after more than 30 minutes of waiting, I excused myself and told the others I was going to my room. Once in the locker room, the attendant sidled up to me to show how much he deserved a tip. Though I was sure I could get through the attendant’s charade without caving, when I opened my locker I found that he had neatly folded my shorts and t-shirt. This guy was sneaky – while my back was turned, he actually earned a tip. I quickly dressed, begrudgingly handed over a tip, and shuffled back to my room.

Before saying, “good night” to Wuhan, I looked out at the city through my room's window and tried to find any redeeming values in our trip since boarding the filthy bus. The fact that we were traveling with the good-natured duo of Greg and Ann was the day’s saving grace. I read the last chapters of my book and settled into bed.

Day 5

The next morning Yaping and I partook of the hotel breakfast buffet with Greg and Ann, and then we bussed to the Wuhan airport. The four of us were on the same flight back to Shanghai.

After touchdown, Yaping and I shared contact info with Greg and Ann in the airport lobby. I was sorry to see them go. But they invited us to visit them in Sydney next time we were in Australia.

Yaping and I stepped out into the scorching summer heat of Shanghai. The city seemed just as hot, if not hotter, than the furnaces of Chongqing and Wuhan. The Yangtze River had been the perfect oasis from city summer heat.

Being on the river was truly the trip’s highpoint. A good window into a country and its people is watching average life along its main waterway. Plus, by seeing river life along the Yantze before the rise of the final waterline, I had the chance to see a soon-to-be-extinct slice of Chinese civilization.

With our trip book-ended by the Chongqing and the Three Gorges Dam, it was made abundantly clear that China was a nation hungry for progress. Yet the Yangtze conquered the landscape long before humans dotted its banks. And it would continue to surge forward long after washing away signs of human development.

But it was the quieter moments of the cruise that had the most impact – mostly because, being on the river reminded me of summers on the St. Lawrence River. Even though the Yangtze and the St. Lawrence are very different in color and flow, even though the rivers are oceans apart, the cruise made me feel closer to home than any other time in China.

Hope all remains well on your side of the globe!

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