The Rising Yangtze

After a typical "Chinese Drive" to the Beijing Airport -- the ever impressive yet frightening road gamble -- we made it. We were on our way to Chongqing, the mountain city, where no one speaks english. This has turned out to be both a struggle and a blessing. A struggle as our Taxi driver had no idea where our hostel was, despite giving him the directions in pinyin as well as with characters. We made drawings with one another to help with the communication but after angry Chinese became an even more abrasive language we realized that he may have been a bit more frustrated than we were. After awhile, Mr. Angry became resourceful and asked the locals. Four really nice students ended up taking us to our hostel whereupon arriving they insisted against our offers for compensation. It was only out of the goodness of their hearts that they helped us. No english was also a blessing as we weren't incessently hassled by vendors because no one had the words to hassle with.

Our hostel in Chonqing was really nice, very stylish, in a happening area, and right by the water. Although it reminded me, or rather, made me think what Canada's Wonderland's version of China would be. The chinzy music of the bop-a-mole, the vendors (from nun-chucks to deep-fried whole crabs) and the business of the streets just oozed an unnatural feeling. Apparently this area is where people from Chongqing go to shop/vacation, reminiscent of Queen Street, Toronto.

The next day we left from Chaotianmen dock on our Cruise of the Yangtze River. Conor and I are not that fond of cruises -- they just feel to commercial, and make you feel as though you're "experiencing" something from the outside, you don't feel a part of the journey. But in order to see the Yangtze, one must go on a cruise. It was a nice ship. It took a while to find it though. The Choationmen dock is the only one in Chongqing and so it is where all of the ships dock and leave from to go down the Yangtze. There were approximately 12 ships docked and we had to find ours...with no idea what the name was and with no "help desk" in existence. To be fair, I should admit that in saying that it took "us" a long time to find the boat I should say that it took Conor a while as I sat on our bags waiting, doing no searching of any kind, I just watched the hundreds of kites that were flying that evening (a popular pastime in China).

Our first stop was the Ghost City of Fengdu -- this is where the Chinese say that all the spirits go before going to heaven or hell. One must pass through a series of three physical tests to pass into paradise which is dictated both by your results and the President of Hell or King of Paradise. The first test for example is getting up 33 steps in one breath (you can walk or run). If you make it, it means that you will live a long time. This makes perfect sense though -- if you can do this it probably means that you have good cardiovascular health and so will therefore live a while. But I won't trifle away these beliefs, I'm just commenting.

From Fengdu we could see one of the first cities built for the people affected by the rising waters of the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze River is the 3rd longest river in the world (6,300km) after the Nile and the Amazon. With the creation of the Three Gorges Dam comes a great cost to the people who have lived and made a living on the edges of the Yangtze for generations. Luckily there was a woman working on the cruise that I could speak with and ask questions about how the changes were really effecting the people. Her village is already under water. With the building of the Dam, the government told main businesses and factories in the area who then were in charge of telling the employees that they and their .families would be moving -- where and when. They had a choice: a] move to a city being built for them, b] move to farmland higher in the mountains, or c] move to a neighbouring city, like Hangzhou. The younger generations were relatively excited because moving to the city meant electricity, school, a better future. But for the older generations, they had been farming, raising families in these homes for years - it would be a much different experience for them. Apparently in the beginning of the move, people were so happy to have light all of the time but they didn't know that they could switch it off so they were annoyed -- this is so far from what they had ever known. The government made space in these cities for graveyards -- this meant that if you wanted to have your passed loved one to have a spot in these graveyards then you had to dig them up and bring them over on your own. The river had already veiled homes and memories yet has 10 more meters to rise still. In the end, over 1.13million people will be relocated (costing the government 6.5 million dollars alone).

We travelled through three gorges along the Yangtze: Qutang, Wuxia, and Xiling. Gorgeous gorges. Sorry, I had to. This awesome scenery, where people actually live, or lived, where we saw rhesus monkeys, chinese fishing boats and hanging coffins. Yeah, in one lesser gorge tour we saw 2,000 year old hanging coffins of the Tugia people. These people only have a spoken language and their traditions remain a mystery to everyone. When someone died they would hang thier coffins off the side of the gorges. No one knows how they got them there, especially with only 2,000 year old technology. The higher your coffin was hung, the better person you were and the better-off your family would be in the future. At one point we were transferred to pea pod boats where local men paddled and pulled us up the river -- it was to show us thier way of life (which by the way will be unnecessary when the Dam finishes). Our local guide Coco (they choose their own english names) was great and she sang a Tugian song for us. It's funny how everyone refers to the Dam project as "Our" project and "We" are doing this together, yet it takes away so much tradition and lifestyle away from the people who have called it home for so long.

I don't want to sound like I'm totally against the Project but I just found it very fortunate to have gotten personal perspectives from those effected. The Dam will be great for energy production in China. It will produce 18,200MW or an annual average of 84.7 billion KWH. China's reliance on coal will be diminished and perhaps offer China a route for sustainable development. Because as of now, China uses 40-50 million tons of raw coal which releases 100 million tons of CO2, 2 million tones of SO2 and 10 thousand tons of MO, 370 tons of oxynitride, dust and waste residue. So with the Dam will come a lot less waste and dependence on coal.

Our final day on the cruise was spent at the Three Gorges Dam. It looked and smelled like a Dam. It's the largest hydro-electric plant in the world and is 2km long. The overall estimated total investment is $30 billion.

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