THREE GORGES

I thought I’d return to  China 2006 with my guests gone for a week. I’m remembering the wonderful buffet breakfasts on our cruise ship. Everything you can imagine. Cold cuts for German tourists, bangors for the English, sushi for the Japanese, bacon and eggs that American’s prefer, and so on.

Chinese tourists eat congee. Wanning Determan, the Chinese wife of Judge Dean Determan, was born in China. She teaches us about typical Chinese breakfast. The average Chinese household  eats congee which is a gruel similar to cream of wheat only made from several grains,  absent wheat or oats or rice. It was kind of bland and sticky and I’m the only one who will try it. The blandness is offset by the condiments of hot spicy pickles, or salty vinegar pickles,  made from an assortment of Chinese vegetables,  and then adding a small piece of dried fish. It wasn’t exactly tasty to my Western palate, but obviously nourishing; the pickles were good.

Also on the trip was Tedd and Audrey Determan. They were a fun foursome and have a fascinating family history. When Poland was overtaken by Nazi Germany and Communist Russia in 1939, word spread quickly through the land. When the boys grandmother got the news, she quickly took Tedd, who was only two years old, (Dean was not home at the moment,) and she broke both of his little fingers with a hammer and then reported to the Priest what she had done to prove that he was a true heir to the Polish throne. “I had heard the story and barely remembered the incident and didn’t give it much thought,  except when my fingers bother me,” explained Tedd, ” until I visited my old village in Poland. A priest knelt and kissed my hands when he realized he was in the presence of the true prince. But, our family had no desire, nor inclination to make any such claims. Besides, Dean is older than me and is the first heir, he just didn’t get the painful “proof” that I did.”
After breakfast, we learned basic Tai Chi and watched a demonstration of acupuncture, and one procedure where  a suction cup is used,  and scrapings of the skin on the affected part is done. The suction cup treatment looked kind of painful and it left a huge red welt on the volunteer’s  back, but he insisted  it felt good. The discussion about Chinese medicine and healing reminded me that in town one day, a healer merely touched Michele Maurer and  told her she had neck problems, which Michele declared was true. The healer spread some oil on her neck and Michele said it felt great and practically everyone on the tour bought some of the oil. (Not me.)

As we cruise the main Yangtze Gorge, we come across a  partially flooded village that has a sign reading 156, the height of the backed up water just reaching  156 meters.

Our guide tells us we will off-load to a sampan for a view of a tributary gorge, one of three that will be flooded by the dam.

This  sampan is much more to our liking than the big ship just lumbering along.
A Chinese man perches in a rudimentary rock dwelling with his camera hoping the boat will stop and allow him to take our picture which he will develop and try to sell to us down the line.  Our boat does not stop.

This group has a portable radio and they sing for us, hoping we will toss them a few coins. Our boat does not stop, but everyone here scrambles to make a living. The Chinese government has not exactly found occupations for all of those displaced by the flooding gorges, we are told. Promises, promises.

The boatman wears rain gear made of a mat of rushes of some type.

Our tour members enjoyed trying on the rain gear and attempting to paddle  the boat up the gorge from a standing position.
Tomorrow, the controversial dam.

CRUISE THE YANGTZE RIVER

Our first night aboard our Victoria Cruise Ship, we were given a champagne reception and attended a wonderful fashion show after dinner.

We think of  them as costumes, but we are reminded that each garment was the normal attire for Chinese citizens of the aristocracy during the eleven Dynasties represented.

The various models danced and sang period pieces from the particular dynasty they represented.

Our own puritan ancestors were pretty stodgy dudes by comparison. Learning about the various periods as the colorful fashion show proceeded, via a narrator with impeccable English…wow!  What a gig!

The ship carries us upstream from Chongqing (pronounced shawn-keen) to Yichan, (e-shan.) There is a certain amount of dead time aboard a cruise and we have tai chi lessons after breakfast and view an acupuncture demonstration as we float along. Then, we get our first view of a sampan. Not the old type of sampan but a modern one with a motor.

The Yangtze is a highway moving raw materials to various cities over hundreds of miles.

The Chinese call this Bye-Bye Bridge, because it will soon be underwater.  I wanted to see the famous river and the three gorges before they were inundated by water from the dam.

Families here have farmed the steep sides of the Yangtze for hundred’s of years. They don’t understand why the government is flooding them out and forcing them to evacuate from all they’ve ever known. They have never had electricity and they must sacrifice for the people who will benefit from the electricity this dam will produce.

This farmer could at one time walk to his neighbor’s farm. Then he could boat to his neighbor’s farm. Now his neighbor is underwater and his own buildings are partially flooded. Many older people hate it and hang on to all they’ve ever known for as long as they can.  One Chinese worker aboard ship loves it.  She has a new apartment in Wuhan  (oohan) City where she has more space. She now lives with three people in 120 square meters. In her old house she lived with an extended  family of eight in 400 square meters. She has electricity and, she can own her apartment.

These caves, once unreachable from the river , were the refuge of Japanese soldiers during WWII. They escaped to these caves and lived for years before they were discovered. Now, our guide marvels that you can actually see into them.  There are ancient bodies buried in some of the caves from an unknown past as well.

The steep canyon still has some beauty left and I’m grateful to have had a chance to see it before it disappears. To their credit, the Chinese government has taken extensive pictures of the canyon before the flooding began so people can see what it was once like.

As you look up into the clouds, its hard to imagine that most of this beautiful canyon will be underwater very soon.