Amazing China: Up the Yangzi

Our crisp-white-uniformed officers and crew sailed the ship from a bridge where some of the controls were still marked in the Russian language as well as Chinese.

River traffic was varied and continuous. Everything from passenger vessels, to coal and lumber barges, steel-shipping-container carriers and grain or ore carriers were plying the waters.

An unending variety of scenery slipped slowly by along the shores. We passed farmland, cattle, horses, water buffalo, pagodas, cities, villages and even a small shipyard.

THE THREE GORGES DAM — Most memorable of our stops on the river was the gigantic Three Gorges Dam, which has been referred to as “China’s most ambitious engineering undertaking since the Great Wall.”

It is a major source of pride of the Chinese people; tangible evidence that they are still world-class builders.

The concrete dam is more than 600 feet high and stretches more than a mile across the river? — disappearing into the fog in this photo.

It was still being filled during our visit and will not reach its intended height/depth of 185 meters (607 feet) until sometime in 2009.

When fully operational, the dam’s 34 huge generators will produce 22,500 megawatts per hour of electricity. In December 2007, it reached 14,800 mw/h and became the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, exceeding Itaipu Dam in Brazil and Grand Coulee in the U.S. The reservoir behind the dam will stretch more than 400 miles westward to the city of Chongqing.

In addition to the value of the power generated, the dam was needed to control sometimes catastrophic flooding and permit navigation of larger vessels in previously dangerous areas of the river.

The Yangzi’s waters carry huge amounts of silt, which drops to the bottom when the water flow slows. This poses a potential problem for navigation as well as threatening to clog up the dam itself.

We learned this lesson one afternoon on the river. As we glided lazily along, we suddenly ground to an ignominious halt, stuck fast on a bar in the middle of the river. The captain and crew seemed not at all perturbed as they calmly maneuvered us back and forth, broke us free and then steamed on. It seemed that this was more than an occasional occurrence.

Our cruise ship passed around the dam, through the five ship-bypass locks on our way upstream. There was easily enough room for five other vessels to be with us in each section of the locks. Atop one of them, a large array of Chinese tourists waved and snapped pictures of us as we passed through.

Security was very tight around the dam, as it is around similar facilities in the U.S. Military checkpoints protected this jewel of the Chinese power grid.

The scenery changed dramatically above the dam. We passed through beautiful canyons and gorges. Numerous bridges spanned the river.

Farther up the river, we spotted a “hanging coffin” on one of the cliffs over the water. Thousands of years ago, the burial method used was to suspend wooden vaults high up on poles driven into sheer cliffs. In some places, before the dam was built, river currents were so swift and rapids so treacherous that native “trackers” were needed along the shores to tow boats through some treacherous areas with ropes.

Modern day trackers continue their profession to this day, but now they drag tourists upstream in pursuit of tourist dollars.

At one point, we saw evidence of the Chinese government’s determination to preserve historic and cultural sites beside the rising river. A 50-foot concrete protective wall had been constructed completely around a Buddhist temple and its 10-story pagoda.

When the water reaches its final level, this religious complex will sit safely behind the dike, but within easy earshot of the lapping water.

WANZHOU THE RELOCATION CITY — Our final stop along the river was at the city of Wanzhou (formerly Wanxian), located on the eastern outskirts of Chongqing.

One major criticism of the Three Gorges project is that a million people would be flooded out and made homeless by the rising waters of the reservoir.

Wanzhou is the government’s answer to this criticism. It is advertised as “the largest city of resettlement in the world;” the place where 1.2 million people have been relocated from their homes by the river.

We toured a living area in the old part of the city and then one of the numerous new apartment complexes that the government has built for the relocatees. Our hosts were a couple who had recently moved into one of the new buildings.

During our conversation the husband, a former farmer, was asked whether he regretted being forced to leave his home of many years by the advancing waters of the dam. “No,” he replied through an interpreter, “farming was very hard work and this apartment and my monthly payment from the government is better.”

APPRECIATION FOR AMERICANS IN CHONGQING — China’s largest “state-city” (33 million) is located 800 miles inland beside the Yangzi River. During the Second World War (the “Anti-Fascist War” to the Chinese), the city served as her capital since the Japanese had invaded and occupied the northern and eastern seacoast portions of the country.

We were especially surprised to find during a visit to the General Stillwell Museum in Chongqing, that some Americans are considered heroes by the Chinese. It was the wartime residence and headquarters of Gen. “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell, who came to central China in early 1942 as commander of all U.S. forces in the China-India-Burma Theater.

Stillwell’s efforts, and those of Gen. Claire Chennault (who led an all-volunteer group of American combat pilots, nicknamed the “Flying Tigers”), are held in high regard by the Chinese.

A local college professor was brought in to discuss the Sino-American “wartime friendship” with us and to explain just how important American efforts were in helping to defend China from the Japanese invasion.

The walls of the museum are covered with wartime photos of the Americans and tributes to her soldiers and airmen.

It felt good to realize that notwithstanding the differences which our two countries have had in the past, the support that the United States gave to China during WWII is appreciated and establishes an additional basis for future good relations between the two countries and cultures.