Sailing The Yangtze

SHIRLEY AND SHINING. THEY HAD ANGLICIZED THEIR NAMES FOR THE MOSTLY ENGLISH SPEAKING PASSENGERS EMBARKED ON THE SIX DAY VOYAGE UP THE YANGTZE RIVER. AND THEY STEPPED FROM THE ROW OF UNIFORMED CREW WITH SMILES THAT LIT UP THE FOYER.

Story: Susan Buckland

“Shining is in charge of your table in the dining room and I am the assistant cruise director looking out for all your needs,” said Shirley. Her Chinese name was Li Fei. She would have chosen the rhyming English name of Fay but Fei Li in Mandarin means ‘sexual harassment.’ “So call her Shirley,” twinkled Shining.

Their welcome aboard the river ship Viking Century Sky augured well. For a famously inscrutable race Shirley and Shining seemed to wear their hearts on their sleeves. With a promise to turn up for Shirley’s Mandarin class I set off to inspect the ship. A generous deck spread with chairs. Dance floor energized nightly - and somewhat incongruously - by a Bulgarian band. Well stocked library. Shops with on-the-spot tailoring of Chinese silk garments.

Gym for mitigating excess in the dining room. Spa. Internet station. Facilities you would expect on a luxury liner. But without having to search the equivalent of a floating city to find them.

Our size of our river vessel achieved a happy balance. With only five decks you didn’t need a global positioning system to find your way around. Yet there was plenty of space for the 300 passengers to find a private or sociable niche. And always the courteous attention of Chinese crew, keen to practise their English.

 

My cabin opened to a balcony. Everyone’s did. All the better to watch the world of the Yangtze go by. A mostly rural world far removed from go-getting Shanghai and Beijing’s pomp and bustle. Double bed, sofa and ensuite bathroom made for a comfortable cabin. It included television - not that the latter could compete with the passing scenery. During the ensuing voyage the changing scenery unreeled like a compelling movie.

The voyage began at Wuhan in southwest China, an enterprising Yangtze River city of 9 million that still trades on its association with Mao Zedong. In 1956 in a symbolic show of strength, Mao reputedly swam across the Yangtze as it flows past Wuhan. He was 76 at the time and the truth as to whether he actually forded the kilometre wide river is hard to pin down. But photos of a swim-suited Mao smiling from the waters of the Yangtze were liberally distributed throughout China and to the foreign press.

Mao Zedong regarded the Yangtze as a force of nature to be mastered. He advocated dams to conquer the floods that periodically devastated the river’s lower lying cities. He kicked off his building plans with the construction of a 110 metre long bridge linking Wuhan with the other side of the river. The people were thrilled. No longer did they have to queue for the slow ferry rides across the river. Thousands of babies born that year were named ‘Number One Bridge’ by their grateful parents.

 

Epic Journey

 

The mighty Yangtze sets out from the Tibetan mountains on an epic, 6300 kilometre journey and flows through China like a great artery bringing life to millions. It traverses precipitous mountains, deep gorges, churning rapids and fertile plains, taking in 11 provinces and a huge diversity of scenery and people before flowing into the East China Sea near Shanghai. For this vast country of 1.2 billion people, the Yangtze also serves like a major highway upon which vessels laden with passengers and every conceivable type of cargo are constantly travelling back and forth.

Tourists can begin their voyages several days up river in Chongqing or at Shanghai or points between. I wondered if it would have been best to start out from the port of Shanghai but Shirley was reassuring. “You see only delta between Shanghai and Wuhan. The best is coming,” she beamed.

Shirley’s promised Mandarin lesson was delivered as we pulled away from Wuhan’s bright lights. “There will be shore visits during our voyage and local people like to sell you goods. So words that come in handy are ‘Bu yao,’ which means ‘I don’t need it. I don’t want it’.” Later that evening when Shirley switched into her role as the ship’s bingo mistress her English became positively endearing. Armed with Bingo rhymes obtained from the internet she called them out to match the lucky numbers. ‘G3 - a duck and a flea, thee and me, the Lord’s my shepherd.’ ‘N2, Whinny the poo, doctor who, baby’s done it little boy blue.’ Shirley’s ear-to-ear grin accompanied her rhyming mish-mash. Bingo nights will never be the same.

Our first trip ashore was to her home town of Yueyang to visit an elementary school, one of several in poorer rural areas of China that the Viking River Cruise company supports. As the children entertained with music and dance our cameras clicked like cicadas. Encouraged by their teachers, the youngest overcame shyness to offer gifts of drawings and exercise books. “All the students work hard to have good jobs when they grow up,” confided their teacher. “But good jobs are hard to find. Even on farms here by the Yangtze.” On a wall surrounding the school were portraits of famous men. The one of Mao had been defaced.

Mao’s most ambitious plan to tame the Yangtze was a huge dam straddling the most spectacular area of the river known as the Three Gorges. It did not get underway until 20 years after his death and the scope of the project was not the least of the holdups.

The radical transformation it would cause to the environment met strong opposition within China. But the colossal and controversial Three Gorges Dam is now nearing completion. The rising water level in the reservoir has already flooded an area the size of Singapore. It has inundated the homes of about two million people and submerged countless cultural artefacts. When finished in 2009, the water level will have risen 110 metres and the deep gorges that inspired artists for centuries will live on only in their paintings and the minds of those who have been forced from their homes on the now flooded banks and into the hard-edged apartment blocks that form the new towns on higher ground.
Fabled Gorges

 

By the time our vessel had reached the city Yichang, gateway city to the upper Yangtze and the massive hydroelectric dam at Sandouping about 40 kms up stream, the terrain on either side of the river had risen to steep cliffs, a prelude to the Three Gorges. Known as Xiling, Wu and Qutang the gorges stretch for 200 kilometres with the cliffs on either side rising in some places to more than 900 metres. In between Wu and Qutang are the narrower and equally fabled Little Three Gorges.

A series of locks transfer vessels via the three Gorges Dam from its upper and lower reaches. To speed the process a Herculean vessel elevator is nearing completion. The dam is China’s biggest engineering project since the construction of the Great Wall. In an epic show dominance over nature, the Three Gorges project will be the most powerful generator of the world’s major dams. The aim is to turn China’s poorer western regions into thriving heartland.

“The 2km wide dam will improve navigation on the river which already transports 70 percent of the country’s shipping, it will help control flooding which has killed many and its hydro-electricity will provide power to millions.” piped the guide during our shore visit at Sandouping. “Government talk,” whispered a Chinese visitor from Fengdu New Town, built to relocate the ancient and now inundated old town of Fengdu. He confided his feelings. “We now have an apartment and no longer have to share bathroom and kitchen with other families. But the elderly people feel cut off living high above ground level. And I miss my old home, too. The rapids used to race deep in the gorges and there were sturgeon and dolphins. They have gone. The gorges have become lakes that hardly move. I worry about pollution.”

Mixed feelings swirled amongst passengers as our ship progressed through the five shipping locks, a process which took four hours and left no one in doubt of the massive size and cost of the project.

We emerged into the waters of the Wu Gorge where the cliffs stab at the sky through misty halos. Among them is the Goddess Peak which Mao predicted would see big changes in a poem he wrote 40 years earlier. A forlorn bridge at the entrance to the Lesser Three Gorges has been renamed the Bye Bye Bridge. Next year it will be under water. So will the crevices cut by ropes in the rock, testament to the brave men called Trackers who used to clamber the precipitous cliffs above the rapids while hauling boats attached to ropes over their shoulders. These sinewy men risked their lives for a livelihood. Many died in the process.

The rising waters of the Three Gorges reservoir will stop short of the famous hanging coffins tucked by an ancient tribe into the cliffs of the Qutang Gorge. But the remaining houses clinging to lower lying areas are on borrowed time. By 2009 their occupants will have been moved to one of the graceless new cities that have replaced the river towns on the Upper Yangtze. Or to Chongqing where a population the size of Canada’s competes for a living. Further along from the forlorn little farm house I saw a Chinese sign painted on a cliff face and Shirley provided the English translation. “Protect our environment for our children’s future.”

Yet the gorges are still spectacular with their towering peaks and forest tumbling down sheer cliffs. And the trauma of relocation has not buried hope. Or humour. While running the gauntlet of vendors at the lively Fengdu market my brain scrambled for one of Shirley’s handy phrases. “Bu hao” I tried on a persistent woman trying to sell me a dusty postcard. The woman contemplated my stab at Mandarin before breaking into a smile. “No bu hao. Bu yao!” she proclaimed. Realising my mistake I laughed and she laughed. I then tried to buy her card. She waved off the idea and, still smiling, went on her way. I wanted to hug her.