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| My first views of China were shocking, images that made me question everything I thought I knew about this land. Stepping into Shanghai Airport, you are confronted with acres of cool marble floors with sweeping steel and glass “art-itecture” all around. This brand new airport is beautiful and welcoming. Arriving in downtown Shanghai, skyscrapers tower over the river, each of them sporting wild curves and graceful “hats” shaped like fans and spaceships and spires. Dominating the riverfront, the 1,532 foot tall Oriental Pearl tower scrapes the sky, it’s massive orbed length like something from a George Lucas movie, showing me beyond doubt how far China has come in “modernizing” this city. While urban China has jumped almost completely into the 21st century, with modern malls full of more Nikes and Reeboks, smaller cell phones, and better electronics than are available in the states, rural China seems immune to the passage of time. We walked through a free market in Chongqing, where most locals go to buy meats and vegetables. Long marble and wood tables create aisles where you can buy a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables and nuts. There is a whole aisle just for Tofu, with big soft white blocks sitting in blue tubs of water and fried squares stacked up in piles like waffles. But what really sets this market apart is the meat and poultry aisles. Beef, pork, lamb and similar meats are hung on hooks dangling over cool marble tables. Eggs come two ways, fresh and “aged”. These “hundred year eggs” are supposedly a delicacy. Looking at the discolored yolks and gelatiny texture, I’m sure I will never know. Ducks are hanging on hooks whole, absent only feathers. Several tables contain unidentifiable meat products. On some trays, however, I know exactly what I’m seeing, fist sized brains stacked neatly, from some unknown animal. Chickens, pigeons, turtles, snakes, frogs, fish and eels, all are kept live, proving their freshness. The back row of the market is the eel row, where 8 to 10 men and women work their eel buckets. They reach into the large plastic buckets in front of them, grasping the squirming eels. Then they skin them alive on a small wooden bench, tossing the flesh into bowls. As they offer up these bowls with blood drenched hands, I suddenly lose my appetite. THE THREE GORGES DAM AND THE YANGTZE RIVER The Dam project is unbelievable; a mile and a half long and 385 feet high. As we overlook the project from Jar Hill, our tour guide talks about what makes this project so amazing. When complete, this dam will produce enough electricity for 100 million people from 26 massive hydroelectric turbines. That will eliminate the need to burn 50 million tons of coal each year, reducing pollution by more than 100 million tons a year. Boats will travel by one of two paths. Up the massive twin five-step ship locks, which are much larger than the Panama Canal’s locks, or by the smaller “elevator” for ships weighing up to 3,000 tons. As locals say, small boats will take the elevator, large ones will take the stairs. All I know is I believe them when they say the dam is visible from space. We visited Hoover dam last fall, and it is a toy next to this massive monolith. The dam project has been a focal point for controversy since its inception. Questions about whether it will hold, whether silt deposits behind the dam will fill the new lake, and whether it will help downstream flooding as intended all have mired the project. All the guides, as well as literature put out by China, espouse the remarkable ways the engineers have overcome these obstacles. Time alone will tell who is right. One thing is certain: the Three Gorges area upstream will be flooded. As we perform morning tai chi exercises on the sun deck of our cruise ship, we watch workboats sail by with workers sitting on the railings eating bowls of noodles. Large white markers are planted along the shoreline, the lower ones mark 135 meters, the higher mark 175 meters. In June, the first stage of flooding will occur, raising the water level to the 135M markers. Most buildings below the 135M marks have been leveled already. The shorelines have been given a “shave”, cutting down all trees in the flood zone. Many of the gorge’s “treasures” have been removed to higher ground or museums, but hundreds are immovable. A prime example is the Plank Road, which snakes up the river’s side, carved into the limestone cliffs. For 1,700 years, men have walked this solid path. In a month, the fish will get their chance. In the upper gorge, there is a large calligraphy sign that was carved into the wall above the road several hundred years ago. A replica of it has now been carved above the new high water mark. As we drift by, we can see old and new, a unique example of how China is rewriting history here. |
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