Yangtze River

Recall the disproportionate amount of flight attendants on domestic Chinese flights. Think about them in context of the similarly disproportionate number of street-sweepers that fill China’s cities, which signal something other than a national case of chronic OCD. It becomes clear—and is later explicitly stated by a local guide—that the Chinese government is very serious about creating employment, or, for the more cynical, keeping down its official unemployment rate (to 4%).

I didn’t catch the details, but the Bank of China got stuck with Regal China Cruises after international investors pulled out… something about having made a loan with no collateral. There were just over 100 passengers, with 20-40 more to board the next day, on this boat with a capacity for 270. Even at maximum capacity, a crew of 140 would appear excessive; at 1-to-1, it was stifling, and the desperation was barely veiled. The situation on the Yangtze was magnified compared to most of the rest of the country, as millions of farmers were displaced as a result of the Three-Gorges Dam. Can you really blame the aggressive vendors onshore? You know they’d rather be farming than pushing stuff in your face. We were told over and over again that a third of the $25 billion cost of the dam project would go to relocating people, that the government cared, etc., but this was little consolation to the people that would have to move. It was commonly said that the younger generations were happy to move on—they saw little future in agriculture, anyway, and saw it as too much work for too little reward. The older generations, meanwhile, had a much harder time. One crew member told an inquiring passenger that his mother cried herself to sleep every night wondering what would become of her family. As an increasingly open Chinese press covers the human costs of the relocation, the government’s PR efforts have been compromised by reports of farmer suicides and other tragedies. You can’t compensate people for their life’s work—many of the destroyed homes were built by the farmers themselves, were their source of pride.

So, that explains the trumpets, and the sheet of paper in the cabins that explicitly request tips of $10/person/day. This created an odd paradox—the crew was quite solicitous, and I almost wanted to tip them to leave me alone. All I want is a clean, aboveground cabin, not a personal ball washer (apologies to Lewis Black). And it doesn’t have to be that clean—i.e. cleaned twice a day as it was on the cruise. We actually ended up tipping some of the waitstaff individually, on top of the required tip, because we did not believe the latter would be evenly pooled. Later, we had the opportunity to ask questions of two crew members that caught a ride to Chongqing on our bus (we had to get off beforehand due to low water levels), who would tell us that they hadn’t been paid in months. One of them had performed during one of the shows on the boat, played the arhu. It sounded beautiful.

We were warned that the rooms would be very cramped, but they weren’t that bad. I didn’t plan to spend a lot of time in mine. This will come as a surprise to few of you, but it wasn’t long before my mom started to drive me up the wall. At the airport, she had once again launched into a lecture about the virtues of wheeled luggage. I translated for dad’s roommate, as I thought it would be rude not to, but mom took it as evidence that I was trying to make her look bad and chalked it up to my complexes.

I hadn’t slept through the night since we arrived; I would only get a few full nights of sleep throughout the entire trip, toward the end when I’d learned to go to sleep with earplugs in rather than wait until being woken up by mom’s snoring. Mom hasn’t always snored, and I think it’s due to remnants of a cold she’s had, and I don’t hold it against her. What I do hold against her is waking me up for whatever reason, often to ask what time it is. She actually did this at 4am on the last night (morning) of the trip. On the boat, she would wake me whenever she thought there was something interesting out she thought I should see, which could have been somewhat justifiable if it hadn’t been too foggy to see anything at all. The fog itself at night was beautiful, she argued.

If I like to sleep, it’s only partly because I’m lazy. I find that sleep provides some tangible practical benefits, such as increased immunity and productivity. I also find that I’m in a better mood and care more about what I’m seeing when I’ve had a good night’s sleep. With the entire tour group coming down with something or other, I was especially careful to get my rest. Mom felt I was taking myself too seriously.

We would sail for an entire day and night before docking at Yichang, so there was never less reason to worry where dad was all the time. This didn’t stop her from constantly asking, in a panicked, annoyed tone, where he was. Somehow, he always managed to show up for meals and shore excursions without her prompting. Why this shocked her shocked me, since she wasn’t the one keeping track of times and places. During the cruise she full-out admitted for the first time (and she would continue to repeat) that when I was there to guide her, she completely let herself go. I’m type-A enough that I don’t mind—actually I thrive on having a detailed itinerary to keep up with. I didn’t have a problem with keeping track of the next few days’ schedule or the day’s meal and event times. The issue was that mom made no effort whatsoever to remember a place or time that would be immediately relevant, even minutes after I told her.

The letting go would get ridiculous. In Guilin, she had left her video camera in our room and gone back to get it. She realized this only when I said, “you left the camera out in the middle of the room, I put it in the safe.” She had meant to bring it, went back to get it. I realized she didn’t know the combination of the safe and went back to get it. I saw her again downstairs in the lobby. She hadn’t gotten to the safe—she hadn’t noted our room number. This happened again in Hong Kong. Actually, she called me the other day to ask me the password of her e-mail account (I told her I had no idea).

***
The River Guide meant well (and his daily tip was supplemental to the one to be pooled for everyone else), but half the time I really did want him to stop talking. I would have liked to take in some of the scenery in peace and quiet. Luckily, I learned to find parts of the boat without amplification equipment. I thought it was just me, but I said to a fellow tour member that maybe it’s because I’m not an engineer, but I couldn’t care less about how many miles/meters/etc. things were—after a while, numbers lose their meaning, I understand that it’s all very impressive. He said he was an engineer and still couldn’t care less.

He did give us some information I could appreciate. Did you know that the Chinese do not actually call it the Yangtze? The full name of it is actually Chang Jiang, or Long River), with different names for each segment. Yangtze only refers to the segment closest to Shanghai, at its estuary to the East China Sea. I will continue to refer to the entire river as Yangtze.

Along with the Yellow River, it originates from the glaciers in the Tibetan plateau. I suppose I should also tell you that it’s the third longest river in the world, that a third of China’s population lives in the Yantze River Valley, and that it provides 40% of the nation’s power, half it’s agricultural output, 70% of its grain, 40% of its cotton, etc. It boasts 700 tributaries, not smaller offshoots too small to qualify as tributaries. I learned that “szechuan” actually means four rivers (I did know that “sze” was four), from the four tributaries in that province (this is the kind of stuff I care about; that crap about tons of concrete goes in one ear and out the other). At Ebing the river becomes unnavigable, offers a 16-foot drop.

We were all in a bad mood. One day of heavy fog and dull, flat scenery—made exciting by the odd water buffalo onshore—was actually a good chance to relax, give the camera a break, read a bit. As it turned out, the second morning was too foggy for us to move, so we had to sit there for a second day, seeing nothing. Three (albeit excellent) New Yorkers later, I was starting to wonder why we were on this cruise at all.

Mom wasn’t helping. She was clinging and nit-picky. Now as I’ve pointed out before, I actually like spending time with my parents and the blog is a bit skewed, because the normal isn’t interesting or funny, but during the first have of the trip especially, I thought I might never travel with my parents again. I was happy to spend time with my mom, dad, but mom didn’t seem to be able to conceive of not spending every minute together, so she would follow me around and say, “let’s go over there,” “let’s go do this,” to which my frequent response was, “you do that, I’m happy doing this.” Of course, there was also, from both parents, the odd reminder that my hair looked like crap and that I had a double chin.

If there was a time when CNN International sucked less than its US counterpart, that time has past. Same stories, over and over, with little depth and lots of inept punditry. The funny thing was watching CNN cover the torch relay controversy. They actually reported that China had banned CNN’s coverage thereof… except that I was watching that very coverage, in China.

The first morning, and again the second day—because they had to schedule something to keep us from going stir-crazy—they offered a fifteen-minute Tai Chi class. I really enjoyed it, and I had only struggled with Tai Chi in the past. The first one especially was a challenge, not helped by a woman next to me who kept asking me what foot the instructor meant now, etc. Just when I thought, “oh, mom’s on the other side of the deck,
I’ll be able to concentrate on what the instructor is saying.” I moved.

There was a demonstration of acupuncture and a lecture about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). My mother signed up for a session, but it actually made her knee worse (and they double-charged her for applying a heating pad after the acupuncture). The insult to injury was the absurd, but promised, “medical report” slipped under the door before we disembarked.

Zhen Jun had actually been a pharmacist. He specialized in TCM, as did his mother. Asked why he was working instead as a tour guide, he said he was a people person.

Thankfully, the sun came out and we were allowed to move. We still couldn’t see much but I was excited about the prospect of getting off the boat. We would arrive the next morning at San Do Ping, where we would come ashore to tour the Dam project. Knowing my parents weren’t reading/listening to instructions or helpful hints (dad’s better about it than mom), I emphasized that we would be without washrooms for a while and recommended that everyone back off the coffee and watermelon at breakfast the next morning.

I woke up for Gezhou Ba but didn’t see much. I was woken up in the early morning by my mother, who was blaming me for closing the shades and thus letting her sleep past what she thought was the most beautiful part of the trip. It was still beautiful outside. We went in for breakfast, where I deliberately turned my coffee cup upside down so that it wouldn’t be filled. Dad thought I was saving the seat that way and said he didn’t think it would work, so I told him that it was to signal that I didn’t want coffee (I’d seen the waitstaff do it themselves if someone refused coffee). Imagine my confusion when I returned to my seat to find coffee in the cup.

A.: Why is there coffee in my cup?
Dad: I told them to pour you coffee.
A.: But I told you that I didn’t want coffee. Whatever, it’s fine.

It wasn’t a big deal—I mean, whatever, coffee I didn’t mind wasting—but I have to include it because this is just the kind of thing that my dad so often does.

The Dam was enormously impressive, but it was an impressiveness of diminishing returns in terms of statistics thrown at us. Dam puns abounded. Back on the boat, we actually went through five locks of the dam. It was neat to watch the gates open and the water rise.

We approached first Gorge. The way there, and the Gorge itself, was amazing, I couldn’t turn away. The next morning, we took a small ferry up the river and then small, man-powered boats up the narrower part of the river. In the past, the men who pulled the boats were without clothing and women who caught a glimpse of them apparently had to marry them. Thankfully, these guys were fully clothed.

All three gorges were beautiful beyond words. Xiling is the one on the 10-Yuan note and the inspiration of much artwork.
On the ferry on the Shennong, we passed a temple that will be underwater in six months, when they raise the water level to test the Dam.

A woman with the German group overheard mom and me and came to speak to us in Russian. She was very pleasant.

Mom: What was her name?
A.: Marina.
Mom: I’m glad you remembered it, it slipped my mind completely.
A.: This is an issue with Russian names, too?
Mom: You know, it’s that I just don’t pay attention.

Yes, I do know. Sometimes I would worry about mom—worry that the egregious lack of attention to detail, lack of recall of recently conveyed information, was a sign of aging—but then I remember that she’s been this way as long as I can remember.

***
We disembarked and rode for three and a half hours to Chongqing, the world’s most populous city. I question that title, as its count of 33 million people includes those that inhabit the surrounding country side, including where our ride started. It was a beautiful ride, replete with views of rice paddies and water buffalo. Not everyone feels bad for the farmers—their lot has improved with the abolition of the agricultural tax a few years ago, and some—particularly those in Canton—made a killing when China first opened. I don’t think the younger people—those whose parents aren’t farmers, anyway—have any idea of how much work goes into growing, harvesting rice. Of course, even now it’s not the farmers that are benefiting from the skyrocketing price of rice. It pains me to see how much rice is thrown away after our meals, most of it untouched.

The New Yorker had a very interesting dispatch from China. I lent it to Kathy, who found it quite accurate, especially for a foreign observer. Her other comment was that it was “opinionless,” i.e. the journalist wrote without editorializing, which she hadn’t expected.

On the boat, she had told me that the tour company is very strict about ratings—if it’s not across-the-board excellents, the program director is disposable. Younger guides feel free to solicit excellent ratings, but she won’t do that (except she more or less is). She asked me not to tell anyone that we’d had the conversation. I wondered if she meant that, or if she was doing that thing that two of you have written about, i.e. trying to get something worked out through other people. It was the latter: as the trip went on, the entire tour group was spreading the word about the excellent ratings. Which she absolutely, unquestionably deserves—she was our guide, nurse, friend. Later she would tell us the story of her reeducation, her experiences through the Cultural Revolution, etc.