Cultural Immersion on the Yangtze River

The start of our Yangtze River tour in Chongqing
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Cultural Immersion on the Yangtze River

March 24 – 27^th, 2007

We and 4 other westerners were the only non-Chinese citizens on the boat

Our Yangtze River cruise ship (not really a real cruise ship)
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Having seen the pandas in Chengdu, we wondered what next? Where should our next destination in China be?

China has a well-developed route of youth hostels and the bulletin board in the Dragontown Youth Hostel in Chengdu had tours posted to the Yangtze River. Thinking that sailing down the Yangtze might be a nice change to train travel, we decided to investigate. The travel manager, Leonard, at the Dragontown was great in helping us organize a cruise. (Just as an aside, the youth hostels did not usually, in our opinion, provide the best accommodation for the money for a group of 4. We were often able to find better and comparably-priced accommodation on websites such as Asiarooms.com but the hostels are definitely the best equipped to help foreign travelers). Leonard would have loved to sell us a 5 star tour on a beautiful boat on the Yangtze, assuring us that these boats were really the only ones that were geared to western travelers. However, budget being a major consideration for the four of us and the 5 star tour being about 150% dearer in cost, we chose to go with second class accommodation on a Chinese tour down the Yangtze. Leonard was great at making sure that we were at least booked on the best Chinese boat, and we were all keeping our expectations low. We had found out the hard way in Halong Bay, Vietnam not to have high expectations. Thus, on March 24^th, we and about 500 Chinese tourists boarded a boat in Chongqing to sail down the Yangtze towards the Three Gorges. We would be together, for better or for worst, for the next 3 nights and 3 days.

One of the many newly constructed bridges
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Well, our quarters were a little cramped but that’s OK. There were decks, restaurants and a karaoke lounge to spread out in, and after all, we were here to see the famous scenery and not to be holed up in a little cabin. All in all, our expectations were exceeded.

The scenery was fabulous. Being the third largest river in the world, the Yangtze is BIG! The Three Gorges are what everyone comes to see; three narrow stretches along the Yangtze where the mountains seem to rise straight out of the river at perpendicular angles to the river. At one point, we were transferred to 2 smaller boats to take trips up even narrower passageways; the Three Lesser Gorges. Beautiful scenery was made mysterious by the constant mist or haze that enshrouds it. Also beautiful to behold was the agriculture along the banks of the Yangtze. Orchards were in bloom, tiers of rice paddies and vegetable crops were neatly tended and amazingly steep mountain sides were producing crops to help feed the 1.6 billion mouths in this country. And of course, the magnitude and scope of the Yangtze Dam project and how it is altering the geography and life along the river is stunning. In order to provide more hydro power to fuel the ever-increasing industrialization of this region, the Yangtze is in the process of being dammed near the city of Yichang. By the year 2009 the water level of the Yangtze on this side of the dam will have been raised by 175 meters! This will have swallowed up much farmland and many villages and over 1.5 million people will have been relocated. Signs all along the Yangtze show you where that 175 meter mark is and to what level the water has already risen. At present, the water level is already at approximately 156 meters, and the gorges are likely not nearly as spectacular as they once were. We had to think with some sadness at the many lives this has affected. Whole communities have been moved from the land and villages that have been inhabited by their families for generations. In places, we could see the tops of apartment buildings now covered with water. It was strange to think that under the calm waters of the Yangtze there were the remains of entire communities!

Terraced fields and orchards on the banks of the Yangtze
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The construction projects on the Yangtze River are staggering. In order to accommodate the risen and rising water levels, massive construction projects are going on for hundreds of kilometers upstream of the dam. These include dozens of newly constructed bridges the size of the Alex Fraser Bridge as well as newly constructed roads and ramparts to hold back the water. One report suggests that this project in China is second only to the Great Wall in terms of human effort. One realizes the scope of this project dwarfs anything that we are doing or have done in Canada and we can then begin to appreciate the rapid industrial growth of China as a nation.

A woman presenting a rose to the Karaoke singer
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Probably what will stick in our memories, however, is the experience of traveling with a group of Chinese tourists. We and 4 other westerners were the only non-Chinese citizens on the boat. On another boat that followed us down the Yangtze there was one lone white woman amongst an entire boat of Chinese tourists. Sadly, because of language barriers, we weren’t able to build relationships with any of our fellow travelers past smiling and nodding, but it was fun to observe. We have so many questions we’d love to ask them about life in China but even communicating the simplest things is often a challenge.

A view of the Lesser Three Gorges
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It was interesting for us to see that many Chinese citizens have the financial resources to be tourists. In fact, we found that Chinese tourism makes up the great majority of tourists in China at this time of the year. Often our family plays a game “who can spot the most western tourists?” One day in Xi’an we spotted 9, at other times we have gone for 4 days without spotting one! In fact, it is we who have often become the main attraction and we are amused to see people stare at us at close range, ask to have their picture taken with us, or just want to practice their English. As a result, the tourist industry in China is like no other country in Asia that we’ve visited – it caters mainly to its own citizens. For example, most of the restaurants only have menus in Chinese and the serving staff does not speak much, if any, English. It was fortunate for us that on our boat some of the menus items were translated into English. Even so, we really never knew what exactly we ordered until the dishes were delivered to our table. However, we ate well and cheaply on the boat and throughout most of China.

A sign showing where the water height will be in 2009
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The Chinese LOVE karaoke! From early morning to late at night there were people crooning into the mikes in the lounge. Some could sing well; others were rather painful to listen to, but none were too shy to get up on the stage and sing. The music was well-amplified throughout most of the boat, so by about day 2 it did become a “little annoying”, in Stephanie’s words. The Chinese travelers were rather more encouraging and applauded the singers and some even crossed the floor to present imitation roses to them. The only respite came when the boat was docked and most of the tourists piled off to take part in the optional tours to visit temples or other sights. We sometimes opted out of these tours just to enjoy silence.

Some of the Chengs slurping noodles
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When we did join in the tours that were included in our package, we discovered that there is a whole industry on shore catering to the tourists. These include food stalls selling steamed buns, noodle soups, fruits, drinks, and even live fish and prawns swimming in rather small tanks as well as souvenir shops selling local crafts and kitsch. Often there were dozens of food stalls lined up on the side of the road where the tourists have to pass. Curiously, these food stalls all seem to sell exactly the same food items rather than diverse items. Well, I guess the competition between the stalls keeps the prices down. David and the children often took the opportunity to sample the local delicacies such as steamed buns with mystery fillings or slurp some noodles cooked fresh before our eyes. To us, the sights themselves were often secondary to what we saw on the roadside. For example, the Ghost City of ghoulish, cheesy wax figures and dioramas played second fiddle to the live action.

Karsten got roped into a game of musical chairs during the Chinese Cultural night
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We realized on this trip what other travelers have been warning us about the cultural shock that we should expect in China – NO ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE! Of all the countries that we have visited in Asia, China is probably the country that speaks the least English. Even employees in higher end hotels do not speak English very well. It is not that people do not learn English in China; it is just that the very educated do not opt to work in the tourist industry like the other countries we have visited. Parents we have spoken to express their wishes for their children to be in commerce or business and not the tourist trade. It would have been much more difficult on our China tour if David did not possess some elementary Cantonese. He sometimes was able to make himself understood through badly enunciated Mandarin deciphered from the dim recollection of his Cantonese (his own words). When all else failed, we resorted to miming our requests. As well, few signs have any English on them. If one is unable to read Chinese characters, then travel becomes much more difficult. With a few words and phrases picked up here and there, we were able to get around better than expected.

Another scene from the Yangtze.
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The Yangtze River cruise can be remembered for its magnificent scenery and its majestic cliffs. Most of all, it provided an opportunity for the Chengs to live within a microcosm of the Chinese culture. It allowed us to see modern China from the perspective of Chinese tourists and to see the changes wrought by the rapid industrialization of this country.