Three Gorges Yangtze River Trip

April 4-7, 2014 marked the observance of the Chinese holiday “Tomb Sweeping Day.”  It is parallel with the US holiday, Memorial Day in May.  Chinese families honor their ancestors during the first weekend in April.  Many travel to clean or sweep the tombs of ancestors and some perform the Chinese ritual in other ways.  Generally it consists a food contribution at the tomb, incense, burning of rice paper money, and decoration of the tomb site with a number of varieties of bright colors, flags, foil and streamers. The location of the tombs seems to be determined with the location of the death.  In the countryside they can be seen out in the middle or around the edges of rice fields, in the city the ashes may be found in a temple or church or even in a private residence. 

Schools are closed but retail is open and the entire country travels to make their visits appropriate.  BYU teachers traveled to the Three Gorges Project in the south central part of China.  We boarded the MV President 8 ship at Chonqquing Port and sailed through the three gorges the Qutang George, Wu George and the Sandouping then through the locks at the Three George Dam Project.  

The gorges were steep and beautiful, we were able to go ashore near each gorge.  The Shibaozbai Temple looks like an aircraft carrier in the middle of the water.  It was an ancient temple that the Chinese government preserved by building a wall around it to keep the water from destroying the ancient “no nail” construction.  

The Shennog Stream is a tributary to the Yangtze River that again houses indigenous people high up in the mountaintops as was preserved by the waters when the dam began to fill up.  We boarded small Sampan boats pulled and oared by men and women from those villages to see the tributary and its contribution.

We arrived at the locks late at night but it was beautiful and exciting to be aboard the ship as we descended down the five locks to the reservoir.  The huge doors that swung closed as the ship moved through each of the five locks screeched as they moved from the sidewalls to close off the water flow.  We dropped 25 meters each lock, it took about four hours to complete the traverse through the locks.  

 The last stop was at the Sandouping Dock to actually visit the Dam.  The dam site for the TGP is the best site for hydraulic power plant in the world.  There are 38 valleys at the lower reaches of the river.  They pumped and poured concrete for three years 24/7 to put TGP on the map. This project began in 1994 and will be completely filled in 2015, a twenty year span of time to build and fill the dam.  It was put to use in 1996.  It is hoped that the power generated from this plant will support the modernization of China and reduce the 5000 Tons of raw coal combustion annually, which is a major contributor to the air and water pollution in China.