The feature documentary, Up the Yangtze, directed by Yung Chang, was shot in 2006 in China, a country experiencing massive and unprecedented change. The following facts provide some background information on the New China and the Three Gorges Dam.
This researched was compiled in July 2007
1. The mighty Yangtze river stretches from high up on the Tibetan Plateau, charging eastward across ravines and passes, and is joined by countless tributaries before depositing its rich silt along the fertile East China plains and finally opening out to the East China Sea. At about 6300 kilometres long, the Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world. It flows across many provinces of China and drains a watershed of about 450 million people; just the Sichuan basin alone (Sichuan plus Chongqing) has more than 110 million people, compared to 32 million in Canada.
2. In China, the Yangtze river as a whole is called the Chang Jiang, or literally the Long River. In ancient times, the Yangtze was simply called jiang, whereas the Yellow river, the major river in northern China, was called he (now Huang He). Reflecting a historical difference between the north and the south, most northern rivers are called he (for example, Han He, the Han river), while almost all southern rivers are called jiang (for example, Zhu Jiang, the Pearl river). (In French, in contrast, un fleuve opens onto the sea, but une rivire does not.) It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the Yangtze is considered the traditional dividing line between the north and the south, organising important differences in food, customs, and habitat, even artistic, literary, and religious schools of thought.
3. As a river of such immense length, it is not surprising that the Yangtze has different local names in each area. At its sources in the Tanggula mountain range in the Qinghai plateau, the river is called the Tuotuo River, which descends from an elevation of 6000 m to 5000 m above sea level. Meandering through Qinghai and Tibet and passing snow-capped mountains and valleys, its down river stretches are called the Tongtian River (lit. ?River of the Sky Pass). The river, now called Jinsha (Golden Sands), then turns southward into Yunnan (province) and cuts across deep valleys, whose the rugged mountain ranges hold three major rivers of Asia, the Yangtze (or the Jinsha), the Mekong (which flows into Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia), and the Salween (which waters Burma), all within close proximity. The river continues, bending in incredible ways and dropping to an elevation of about 1000 m, and finally enters the Sichuan basin. From here on, the river is called Chang Jiang (the Chinese name for the Yangtze). The section around Sichuan is also given an epithet of Chuan Jiang (after Sichuan), and further down river, Jing Jiang (named after a historic kingdom). In the lowest reaches of the river, the river is also called Yangzi Jiang, whence the English name, the Yangtze, mistaken by early missionaries and visitors as the name for the entire river.
4. An immense river running through an antique land, the Yangtze unsurprisingly has hosted innumerable cultures with distinctive arts and ways of life. While the Yellow river has traditionally been considered the cradle of Chinese Han civilisation, just a few examples out of the cultures whose artefacts and records have survived millennia of wars, turmoils, and neglect will show the importance of the historic human societies along the Yangtze.
5. In the lower reaches of the Yangtze delta, the Liangzhu culture (3400-2250 BC, or roughly contemporous with pharaonic Egypt) left traces of advanced rice irrigation and aquaculture as well as finely-worked jades with sophisticated motifs. The Liangzhu jade discs (bi) and jade cylinders (cong) were to leave a lasting impression on Chinese art, with important productions elsewhere in China at least two thousand years after. To this day, jade is one of the most valued precious stones in China.
6. Some 3000 km upriver in the Sichuan basin, the Sanxingdui culture is an example of the hidden treasures along the Yangtze. Unknown and unattested until 1986, when archaeologists discovered sophisticated bronzes, the Sanxingdui civilisation flowered at about the same time as the Shang dynasty (1600 BC to 1200 BC), an early Chinese dynasty with writing and records. These bronzes and other artefacts indicate an advanced civilisation existed four to five thousand years ago in Sichuan, long considered the margins of historic China. Instead of one cradle of Chinese civilization, we can now talk of multiple sources whose cultures interact and merge leading up to the Qin unification of China in 221 BC.
7. The State of Chu (circa 900 BC to 223 BC)
From humble beginnings, the state of Chu grew to become one of the largest Chinese
states contending for power in the Spring and Autumn Period (800-500 BC). By the Warring
States period (500-221 BC), the state of Chu ruled over vast tracts of land on the
Yangtze river. South of the Central Plains of China, Chu was considered a strong but
semibarbaric
state; its marginal position, however, allowed it to forge diverse influences from
cultures on the Yangtze river. One of the most illustrious example is the Songs of the
South
(or the Songs of Chu)(300 BC), an anthology of poems and songs that broke away from the
rigidity of the Classic of Poetry (800 BC). The poems were a breath of fresh air that
harkened
a new trend of romanticism in Chinese poetry; its major poet, Qu Yuan, would later
influence celebrated poets like Li Bo and Du Fu in the Tang dynasty (660-950 AD). Qu
Yuans romantic verse and loyalty to the state of Chu earned him a distinct place in
history:
his death is celebrated to this day as the Duanwu festival, or the Dragonboat
festival.
Links:
Article
by Jay Xu on the Sanxingdui discovery
Website with information on
Sanxingdui
1. Modern Chinese history began with the firing of British gunboats and a humiliating treaty in the aftermath of the First Opium War (1839-1842), though contact between China and the West date back centuries, and included diplomats, missionaries, and merchants.
2. Since Marco Polos celebrated travels, European explorers have tried to reach the riches of China and India over inhospitable deserts and far-flung seas. The early European ships to arrive in China on the whole accepted the Chinese political order, which demanded tribute from all foreign countries in recognition of the centrality of China, the Middle Kingdom, and of the supreme authority of the Chinese emperor, the son of Heaven. From the 1500s to the 1700s, Portuguese and Spanish merchants bought tea and porcelain from China with silver from mines in Mexico and Peru, which in turn were worked by slaves from Africa, which formed a global trade system. The Chinese empire insisted on being paid in silver rather than any other merchandise, and so enjoyed an immense trade surplus and an influx of silver.
3. In the mid-1700s, the fledgling British Empire started to trade with China. Again, the Chinese demanded silver as payment but the British lacked large supplies of silver. No British product found a market in China save one: opium. Opium grown in her new Indian dominions were sold to China, which rapidly corrected the trade imbalance. By the 1830s, opium use was becoming a major social problem in China; moreover, the trade imbalance was causing serious difficulties. The Chinese court, historically fearful of the steppe nomads and neglectful of its maritime borders, started to take notice and decided to act with swift force.
4. In 1838, the imperial commissioner, Lin Zexu, was sent to deal with the problem. The Commissioner Lin started a public campaign against opium addiction and cracked down on its use; he also forced merchants to give up their chests of opium. British merchants were outraged, though the response in Parliament was initially mixed. War started on a technicality, and British warships threatened Ningbo (near Shanghai) and Tianjin (near Beijing, the capital). China sued for peace: reparations, cessation of Hong Kong, opening of ports.
5. One opium war followed another, and by the 1870s, Western powers were in a race not for colonies but spheres of influence. China was far too big and too unified culturally to be carved up, but any Western demand could be backed up by force, which happened time and time again. In 1899, another conflict between China and the West started, and ended with eight foreign armies (the European powers, plus Japan and the United States) plundering Beijing. The Chinese empire survived by signing a treaty promising reparations, but it was clear that the traditional order was thoroughly defeated by a new industrial, capitalist world order.
6. In 1911, the long-ailing Qing (Manchu) dynasty fell, and with it over two thousand years of imperial rule. The traditional civil examinations were eliminated and the Manchu queue (which every Chinese male wore on his head) was no longer prescribed by law. At the same time China broke apart into competing warlord-dominated statelets, with untold suffering for ordinary folk, students and intellectuals sought to revolutionise Chinese culture and society, giving birth to a modern vernacular language, a modern literature, and a modern way of life, at least in the coastal cities. The Nationalist government, headed by Sun Yat-sen and then Chiang Kaishek, managed to reunify the country by 1927 only to face a Japanese invasion from 1933. The conflict with Japan ended with the two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, after years of rape, pillage, and killing (most notoriously in the Rape of Nanjing).
7. While the rest of world readied itself for post-war reconstruction, China descended into a civil war between the Nationalist government, increasingly repressive and authoritarian, and the fledgling Communist party, which gained the confidence of the countryside. In 1949, the Nationalists fled to Taiwan, where they were protected by American naval might, while on the mainland, Mao Zedong proclaimed, on Tiananmen Square, China has stood up.
8. The Communist Liberation of China, in 1949, beckoned great hopes. China was a land devastated by a century of turmoil. The Communist Party managed to stabilise the country and to invest in her human and industrial potential, but various mass political campaigns, coupled with a personality cult idolising Mao Zedong, effectively steered the nation on a wobbly footing. The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), designed to harness Chinas huge population in order to bring about an industrial revolution, ended in failure due to overconfident idealism and misplanning, while the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), aimed at continuing class struggle, resulted in economic and social chaos. Nevertheless, from 1949 to 1978, there were many accomplishments. Life expectancy was raised from about 32 years to 65 years, and literacy increased from less than 30% to about 70%. Womens rights greatly improved and Chinas historic inequalities diminished significantly.
1. By the late-1970s, the promise of Communism to develop Chinas human and technical resources had clearly failed. Whereas Chinas neighbours (such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) had dramatically improved their standards of living, China still remained largely a poor, agrarian country. The average income was less than $200 US per year, and over 200 million people were in absolute poverty. The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had disastrous effects on the economy, not to mention political institutions and the national psyche.
2. In 1978, the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping launched land reforms, allowing farmers to produce food for themselves. Deng oriented Chinas economy away from collectivisation; growth was henceforth managed by a technocratic elite rather than through mass political campaigns. The Cultural Revolution was repudiated, and Mao himself was judged seven parts good, three parts bad. Market incentives were used, industrial development encouraged, and Special Economic Zones, which experimented with a more freewheeling capitalist system, were established in two southern provinces. Shenzhen, hith erto a sleepy village next to Hong Kong, was to grow into a city of ten million within twenty years.
3. In almost 30 years, since the Chinese government opened the economy to foreign investment, China has become one of the worlds largest and fastest growing economies. Its economy has grown six-fold, with an average growth rate of 9% per year. Absolute poverty has decreased dramatically, and widespread famine has been relegated to history. It has also become a trading giant the fifth largest exporter of merchandise after the US, Germany, Japan, and France.
4. Chinas population shifted from the countryside to urban areas. In 1950, less than 13% lived in cities. Now 40% of Chinese live in urban centres, a figure expected to climb to 60% by 2030. Urban areas are undergoing an unprecedented construction boom, while the use of computer and mobile phones is soaring. An estimated 90 million now use the internet, a number thats increased fourfold since 2000. Meanwhile, there has been a growing gap between the rich, urban, coastal areas and the hinterland, still relatively poor: whereas urban disposable income in richer regions is around $2000 US per year, rural income in many provinces is closer to $300-$500 US per year. Despite the incredible economic growth, the sheer size of Chinas population means that China overall remains a poor country.
5. With economic tumult come demands for political change. The massacre of students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, as well as the more recent suppression of the Falungong, shows that China is still very much a one-party state, with severely restricted freedoms of speech, of religion, and of assembly. Still, it is important to recognise the changes that have occurred: internal movement has been relaxed, and the overall presence of the state in personal lives has been reduced. Just like its economy, still relatively poor per person but with great promises of growth in the coming decades, its political institutions remain backward and undemocratic and yet may show signs of further loosening and even liberalisation. Otherwise, Chinas current mix of the worst of capitalism (sweatshops, inequality, and the selfish pursuit of personal gain) and the worst of communism (overcentralisation, unaccountable officials, and the adherence to the party line) is a sure recipe for social (and economic) disaster.
Facts at a Glance
Type of dam Concrete Gravity
Height 181 m
Length 2 309 m
Cost at least $22.5 billion, with unofficial estimates of up to $100
billion US.
Resettlement over 1.4 million people displaced
Power output 22 5000 megawatts
Final water level 175 m above sea level
1. The Three Gorges Dam is located in Sandouping, near Yichang, Hubei province. Downstream from the lowest of the Three Gorges, the Xiling Gorge, the dam stretches over 2.3 km across the Yangtze. First proposed in 1919 by Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Chinese Republic, as a solution to the flooding that had claimed thousands of lives along the riverbanks over the centuries, Chairman Mao would later mythologize the proposed dam in a poem that spoke of a great wall of stone creating a smooth lake over the High Gorges. With the stated aim of generating much-needed power and alleviating dangerous flooding, President Jiang Zemin started construction on the project in 1993. It is scheduled to be complete in 2009. (BBC)
2. Three major reasons are given for the construction of the dam: electricity, water control, and navigation.
3. Chinas galloping economic growth has led to an insatiable demand for electricity. From 2000 to 2004, electric consumption jumped 60%. In 2006, 80 000 megawatts of power were added to the electric grid; 52 000 megawatts were produced by coal power plants, while 6 900 megawatts were produced by hydroelectricity. The expected increase in demand for electricity means that many more power plants, whether they be coal, nuclear, or hydroelectric, will be built in the future.
4. A 2006 report from the World Bank claims that 16 of the worlds 20 most polluted cities are now located in China. According the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide emissions from China could surpass those from the USA by 2009, a decade earlier than previously forecasted; this is largely due to Chinas increased use of coal-fired power as its economy booms. Chinas carbon dioxide per capita, however, is still much lower than that of the United States or Canada.
5. The Three Gorges Dam is also supposed to prevent future flooding of the Yangtze river. Historically, levees were built along the river in the lower stretches, which abnormal water levels would overwhelm, causing untold damages to human lives, livestock, and farmland. There are many questions, however, as to whether the large amount of silt that the river carries would collect behind the dam. Probe International and other critics point out that the reservoir is already heavily polluted. They predict that massive amounts of silt will clog the dams turbines, compromising the dams function and starving lowland agricultural flood-plains.
6. The Three Gorges Dam project also includes a navigation component, including locks and a boat lift. The idea is to allow ocean-faring vessels to travel all the way to Chongqing in the landlocked Sichuan basin. This would open Chongqing and the neighbouring Sichuan province to foreign markets, thus complementing Chinas Western Campaign, which aims to develop the poor western provinces.
7. Given Chinas opaque political system, clear, objective information about the benefits of the dam is not easily available or corroborated. What is sure is that the dam will create a reservoir 660 km long, flooding 632 squared km of land, two large cities, 119 small towns, and displacing over one million residents. These residents have been promised housing and employment. A 2003 report from the International Rivers Network found that many displaced people were left homeless and unemployed and that protests over resettlement problems were often quelled with police violence. Moreover, in 2005, the Xinhua news service reported on hundreds of cases of corruption, involving tens of millions of dollars that had been siphoned off resettlement funds by corrupt local officials.
1. Canadian involvement in the project goes back to 1986, when Canadian engineers produced a feasibility study that recommended that work on the project proceed at an early date. In 1995 the Canadian Export Development Corporation (EDC) was the first outside agency to sign an export credit agreement for the dam. The non-governmental organization Probe International later used Canada's Access to Information laws to obtain the 1986 study, which subsequently came in for harsh criticism from international experts (Probe International/ECA Watch).
2. Following the commitment from the Canadian Export Development Corporation (EDC), export credit agencies from the following countries lent their support to the dam: France, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Brazil. Together they provided $1.4 billion, between 6 and 8 per cent of the total budget. The World Bank and US Export- Import Bank chose not to contribute, citing concerns over the environment, reliability of economic forecasts, and transparency (ECA Watch).
3. According to the NGO coalition ECA WATCH, large dams have led to irreversible loss of species and ecosystems, and have contributed to a rapid loss in freshwater biodiversity. The agency maintains that methane emissions from hydro reservoirs often exceed those from conventional fossil fuel. Within China, many environmentalists and scientific specialists, along with residents from affected areas, have publicly voiced their concerns about the Three Gorges Dam. The Chinese government, generally intolerant of dissent, has restricted public debate about the Three Gorges Dam and outspoken critics have been silenced.
4. Dai Qing, a leading Chinese critic of the project, was imprisoned in 1989 following the publication of her book Yangtze! Yangtze!, a collection of critical writings on the dam. She was kept in solitary confinement and threatened with execution. Since her release, Dai Qing continues to voice her opposition. Dai Qing says that, in China, when a political campaign is launched or a showy megaproject that is supposed to make the country more prosperous and powerful is proposed, even enlightened individuals and the elite who are concerned about human-rights issues will practise self-censorship. In these circumstances, terrible human-rights abuses are hidden from view. The Three Gorges megaproject is one such tragic case.
1. The Three Gorges area comprises the Qutang Gorge, the Wu Gorge, and the Xiling Gorge. It is a region that has been important for Chinese culture for centuries. The Qutang Gorge itself, the easternmost gorge furthest from the dam itself, hosts important sites such as Baidicheng, the City of the White Emperor, and the Chalk Wall of calligraphy, among others. Baidicheng is the setting for numerous poems, including poems by Li Bo and Du Fu; the temple of Baidi, previously on a mountain top, is now an islet in the reservoir. The Chalk Wall of calligraphy includes calligraphic inscriptions by poets, officials, and emperors over the centuries; its importance meant that the Chinese government has moved it to higher grounds in order to preserve it.
From the walls of Baidi high in
the coloured dawn
To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles,
Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me
To my boat these ten thousand mountains away.
Li Bo - http://www.chinapage.org/libai/libai2e.html
2. Fengdu, further upriver, is known as Ghost City. In Chinese folklore, this was the seat of the King of the Afterworld: dead souls gather here and are judged according to their merits and demerits of their lives, and accordingly there is a complex of temples devoted to this belief. Historical records show that two Daoist mystics, Yin Changsheng and Wang Fangping lived there in Han dynasty (circa 100 AD); they were believed to have become immortals. Together, their names, Yin and Wang, are a pun for the King of the Afterworld, which may be why Fengdu came to be known as the Ghost City. Most of this Ghost City will survive the flooding; some temples will however be submerged.
3. The Xiling Gorge is near Zigui, the hometown of the renowned poet-statesman, Qu Yuan (332-295 BC); Zigui is submerged in the reservoir formed by the Three Gorges dam. A major Chinese festival, Duanwu festival (or the Dragonboat festival), is traditionally commemorated in honour of him. Legend has it that after he threw himself into the river in an act of political protest, fisherfolk looking for his corpse were fearful that the fish would bite at his body. So they rowed up and down the river with dragonboats, each mounted with a drum to scare away the fish, all the while dropping bundles of sticky rice to entice the fish away from him. This tradition of dragonboat racing and of eating sticky rice has remained to this day, though the legend may be apocryphal.
The information on these pages were drawn from the following sources:
Three Gorges Probe
International Rivers Network (Human Rights Dammed Off in China, 2003)
ECA Watch (A Trojan Horse for Large Dams: How export credit agencies are offering new
subsidies for destructive projects under the guise of environmental protection, 2005)
Probe International
World Rainforest Movement
BBC News
Links
On the geography of the Yangtze River
An informative site on the Three Gorges
China's go West campaign, asia times; the Western regions
Information on the James Bay hydroelectric project
More dams to come after the Three Gorges Dam
More
historical information on Fengdu, the Ghost City
Information on the site of Shibaozhai
Information on Baidicheng (The Temple of the White Emperor)
Information on Zigui, the hometown of Qu Yuan
Translation of Qu Yuans poems
Up the Yangtze was produced by EyeSteelFilm in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6465916746
Name: UP THE YANGTZE The Movie
Type:
Entertainment & Arts - Movies
Stills from Up The Yangtze the Movie
http://www.flickr.com/
photos/10257508@N04/sets/ 72157600901017182/
Some music from the film was performed by Yung Chang's grandfather, Wayne Wu Yun Quan. His album is free to download from this site ( Chinese language site only )
Will be performing the Boat Song at the Hong Kong Intl. Click here for more info