Day 17

All of us had to wake up very early in the morning at 6.30am for the breakfast at level two of the cruise ship. The breakfast was very plain to me, with porridge and buns. Worst of all, we have to use chopsticks to eat the porridge, something that is of a shock to me, as we usually use spoon. It was hard for me to adapt to it though as I admitted that I am not very skilled in using chopsticks. After which we prepared our items before we alighted the ship to our first destination, BaiDiCheng(白帝城). One of the reasons that this place was famous was due to Liu Bei, during the Three Kindoms era. This was the place in which he died and in his dead bed, passed all his responsibilities to his advisor, Zhuge Liang. BaiDiCheng is a temple which used to be on a hill, but due to the construction of the dam, it is now on an island and most of the older structures are being submerged into the water. The existing site is the one being rebuilt by the Chinese government. After the visit, we went back to our cruise ship. During the journey, when we were about to reach some of the famous gorge, announcement will be made for the passenger to view it at the deck of the ship. All of those magnificence views never failed to fascinate me. We even get to see the gorge which appeared at the back of the current 10RMB. Our next destination is the ShenNongstream. There, we switched to a smaller boat in order for us to get a closer view and also for us to reach the final destination. On the way, I managed to spot some hanging coffins on the cliff. It is a puzzle to me wondering how those people in the past is able to put it up there. We also experience the rowing of boat by the local people on wooden canoe. Despite all of their hard work, those locals earn very little. At night, we get to see the entering of the three gorges dam ship locks. As the whole process will take at least a few hours to complete, most of us went back to our individual room after the first gate was closed.

My Reflection

I felt a sense of bleakness when I reached Bai Di Cheng as the temple had became an island due to the construction of 3 gorges, leading to the rise in water levels. Due to the rising in water levels, many villages and ancient structure had to move higher up and new buildings are built much taller than any other structures as the island itself used to be a hill. Hence, I am not just speaking of the inconvenience brought to the villagers, its also indicating of the loss in history as many artifacts were destroyed during the process of the water rising. There were artifacts that our ancestors left behind that might contain valuable clues to their well-being in the past. Therefore, without further discoveries or investigation, all these artifacts that were drowned to the bottom of the sea would be lost forever. Well it is true that constructing the Three Gorges does reduce flooding disaster to the minimum level, bringing good welfare to the people of China, I just feel that history does not have to be sacrificed in order to attain these benefits. My guess is that building the Three Gorges means the people are looking towards the future of China and being optimistic about the reduced risk in flooding disaster, however this also represent that history does not coexist with the future. Moving on with China future without any burdens of disaster strike is a good foresight, but preserving and maintaining the facts of the past is an important task to do so too as we are able to learn and gain knowledge of the past and insert them to the present and future.