Three Gorges Dam update

As I mentioned before, we took the bullet train from Guangzhou South
Rail Station to Wuhan. Wuhan is a city of approximately 8 million
people, and is a major locale in central China. Lee's friend Li Lei
picked us up from the train station in his new car - a GM Cruze. We
went to get hot pot for dinner and then Li Lei took us to one of his
favorite local bars where we had some drinks. Saturday morning we got
the standard beef and noodles for breakfast (a dietary staple for me
here) and we started driving to the dam which was 300 km away.

Unfortunately, we got a flat tire about 30 minutes outside of Wuhan.
After replacing the tire with a spare we drove to a local village
where conveniently one guy had a tire repair shop. We joked that he
had left nails on the road to get more business. It was interesting
for me to see a tiny village in China; Lee said the street reminded
him of the one he grew up on. I also noticed there were random
chickens walking around the fields by the village. Lee told me that's
because the chickens belong to someone. They will walk around freely
during the day, eating bugs or whatever. But at night they will
return to their coop and they lay their eggs in the same spot, so the
owner knows where to look. Lee also told a funny story of when he was
little, living in a similar village. He and 3 other boys teamed up to
capture one such chicken and then sold it to a restaurant for five
bucks. Apparently they can be tough to catch and it requires teamwork
and coordination. Furthermore, it was Lee who had to carry the hen
under his shirt and do the dirty work, but since he was younger he was
only given 50 cents of the 5 dollar bounty, and the older boys split
the rest. Clearly this incident has scarred him.

Anyway, the local tire shop owner actually didn't have what we needed
so we left and drove back to Wuhan to the GM repair center. After
waiting for a bit while the tire was replaced, we finally got back on
the road. The whole episode ended up delaying us by 4-5 hours, so we
didn't get into the city by the Three Gorges Dam, Yi Chang, until
late. We got hot pot again for dinner and then played a Chinese card
game in the hotel room. The game is like a supercharged version of
War, pretty fun, but I clearly didn't understand it well as I ended up
losing almost 100 Yuan to Lee and Li Lei (which is like 14 US
dollars).

On Sunday morning we woke and drove to the Three Gorges Dam which was
bout 30 minutes away. The geology approaching the dam was very
interesting. Moderate to small sized mountains but really sharp,
steep cliffs. It makes sense that a chose a site like this to build a
dam. I included a good example of the geology approaching the dam via
a photo of a crossing of a bridge approaching the site.

After arriving at the dam site they put you through security and then
you go on a tour bus. It drops you off at one location, and you get
back on and go to the next spot. Unfortunately, we didn't get to get
a close view from the base of the dam, so it was pretty hard to
appreciate how huge it was. It was also quite foggy the day we were
there so we could only barely see the other end of the dam (which is
over a mile long, anyway). Anyway, I've included two photos. In the
first one, you have a far away view of the downstream side of the dam.
In the second dam photo, we are much closer but we are upstream, so
its hard to appreciate how deep (175 meters or so) the dam is.

One of the most impressive things about the dam experience was a
painting that was drawn by a Chinese artist (this is the fourth
photo). It was a panorama of the entire upstream region of the
Yangtze that was to be affected by the construction of the dam. This
painting must have been over 100 feet in length, and it took the guy
15 years to paint it. I got a video of it and included only one frame
for this blog post. The painting, more than the dam itself, gives an
appreciation for exactly how much water the dam is holding back. The
reservoir stretches back for miles, and is quite deep.

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power plant of any kind in the
world, supplying 3% of China's electricity needs (which are enormous).
The dam also increases navigation on the Yangtze by keeping water
levels up downstream during the dry season as the reservoir of the dam
is slowly allowed to drain. Most importantly, the dam provides flood
control for the downstream cities along the Yangtze, including Wuhan,
Nanjing, and Shanghai. One flood in 1954 in Wuhan killed something
like 30,000 people. There is a memorial to the flood, with a poem
written by Mao Zedong*, although I did not have the chance to see it.
I found a photo of it on Wikipedia, if any Mandarin speakers want to
translate it for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wuhan-Flood-Memorial-0218.jpg

Even though over 1 million people were displaced by the dam, it is
hard to say it wasn't worth building. The number of lives that will
be saved by avoiding floods, the amount of energy generated (which
will pay for the dam before a decade), and the increased economic
activity are all huge factors. Not to mention that the energy
generated is not from fossil fuels, another great advantage in terms
of reducing pollution and keeping oil prices lower than they otherwise
might be. It's hard to argue against progress like that.

* Henry Kissinger (Secretary of State under Nixon, coordinated the
diplomatic opening between China and the USA in the 70's) described
Chairman Mao has a poet and philosopher, with Zhou Enlai being an
administrator and executor of Mao's vision. Kissinger described Enlai
as one of the two or three most impressive people he had ever met,
which is a pretty remarkable statement considering who Kissinger met
during his exploits. At any rate, I'm curious to read Mao's poem
after learning that Henry Kissinger thought of Mao in this way.