The Tiger Leaping Gorge Conflict

We've been traveling with a good friend from home, Captain Ken, for the past couple weeks and slowly working our way up into the Tibetan plateau. Tiger Leaping Gorge, sandwiched between Haba Snow Mountain + Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, both towering at around 19,000' is really the beginning of the plateau and marks the far eastern end of the Himalayan range. The Gorge is notable as one of the deepest in the world (13,000') with the Yangtze river crashing it's way through at the very bottom.

Some geographers + writers like to think of the Yangtze as a sort of waistline that divides China in two. Above the waist are the brain, heart + soul of China, a land that is home to the pale-skinned, wheat-eating, Mandarin-speaking, reclusive + conservative peoples who are the true heirs to a thousand years of uninterupted history. Below the waist, on the other hand, are the country's muscles + sinews - The stocky, darker, more flamboyant, rice-eating peoples who speak in complicated local dialects, the men + women whose energies and acumen, AND cooking, have spread the goods of China to the world beyond. For this visit we will be staying solidly "below the waist" and can only speak of our experiences in reference to the South, not China as a whole, being as large + diverse as it is.

It's been nice to get a fresh perspective on what we're seeing + experiencing through Ken's eyes. He too has been surprised at the reality of what China is versus what it's been portrayed to the western world historically and in the present day. Though the Cultural Revolution did much to stiffle minority ethnic groups and religion, the people here are tough + resilient and both seem alive and well in the 21st century. On our hike through the Gorge, locals farmed as they've been doing for thousands of years on terraced fields dropping precariously down the steep slopes towards the river below. Sadly, the proposed dam project will displace approx. 80,000 people initially (and up to 1 milliom ultimately) who will lose their homes + farmland underwater. While most of the world now recognizes that the massive dam projects of the past have, throughout the world, ultimately caused more harm than good, China still seems determined to move full-speed ahead to satisfy their growing need for electricity.

The scenic town of Daju, where we spent a day at the northern end of the hike, is one that may feasibly be affected by the dam. This untouristed gem is one of the places that Darin + I only PRAY to stumble upon when traveling - Beautiful homes made of clay bricks, carved wooden beams + hand-glazed ceramic tiles sited on an extraordinarily scenic plateau; Farmland in shades of gold + green in a mondrian patchwork; Friendly locals. Though these ancient peoples still exist within modern China, they are becoming increasingly marginalized in the name of progress, and have little to no voice with which to defend themselves. It's a sad reality.

Here's a "link" to more photos from Tiger Leaping Gorge