Field Trip in Yangtze River, Day 2

Hello everyone, this is Liu Chang again giving you a brief summary on our second day field trip. Because we arrived quite late yesterday due to foggy weather, we plan to have a rest in the morning and start our trip after lunch.

Chongqing is famous for its delicious spicy food, so we visit a small restaurant near our hotel and have a fascinating lunch. The boiled fish is not so spicy but fresh and active. And the tofu is sweet with special favor in it. Although Prof. Shiroyama has been to China many times, she still announces the fish to be the best.

Delicious tofu lunch

 After that we get to the cable car. The cable car was first built in 1987 to help tourist across Yangtze River. The old operating system is remained in the waiting place. Although the weather is quite foggy, the view from the cable car is still beautiful. And Chongqing has a special emotion under this foggy weather. One small finding during the journey is that the slope of Chongqing is quite steep and building construction here seems to be very hard.

Old Operating Panel

View from the Cable Car

Outside the Cable Car

Construction Site

 Later we go to the Three Gorges Museum. It is a big museum of four stories, as we have limited time, we just visit the first floor in detail. One exhibition was about culture in “Nanman” region. Based on the historical records, combined with literature and culture relics all the exquisite relics in this exhibition are displayed with background. Some high-grade ritual and music bronzes are quite precious.

 Another exhibition is about the construction of Three Gorges Dam. To clarify the political attitude of this exhibition I would like to quote as following: “The Three Gorges Project is a long-cherished dream of the Chinese nation. The success of the Project lies in the migration from the Three Gorges area. Under the guidance of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, local part committees and governments, confronted with all the obstacles and difficulties, prioritized the migration politically. In response, the migrants gave the full support for he national project with practical action to leave their homes. This is known to the Chinese as the spirit of the Three Gorges migrants which contributes to the great feat of massive migration.”

One truth of above statement is that there were 1.29 million migrants during the construction. Two whole cities and ten towns were moved to other places. More than 1,600 companies changed their places. This only takes about ten years. Reading about this reminds me of Yanba Dam in Japan which spend more than 50 years for migrating 1,000 people. Reviewing the situation of migrating has brought me a lot of considering. We live with a powerful government, and sometimes power is required to do something magnificent.

So, most of the exhibition is the residuals of old Three Gorges region. We can see many stones and statues rescued from underwater.

Rescued Statue Wall

Rescued Statues

Famous Stone Wall carved by Yangtze River

 Then we go to visit Zhougong Mansion. It was a building for Chinese Communists during 1938 to 1945. Professors from history and economic department have had a passionate discussion about it.

Outside View of Zhougong Mansion

 Finally, we visit Ciqikou Ancient Town. This used to be a center of porcelain trade, now it has become a combination of restaurants and stores just like many other ancient towns. But Prof. Shiroyama find an interesting museum collecting food coupon! As a Chinese, it’s still the first time I’ve ever seen a real food coupon in real. Food coupon is a kind of certification 1950s~1990s purchasing goods and food (oil, rice, cloth, etc.). During that time, you can not live without this coupon. This can be a quite good teaching material when you learn about modern Chinese economic history.

Hot Pot Sauce in Ciqikou Town

Food Coupon Collection

 Later, we find another store which sells picture-story book and food coupon! I remember that my father used to keep a lot of picture-story books. And I’ve even read some of them myself. Some of the picture-story books are derive from movies, some from fairy tale. I even find some Japanese movie story books among them! In last century, this kind of story books is like website nowadays. They are quite precious in many meanings.

Picture-story Books

 Although we came back from dinner very late, we somehow still managed to catch the ship in Chongqing Port. And we drink wine together to celebrate this success.