The Sluice

China Daily has some great pictures of the Three Gorges Dam's sluice gates opening for the flood waters. Some highlights from the article that I found interesting and/or impressive: only 16 of the 23 sluice gates were opened to keep the water level at 144 meters and at 8 PM on Friday 43,000 cubic meters per second were flowing through the dam.

Three Gorges facing flood peak but doing well via China Daily

Winchester on Wulingyuan National Park

Steve's hero Simon Winchester has a piece in the NYT fawning over Wulingyuan National Park and the way the CCP has managed it. Basically, they keep the numbers of tourists down by charging an arm and a leg. It is also interesting to note that a big part of the appeal for domestic tourists is not the Karst topography, but the association of the area with the revolutionary hero Marshal He Long.

I've been learning a lot about Chinese nationalism at the this NEH institute I am attending. All the presenters have agreed that Chinese nationalism is the biggest cultural force in China today. Interestingly, nationalism in the Western sense of the word is a new phenomenon there, growing out of the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Western nationalism requires you to think of your people as one nation competing among many, so that you can root for your nation in the competition. When the Middle Kingdom was simply the center of the universe, there really wasn't a need for nationalism in any recognizable sense.

Also interesting: Winchester is working on a book about Joseph Needham, the historian of Chinese science.

Water transfer scheme

We didn't hear much in China about the massive water transfer scheme, although we did talk about it in class. In short, there are three man-made rivers being constructed from the Yangtze in the south (water surplus), to various locations in the north that have water deficits.

Xinhua has an article indicating that two tunnels under the Yellow River are now under construction as a part of this project. Another article indicates that the Three Gorges reservoir has just been lowered in anticipation of flooding. I find it amazing the number of water resource-related articles coming out of Xinhua. Here's another one.

A quick question I asked myself a few times while in China:

who is a bigger ethnowhore? The ethnic minority wearing in costume at the Stone Forest getting their picture taken with tourists or our group getting our picture taken with tourists?

The same goes for more than just getting pictures taken. In the two times I've been to China I have unwittingly, but sometimes purposefully, exported a piece of my culture. Whether I was showing off my sick dance movies, or teaching Chinese people about hockey, I sold a piece of my culture. Is that all it takes to be considered an "ethnowhore" (great word, by the way, Rob.) What would one have to do in order to become an ethnowhore and in the end, does it preserve diversity? At what cost?

More about rubble....

Below is a photo I took on my first trip to China in 2001. Sticking with the "rubble" theme (see below), this open area in Xiamen, Fujian Province, is actually the drivers license test place. Buddy sitting on the little pink stool is the examiner and you can vaguely see the outline of the test track. I watched from a window across the street while people came to the site, did a few reversing manouvers, and then got some papers stamped. I just loved how informal it all was, and set amongst the lovely rubble.

Also in Xiamen was another of China's oddities. The city on the southeast coast is directly across from Taiwan, and in fact there are two islands not far offshore of the mainland that are controlled by Taiwan. A whole industry of "Taiwan watching" has grown up along the shore, with entrepreneurs setting up powerful telescopes and charging for viewing Taiwan. You can see the Taiwanese island of Quemoy in the background. Very strange...