Three Gorges controversy

The New York Times had a big article on the human and environmental impact of the Three Gorges Dam project, plus other dams. Chinese Dam Projects Criticized for Their Human Costs

There is still one question I have - how many workers have died during this project? You certainly hear about it when there is no loss of life, but I think construction in China doesn't have the best safety record.

Click on the link below to see my previous posts about the Three Gorges.

Three Gorges Photos

I finally got all of my Three Gorges photos uploaded. They are all here. http://www.emilyminor.com/ThreeGorges/index.html I'm going to post some of my favorites occasionally though.

This is going through the dam. It is the largest dam in the world now, and we read that the amount of water that it is holding back will actually change how the world rotates on it's axis. Crazy. It has a system of 5 locks. A bunch of ships sail in, they shut the rear gates, water floods in incredibly fast, they open the front gates and the process is repeated. It was weird sitting at the front of the boat knowing how many tons of pressure was pushing on that gate!

One of the gorges.
This is in Yichang. We spent a night there before getting on the boat. They had a bungee jump over the water! We decided that there's no way we'd trust a bungee jump in China - especially since we are not slender Asians!

This happens to me all of the time, and I finally got a photo of it. I look up and people are taking photos of me with their camera phone. Yes, I am really white. But there are enough foreigners in Shanghai that I would think I am not so much of a novelty. I've seen people trip over things cause they were staring - if they pass me, some people will turn around again several times to look. Jon gets it too. A big guy with bright blond hair attracts a lot of attention. Also, staring is not considered rude here. We've found out that if you make eye contact and stare back, they will not look at you again!

The people with my photo on their phones.... I just wonder what they do with it. I mean, would you really put it in an album and say "and this is a white person I saw on my vacation"? Or do they show it to their friends? Look at it for a laugh? Tell their friends they know me?

I do take photos of Chinese people too, but I think they are doing something interesting, like sleeping sitting up on the street or ridng a bike piled high with furniture or something.

The Three Gorges

Jon and I went on a Three Gorges cruise during the October Holiday. I'm still working on uploading the photos. It was pretty good. A cruise isn't really our style - we felt like we were herded like cattle most of the time. We got woken up at 6:30 each morning and got a call saying we had to come to dinner when we were 10 minutes late on But, it is really the only way to see the Gorges.

It's pretty interesting. The water in the Yangtze River has risen a lot due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam (the largest in the world) and will rise a lot more when it is finished in 2009.

Boats on the Yangtze

I took a lot of photos of all of the boats on the river. Some were tiny and some were huge. We're pretty removed from water traffic in South Dakota so I was pretty fascinated by the types of boats.

Chinglish from the Yangtze River

Before looking at the latest Chinglish I've seen, check out a few other sites. I thought I should post a link to a place about the reverse of Chinglish - native English speakers misusing Chinese or Japanese characters.

This site is devoted to the misuse of Kanji characters in Western Culture - it is in English so most people here can read it. Engrish.com also has links to sites in Japanese about this "reverse-Engrish".

If my rubbish isn't disposable, is it still rubbish?

This was along a steep dropoff.

On the rails around the Three Gorges visitor center.

No crowdign Thunder Stormy Day?

Does this mean "Don't push people when it's raining because the stairs are slippery?"