Waking up in the beautiful Yichang Evergrand Hotel commenced our departure to the Three Gorges dam. As we headed to the dam, we were immediately captivated by the mountain scenery juxtaposed with the imposing dam structure looming in the distance as we approached.
We went to several locations within the Three Gorges Dam, where we got to see the movement of ships coming through and the mechanics of upstream/downstream boat lifts.
The Three Gorges Dam has a total storage capacity of 39.3 billion m squared (a lot!!) – making it the world’s largest hydropower project, critical to controlling floods in the downstream areas. The construction of the project in the 2010s included resettlement statistics of up to 1.31 million people, among many other infographics. Including this fact felt important, and Ziyao mentioned, too, after conversing with one of the locals, that the Three Gorges Dam is actually one of the only somewhat controversial topics mentioned in their school textbooks.
We later went to go see a documentary-style video on the dam, which turned out less like the documentary Professor Zhou expected to see, and more like a theme park’s exhibitional ride. Paired with the earlier tourist experience, I was thinking about the development of tourism, particularly as a learning space, and the varying expectations and provocations that exhibitors have from tourists/the audience.
We then went to lunch at a very local restaurant, which ended up being one of the favorite meals from the trip. We got a little taste of hot pot and ate almost everything on the table (times few and far!).
Afterwards, we made our way down to Went to the Three Gorges Family Tribe where we took a ferry across the river and watched a performance of the Tujia minority’s traditional wedding ceremony. The natural landscape here was absolutely beautiful and one of the most memorable parts of the trip. The soft jade water was luring us in. We kept wanting to climb, experience, and take in more of the scenery, but were not permitted 🙁 But we had a few minutes to sit, sketch, and meditate, which was really nice! After some time, I began wondering what life here would be like without the developed tourism infrastructure, and if the people living there were supported in developing their own communities away from tourism.
Overall, the day was fantastic and eye-opening, and we are grateful to have witnessed so much (and for all the questions it has brought up). We’ll send you off with an adorable picture of Yu Zhou holding the sun 🙂
