by Bill Porter
When we finally reached the highway, instead of heading east back to Anting, we asked our driver if he would take us west to Pingchiang. It was another six or seven kilometers down the road and in the direction we wanted to go, and we saw no sense in going back to Anting. Naturally, we offered to double the farmer’s fare. He agreed, and off we went. It was a beautiful day, and the highway was paved. We felt blessed to be riding in the open with the wind blowing through our hair and the sun shining down on us. Thirty minutes later, we climbed off at the Pingchiang bus station. And thirty minutes after that, we were on a bus. As we rolled along to the next place on our itinerary, I wrote another poem. It was called “Visiting Tu Fu’s Grave with Finn and Steve”:
On a rolling red clay hill
covered with oil-nut trees
miles from the nearest town
we stopped at a dirt-floor school
On a rolling red clay hill
surrounded by terraced rice
next to the fourth grade class
we entered a garden of weeds
On a rolling red clay hill
we stood and bowed three times
at a place called Little Heaven
in front of Tu Fu’s grave
On a rolling red clay hill
the principal waved good-bye
and a hundred children chased us
where a stranger stopped to die
It didn’t seem as dark as my last poem. It must have been the sunshine. From Pingchiang the road followed the Milo River downstream through a countryside of farms and forested hills. Seventy kilometers and two and a half hours later, our bus pulled into the town named for the river. Outside the bus station, we flagged down a taxi and told the driver to take us to a hotel. It turned out there was only one hotel in Milo that accepted foreigners. We had no choice but to check into the Milo City Government Reception Center. It was quiet, the rooms were decent enough, and the price was reasonable: only 30RMB, or $6, for a triple.
From our balcony, we watched the sun go down then went to find a place to eat. On our way out, we stopped to talk with the manager, and he suggested we eat at the reception center restaurant. After our dining experience at the Maple Hotel in Changsha, we had changed our opinion about hotel restaurants. An hour later, the old opinion was back. Even now, I feel queasy just thinking about that meal. It floated in oil, and not the good kind of oil. And they charged as much as the Maple Hotel. It was my fault, though. They didn’t have a printed menu, and I made the mistake of ordering without asking the prices. After dinner, I told the manager we would skip breakfast.
But before we headed back to our rooms, I thought I would enlist his help in arranging our transportation for the following day. Our next destination was another middle-of-nowhere poet’s grave. I knew there wouldn’t be any buses, so I asked if he could arrange for someone to take us there. An hour later, he knocked on our door and said he had found a driver. The price, he said, would be 100RMB. Since we really didn’t have a choice, I told him that would be fine. Fortunately, the water was hot enough for a bath that night, and we went to bed happy.
When we checked out the next morning, the driver was waiting. And he was waiting beside a car, not a tractor. The manager was waiting too. He wanted to make sure we got off okay. We thanked him for helping make the arrangements, and he assured us that the driver knew where we wanted to go—which was good, because our destination was once more just a dot on my map. We put our bags in the trunk and were off. A few minutes later, the town of Milo was behind us and we began driving west along the Milo River again.
It was along this river that the first dragon boat races took place over 2,000 years ago. The races began in honor of Ch’u Yuan (343–278 BC), China’s first great poet. Ch’u Yuan grew up in the Yangtze Gorges, where for generations his family had served the state of Ch’u as Lords of the Gorges. That was during the fourth century BC, when a number of states were attempting to unify all of China under their rule. When Ch’u Yuan criticized his ruler for believing the false promises of the state of Ch’in, his ruler banished him. This occurred in 296 BC, and Ch’u Yuan tells the story in one of his own poems, a poem entitled “The Fisherman”:
When Ch’u Yuan was banished
he wandered along rivers
he sang on their banks
weak and forlorn
till a fisherman asked
aren’t you Lord of the Gorges
what fate has brought you to this?
Ch’u Yuan answered
the world is muddy
I alone am clean
everyone’s drunk
I alone am sober
and so they sent me away.
The fisherman said
a sage isn’t bothered by others
he can change with the times
if the world is muddy
splash in the mire
if everyone’s drunk
drink up the dregs
why get banished
for deep thought and purpose?
Ch’u Yuan said he had heard
when you clean your hair
you should dust off your hat
when you take a bath
you should shake out your robe
how can I let something so pure
be ruined and wronged by others
I’d rather jump into the Hsiang
and be buried in a fish’s gut
than let something so white
be stained by common dirt.
The fisherman smiled and rowed away singing
“When the river is clear I wash my hat
when the river is muddy I wash my feet.”
And once gone he was heard from no more.
Not long after Ch’u Yuan poked fun at himself in this poem, he heard the news that the state of Ch’in had finally conquered Ch’u, as he had feared it would. He was so disconsolate that he took his own advice and jumped into the Milo not far from where it flowed into the Hsiang.
We followed the river he jumped into more than ten kilometers on a dike road that ran along the river’s southern embankment. Dotting the grass-covered flood plain were water buffaloes and herds of goats and flocks of ducks and geese. It was such a rare scene in China, to see so much verdant land and no villages, no buildings, no people other than the occasional fisherman casting his net. After about thirty minutes, we pulled up behind half a dozen vehicles waiting at the Chutang Ferry. The boat we all were waiting for was a metal-hulled barge with an engine that pulled itself across the river on a cable. The river wasn’t more than two hundred meters wide at this point, and we only had to wait twenty minutes before it was our turn. Once we were on the other side, we followed a side road on the right to a nearby promontory that overlooked the river. This was what we were looking for: the site of the Ch’u Yuan Shrine.
While he pondered his future, this was where Ch’u Yuan lived, on a small hill beside the river. According to the shrine’s caretaker, the spot where Ch’u Yuan drowned was seven kilometers farther downstream. He said there used to be a shrine there too, but it was destroyed by the Red Guards. He said most of the people who visited the shrine at the Chutang Ferry were Japanese. That surprised us. But what really surprised us was the reason. He said a scholar in Japan had written a book in which he claimed Ch’u Yuan was, believe it or not, Japanese. Give a scholar a couple of facts and enough rope, and he’ll either tie them together or hang himself trying.
As for the shrine near the ferry, it had been here since the Han dynasty, or nearly 2,000 years. The current version dated from the eighteenth century and included an unusually realistic relief above the entrance showing Ch’u Yuan standing among the waves. The halls reminded us of those at the Yuehlu Academy in Changsha: exposed timbers and whitewashed walls covered with scrolls featuring the calligraphy of famous visitors. Clearly, Ch’u Yuan had not been forgotten.
When we told the caretaker that we were poets ourselves—and no one was there to say we weren’t—he invited us t
o stay for tea. One of the questions we asked while we were waiting for the tea to cool was whether Ch’u Yuan’s body was ever recovered and if so where his grave was located. The caretaker said the body was, indeed, recovered but Ch’u Yuan didn’t have just one grave, he had twelve, and they were spread across the countryside between the Chutang Ferry and the town of Milo. He said the reason there were so many was to discourage grave robbers. When we asked if he had a favorite, he said he liked number four near the railway bridge just north of town.
Whether or not Ch’u Yuan’s body was actually recovered, a whole festival grew up around his death. In English it’s known as the Dragon Boat Festival, because of the custom of racing boats to see who can reach Ch’u Yuan’s body before the water dragons do. In Chinese, it’s called Tuanwuchieh, the Festival of the Midday Sun, because it’s celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month, which occurs within a few days of the summer solstice when the sun is at its height. It’s one of China’s oldest festivals, and it has been associated with Ch’u Yuan for nearly 2,000 years. Nowadays it’s also celebrated as Poets’ Day.
While we sipped our tea, the caretaker told us about all the sites in the area associated with Ch’u Yuan slated for development. Big plans were afoot. I had to wonder where he expected the tourists, much less the money, to come from. According to the guest register we signed when we first arrived, the shrine didn’t get more than a dozen people a month. Still, we were glad to know that the authorities had not forgotten Ch’u Yuan. One of our favorite poets was Wang Wei (699–759), and Wang Wei said he never traveled anywhere without a copy of Ch’u Yuan’s poems. Ch’u Yuan’s sense of diction and rhythm became the model cultivated by all of China’s great poets.
Ch’u Yuan grave #4
Finally, we thanked our host and returned to Milo. But on the way, we asked our driver to take us by the grave just north of town near the railway bridge. It wasn’t easy to find, but our driver kept asking, and farmers kept pointing. Finally we found it: a weed-covered mound and a tombstone with the words “Grave of Ch’u Yuan, Lord of the Three Gorges.”
We stopped long enough to pay our respects, then continued into town. As we reached the highway, we asked our driver to stop. We saw no reason to drive into town to catch a bus when we could catch one on the highway. After getting our bags out of his trunk, we stood there waiting for the next bus heading north. It was a short wait. And as we rattled toward our next destination, I wrote yet another poem—maybe I was a poet. That made three. I titled this one “Visiting the Lord of the Gorges”:
His grave is near the railroad bridge
his shrine overlooks the Chutang Ferry
the caretaker poured us cups of tea
still fragrant after all these years
6. The Spirit of the River
Ninety minutes after leaving Milo, we arrived in the town of Yuehyang on the east shore of Tungting Lake and at the northern border of Hunan. Hunan means “south of the lake,” and Tungting is the lake. It’s China’s second largest freshwater lake, and its major tributary is the Hsiang, which we’d been following since we arrived in the province. The lake, in turn, empties into the Yangtze, just a few kilometers north of Yuehyang. In fact, Yuehyang is actually a Yangtze River port.
Yuehyanglou
From the bus station, we walked down the main street toward the lake and checked into a hotel that overlooked its wide waters. It was late afternoon, but there was still plenty of daylight left. So we walked back outside and down the street that ran parallel to the lake. We wanted to watch the sunset at the city’s main attraction: Yuehyang Tower. China had three such towers dating back nearly two thousand years. The other two were in Wuhan and Nanchang. The one in Yuehyang was the smallest of the three. It was only fifteen meters high. But it was a better place to watch the sunset than the other two, both of which now look out over polluted cities.
From the balcony that circled its second story, we watched the lake turn gold then red then pink then finally purple. This is why the tower was built here in the first place—not to watch sunsets, but to watch the lake. It was built as an observation platform from which to monitor naval maneuvers. That was nearly 1,800 years ago, and it’s been rebuilt several times since then, each time in a different form. Most recently it was restored to look as it did in the Sung dynasty, a thousand years ago, with a series of roofs that look as if they might take off with the rest of the building.
After watching the sky merge with the lake, we walked back to our hotel along the promenade that skirted the shore. Like all the lakes along the Yangtze, it serves the purpose of flood control and varies in size throughout the year, ranging anywhere from 3,000 square kilometers in winter to 20,000 in summer. During winter, the average depth drops to less than three meters, making boats largely useless. In fact, during winter many of the lake’s islands can be reached by bicycle or even car. We were there at the end of September, and boats were still operating twice a day to the island whose black outline rose ever so slightly above the horizon. It was the lake’s most famous island: Chunshan. And it was our destination the next morning.
We got up just in time to catch the 7:30 boat. There were only four boats a day, and ours was as packed as any bus we had been on. We wondered if perhaps the number of passengers exceeded the boat’s capacity. But I suppose it didn’t matter. The lake was shallower than your average swimming pool. If the boat sank, I don’t think anyone would have drowned.
Just before casting off, the captain invited us up to the wheelhouse, and we watched him navigate through a course of bamboo poles that marked the way to the island. He said it was the only route deep enough for his boat. He said the days of Tungting Lake were numbered. Every year it filled up with more and more silt from excessive logging and tea terracing along its tributaries.
Actually, tea was one of the reasons we wanted to go to Chunshan. Its slopes produced one of the finest teas in China. It was called Maochien, or Fur Tip, because it was picked while the leaves were still enclosed in their furry casings, before they unfurled and started manufacturing chlorophyll and caffeine. Hence, it was a white tea, not a green tea. The best variety was called Yinchen, or Silver Needle. Unfortunately, it was only available in spring, and we were here in fall. Second best, though, wasn’t bad. As soon as we arrived, we walked over to a café and ordered some. While we sat there, waiting for our tea to brew, the leaves hung in our glasses, like hundreds of miniature knives, still encased in their sheaths. Eventually, the leaves began to settle, and we tasted it. It tasted like the morning dew.
But Chunshan Island was famous for something other than tea. It was also famous for a pair of graves that date back 4,200 years to the time of Emperor Shun. The graves are those of the emperor’s two wives. When Emperor Yao chose Shun to succeed him, he gave Shun his two daughters in marriage, and they rarely left his side. After ruling China for more than thirty years, Shun decided to inspect the uncivilized regions to the south of his empire. He left his wives where the Hsiang empties into Tungting Lake, while he crossed the mountains south of Hengyang into what is now Kuangsi province. Unfortunately, the natives did not welcome his visit, and Emperor Shun died in a battle just outside Wuchou, the same Wuchou tourists pass through nowadays on their way from Kuangchou to the miniature mountains of Kueilin.
When word of their husband’s death reached Shun’s wives, they drowned themselves in the Hsiang, and their bodies were buried on Chunshan. Once we finished our tea, we walked over to their graves and to the shrine built in their honor. Among the Nine Elegies attributed to Ch’u Yuan was one dedicated to them that he titled “Ladies of the Hsiang.” It began:
Come down, royal maidens, to this northern isle
pity me with your gaze
the wind of autumn stirs
waves on Tungting and falling leaves
and me looking past the flowering sedge
to an evening planned with my lover . . .
What was there about the Hsiang that pulled China’s poe
ts and lovers into its waters? It wasn’t a question for which I had an answer.
After paying our respects, we walked around the island—it was sufficiently small that it only took an hour. We returned to Yuehyang on the same boat and checked out of our hotel. A taxi took us to the train station, and the next local took us north. As usual, there weren’t any seats. But when the conductor passed through checking tickets, he took pity on us and led us to a sleeper at the front of the train. It was early afternoon and most of the bunks were empty. It was such a rare treat that we stretched out and slept. Three hours later, the conductor woke us in time to get off at the town of Puchi.
Puchi was also known as Chihpi City. Either way, it wasn’t our destination. But the day was sufficiently late, and there were no more buses to where we wanted to go—which was the Yangtze. We walked a few blocks from the station and checked into the only hotel that accepted foreigners. It wasn’t a memorable night. But at least we were making progress. We were now in Hupei province, hu-pei meaning “north of the lake.” We had finally left the suicidal waters of the Hsiang and Tungting Lake behind.
The next morning we went to say hello to the Yangtze into which they drained. From Chihpi City, we took the eight o’clock bus bound for Hunghu, which was on the other side of the river. An hour later, the driver dropped us off in Chihpi Township, which was little more than a village. The bus, meanwhile, continued on to the ferry that conveyed people and vehicles to the north side of the river.