Barbarian Lost

by Alexandre Trudeau

  “I read that in the gorges, cargo ships were once pulled up the current by humans with huge ropes.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Must have been a fairly miserable existence.”

  “Of course. The worst,” Viv admits.

  “And now container ships power their way from the Pacific to Chongqing. And in an apartment building somewhere, the rope pullers’ great-grandchildren live lives devoid of all their forefathers’ physical suffering. Maybe they work in a factory that produces goods that will be sold into Western markets. Possibly they are now consumers of products manufactured far away and delivered to them by water. An improvement, no?”

  “I’m not nostalgic for the old days, Sacha. But one can feel the loss of riverside life without endorsing the old hardships.”

  “But aren’t we all a bit nostalgic? Wasn’t beauty an easier thing when humans were still only bit players?”

  “Yes. Like the ancient landscape paintings: idealized depictions of harmony in nature without human presence.”

  “Now we must seek beauty in giant skyscrapers and huge dams,” I say with a smile.

  “I’ll take reeds gently swaying in the current over square concrete and steel,” she counters.

  “Yes, but at what cost? Filth and darkness for your peers?”

  Chinese history is one of geographic transformation. As far back as the semi-mythic Xia dynasty around the second millennium before Christ, China struggled to tame the Yellow River, on whose banks and tributaries disparate tribes had long been collecting. Massive as they are, both the Yellow and the Yangtze Rivers flow from deep within vast and high mountain ranges. They preserve something of spring torrents, but on a formidable scale. With the rivers’ upper reaches all in steep mountain valleys and no lazy plains or wetlands to absorb and moderate the runoff, the water comes gushing forth onto the territory that proved so bountiful to early Chinese tribes.

  The deposits of silt that made for such reliable agriculture owed their existence to the very same mechanism that brought danger: fast-flowing rivers grinding away at mountains, then bursting out onto flatter ground, laying down their mineral wealth over a wide area and periodically altering course as the water broke through the banks and new channels emerged. As perennial as they were—and necessary for building the rich soils—the floods routinely devastated the farming communities set up along the banks of the rivers.

  The annals tell of how the Yu family dedicated itself to trying to control the floods at the behest of an early Yellow River potentate. The father built walls against the current, but the levees ceded to the water pressure and actually worsened the floods. For his failures, father Yu was put to death. Tasked to succeed where his father had failed, Yu the younger channelled the current where it would seek to overflow. It worked. For this feat, he earned the title of Yu the Great, was made the chosen successor of the king and founded the legendary Xia dynasty at the beginning of Chinese history, forever connecting water management with political power in China.

  By the end of our first full day on the water, Viv and I have exhausted the various permutations of positioning on the ship and find ourselves rotating pointlessly between front and back deck, restaurant and cabin. Even with the mountains on either side, the landscape seems flat against the broad cloudy expanse of water around us and the white hazy sky above. I can only look at the views with interest for short periods before becoming thoroughly bored.

  Vivien and I have long hours to throw ideas around.

  “Am I correct in thinking that mountains and gods are connected etymologically in Chinese?” I ask her.

  “The Chinese script’s pictographic. Character origin and word origin are blurred. We use a few different characters for the English word god. We mostly use the word shen.”

  “Does it have the mountain character in it?” I ask.

  “No, it uses the radical for spirit. You mean xiān, meaning immortal. Yes, the mountain character is there. Perhaps because the Taoists associate gods with mountains.”

  “So do you feel gods in mountains? Or see mountains when you think of gods?” I ask.

  “The nuances are historical. If we are saying xiān—immortal—we aren’t really thinking about gods in the mountains. We are thinking of their immortality.”

  “So godliness and mountains don’t feel right together for you?”

  “What are you trying to get at?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, hesitating before explaining my desire to understand how mountains fit into Chinese cosmology. “Have you ever heard of phenomenology?” I eventually ask.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of the concept. But I must admit not knowing what it means.”

  “It means to paint the shape of a concept in all its lived experiences. How we experience something directly but also in words, or in images like the paintings we were talking about. Even in dreams. Wherever and however consciousness is.”

  “And what does phenomenology tell you?”

  “Many good stories. A phenomenology tells you what you know about a subject before you even begin thinking about it. Some say that phenomenologies even tell the story of how reality is made.”

  “And you?”

  “Yes, I believe this. Reality is made, and we can deconstruct its fabrication.”

  “So what do you conclude about gods and mountains?”

  “They must be connected deep in Chinese thought. China is a farming civilization, and water management has long been a feature of the civilization. Rivers have always been important. Especially their seasonal rises and falls, as well as their unexpected bursts that cause floods. The causalities of water flow had to receive special attention from the start. So the source of rivers, the impenetrable, inhospitable mountains that trapped the clouds, took on godly proportions.”

  “One of the greatest of Chinese classics, Journey to the West, is about a journey into the mountains,” Viv says. “It’s the story of a physical ascension but also implies a Buddhist spiritual ascension toward enlightenment. But the connections there now seem quaint—literary and historical.”

  “Behind today’s ideas,” I warn Viv, “there are always other ideas, older ones, long buried. Like hidden mountains with gods in them.”

  After lunch, the weather takes a turn for the worse and grey storm clouds threaten to bring rain to the Yangtze. Our ship stops at a river town and we are urged to go ashore. Cheap umbrellas are handed to us by the crew. Stone steps lead from the river’s edge to a series of temples up the hill. The steps have become slippery in the rain. Viv and I make our way up to a first temple compound about halfway up the hill only to find most of the complex closing because of the weather. Under the eaves of the buildings, vendors huddle, selling tourist trinkets. I find a food stand and stock up on snacks: tofu skins, shrimp chips and soy-soaked eggs. The rain falls harder.

  “I often prefer gardens to temples. Especially when there are old trees,” I say, looking about for ancient vegetation.

  “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much of that here. I suspect that this whole area was recently rebuilt for tourists. Maybe there’s nothing old or authentic about it at all.”

  It’s now pouring, so we agree to head back to the boat.

  Back on board, our fellow passengers grow familiar to us. We seem to share the restaurant with a revolving cast of characters, but one group is always present: a band of middle-aged men. They’re third-class passengers and are having a merry old time on the cruise.

  From mid-morning to late evening, they occupy one of the big central tables in the restaurant. They drink ample beer, chain-smoke cigarettes and engage in much revelry. The most boisterous of the lot is a rotund bronze-skinned chap with a shaved head and an eager toothless grin. He has the habit of rolling up his shirt to expose his bare nipples and big belly, a sure sign of relaxation in China.

  Every time we return to the restaurant, the bald jovialist seems a stronger presence, lording over his comrades, laughing louder, slapping the table, hea
rtily picking his teeth or nose. I imagine him as the foreman of a meat-packing facility or a heavy-equipment operator on a road crew. Whatever he does back on shore, I am sure it’s relentless, dirty, hard work. So with no responsibilities here and nothing but empty time to fill with beer and banter with his buddies, he’s in a great mood.

  Boat life casts a different spell over me. The confinement gets to me. The outside world grows distant and the journey stands in for life itself. As we move monotonously forward, the metaphor becomes real and the passage takes on a feeling of philosophical inevitability. Because I’m no captain of the ship and play no part in piloting us down the river, because I’m but a passive subject of the passage, a slight existential panic sets in: That life’s not just fleeting but empty. That I’m wasting it away, steadily proceeding toward death.

  My energy begins to falter, and long conversations with Vivien become more strained. I’m loath to burden her with my creeping funk and find it more and more difficult to simply move from deck to deck on the ship. The pointlessness of it freezes me. The scenery, the light, begin to feel oppressive. Even the presence of other people grows uncomfortable.

  I retreat to the cabin and set up my computer at the desk, intending to write. But in my gloom, inspiration is mostly absent and I turn to watching pirated DVDs, momentarily escaping my sorrowful existence with illusions. Occasionally, I look out the window. Across the room, through partially closed curtains, the harsh tones of the white sky are muted. With this frame, the vista is somewhat more bearable. Sometimes, with its mountains, bridges and myriad moving vessels, the view of the river is even beautiful. But I can’t look for long and quickly seek to harness my attention with still another bit of entertainment.

  Almost like a nurse, Viv checks in on me from time to time, sensing something weird about my predicament. “I’m meeting our fellow first-class passengers,” she tells me. “Across the hall is a family from Inner Mongolia. Three generations. The grandfather is a retired soldier. He’s a funny old guy, asking a lot of questions about you, wondering what you’re doing in here all day.”

  “Just tell him I’m writing,” I say.

  “He doesn’t understand why you would be writing here on the Yangtze. He spends his time quietly sitting on the front deck watching the scenery and eating peanuts.”

  “I have all the scenery I need through the window.”

  “You probably also noticed that the front cabins are suites. They have their own big windows facing forward. There’s a couple in one of them. The man has all the airs of a corrupt official. The woman is much younger than him—probably his mistress. They don’t come out of their cabin very much either.”

  “He irritates you, doesn’t he?” I can’t help but asking.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” she admits, “but still they get to me. He reminds me of my father. Once he became principal of his school and got power, he turned his back on my mother and found a much younger wife. This, after years of incessant preaching to me about virtuous conduct.”

  “Now I understand!” I exclaim, then add, “But people are the same everywhere. We’re monkeys, remember.”

  “Still, I hope for more. It seems to me that we can do better.”

  “That’s a good hope to have.”

  “I also spent time on the lowest deck,” she tells me. “There are a few very poor old men down there, sleeping on the wooden benches. They don’t have any luggage, or anything. I don’t think they paid to be on this ship, which is why they never leave the bottom deck. They’re probably homeless migrants, moving around looking for work wherever they can, begging for rice as they go. What saddens me is how old they are. They’re at the end of their lives, with nothing. You would think they would have families to look after them or something.”

  As I listen to her impassively, she suddenly changes the subject. “Hey, don’t you want to get out of this cabin?”

  “No, thanks. I’m good here,” I say.

  “Don’t you find it depressing to stay in here all the time?”

  “I am depressed. This boat, this river, are giving me the blues. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’ll see you for dinner.”

  “Okay, then. See you later,” she says.

  I put sad music on in an effort to restore romance to the journey, to make my pathetic predicament feel more like a grand tragedy. Gazing out the window, I notice the repeated use of markers to indicate the water level. These are like giant rulers up against the steep riverbanks. At one spot, I can see that the mark indicates that the water level is at just below 130 metres; the measure goes up to 175 metres. I’m not sure if the marks started at zero, but the ruler disappearing into the waters alludes to great depths beneath.

  Apparently, much of the flooded landscape was bulldozed and dynamited before the waters began to rise. I imagine homes and structures down there beneath the opaque café-au-lait waters. Beyond the markers, there is no indication of a transition between submerged areas and the areas above. No roads descending into the river. No partially submerged structures. Nothing to remind one of a world that has ceased to exist.

  I think of my experiences clearing forest. The moment you bring the trees down, the light and openness created are a little shocking, even disturbing. But if all the fallen trees are quickly sawed up and removed, it’s not long before you cannot draw a mental picture of the forest that once stood there; it’s as if it never existed. The cool, moist darkness it brought cannot be imagined and thus can scarcely be missed.

  That night I find myself sleepless. The boat is again stopped and moored. They are really dragging this cruise out. I decide to wander around the boat while everything is quiet and almost everyone is asleep. Maybe I’ll bump into some ghosts.

  I quickly realize that access to both the front and back decks is barred by locked doors, so I head downstairs. A slumbering hostess gives me a disapproving look as I pass the lobby, but apart from lifting her head from the counter, she doesn’t budge. I keep going down. With the motors silenced, the bottom deck is much quieter. I smell cigarette smoke and hear crewmen chatting on the moored side of the boat. I slip to the other side to look out at the river—or rather, at the reservoir. In the distance, a few lights indicate the passage of ships.

  The lights are permanently on in the fourth-class passenger cabins. One of Viv’s frail old men is there, splayed out asleep on a hard wooden bench. His short pant legs are hiked up, revealing bony ankles and feet bare except for worn-out flip-flops. Instead of rejoicing that I’m far better off than him, that my life is not as pointless as his, my mood flattens everything and I fail to see the difference between me and him. What says I will enjoy any more comforts or purpose than him when I reach his age? And what will the comforts of life matter when we both reach our final destination?

  I lumber back up to my cabin and bed, if not to sleep then to lie there in the darkness, hoping to fight off any visions that might come.

  The next morning our ship is moving again. Over breakfast, Viv tells me that later that day the ship will again be moored and there will be an expedition on smaller boats up a tributary of the Yangtze that offers beautiful scenery.

  “They’re called the Little Three Gorges,” she explains, “and, apparently, they’re like the Yangtze was before the floods.”

  “You go. I’ll stay here,” I quickly say.

  “Come on. It’ll do you good,” she says.

  “How do you know what will do me good?” I almost snap.

  “Okay, don’t come then.”

  While Vivien is off on the expedition, I lie down to catch up on the missed sleep of the night before. But the muggy weather, the bright light and the unmoving ship make for sickly slumbers and feverish dreams, uncomfortably close to reality.

  The same boat, the same cabin, the same shouting of crewmen accompany me as I float through the dream space. Then I find myself struggling up the gravel embankment of a giant construction site, as vast as an open mine. As I climb, the unstable grou
nd impedes my progress and I seem to be sliding down more than moving up—much to my dismay, as some vague threat awaits me at the bottom.

  Is it the noisy construction machinery that I fear below or simply that I shouldn’t be in this zone? I can’t tell. Then I find myself on the wrong side of an imposing security fence. Vivien is on the other side, telling me that I shouldn’t be there. I am responding angrily that I know and that I want to get to the other side but can’t. I make an attempt to scale the fence and find the razor wire on top tearing at my clothes, making it impossible for me to snake through. Agitated Chinese guards arrive to shout at me. There’s suddenly the notion that the fence is electric and that I’m snagged only inches from the live wire.

  Enough of this! I force myself awake to find myself drenched in sweat. The rest of the afternoon, I lie in bed with my eyes open.

  Vivien returns from her expedition in a splendid mood. “I needed that,” she tells me when she pops into my cabin. “The Little Three Gorges were absolutely beautiful. Pristine. Like there is hope!”

  “Yeah, I can see why they are so keen on conducting tours there.”

  “The mountains were so steep on either side. The air in the canyon was pleasant and cool. I hate to say it, but you probably should’ve come. It might have helped your mood.”

  “Probably. Instead, I stayed in bed to be tormented by unpleasant dreams. We need to get off this boat upon the River Styx.”

  “Styx?”

  “A river from Greek mythology. It flows between the kingdom of the living and the dead,” I explain.

  “We’ll be finished with it tomorrow morning.”

  In the final leg of its journey, our boat breaks through the mountains onto what appears to be a wide lake. The lake ends at the Three Gorges Dam, but there’s no sign of it across the waters. Instead, the ship turns toward the shore and docks at a large modern terminal where several similar boats are already moored. We are ushered toward tour buses that will bring us first to the dam and then Yichang, a large city on the other side. As we approach the dam it’s still veiled by the blasted white haze so common in China, which denies us a complete view of the structure. Its massive size is enhanced as it fades into white.