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The
Culture & Custom in Three Gorges |
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| KonglingTan
& "driving toward me "
When
a ship passes KonglingTan during the dry seasons, three Chinese characters
which read "driving toward me "can be seen on the rock at the
bottom of "Dazhu". The three characters reflect the dangerous
and miserable life of the boatmen. The flow in KonglingTan is rapid and
chaotic, because of thick reefs. Facing the rushing current and strange
rocks in the middle of the river, nonexperienced boatman dodged in all the
directions. However, they were always rushed towards the rockwall by the
backflow and collapsed.As the time elapsed, the boatmen finally gleaned an
experience through the long process of fighting .
It is
that when navigating the ship to this place, in order to avoid the reef
and get out of the danger, at first one had to pointed the stem towards
the jagged rode at the bottom of " Dazhu" and then took the
advantage of thrust generated by the back flow .The jagged rock was named
by " driving towards me " which is a trial of every boatman's
daring. There is a thoughtful story about the rock. On December 27, 1900,
at the time of bitter winter and during the dry seasons, a Germany ship
named passed here. Facing the dangerous terrain and rough sea, the captain
was frightened out of his wits and could find no way out. The Germans had
no way and changed a Chinese navigator to operate the rudder. The Chinese
navigator, who was quite familiar with the boat routines, drove toward the
jagged rock according to the rule. The foreign captain didn't understand
this action, but thought that the Chinese was deliberately destroying and
he avoided the jagged rock. In a flash moment, a strong flow over attacked
"ShanZhu", the ship collapsed with the submerged reef and sank.
According to the recorded historical materials, the shipping business,
which only lasted for three years, was forced to be shut off for nine
years.
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The Ancient
Plank Rood Along The Daning River
Along the rock wall by the right bank of the Daning River, the holes
arranged horizontally. The small ordered square stone holes arranged from
Longmen Gorge to Ningchanggu town in the Wu Gorge with the number of more
than 6800 altogether. According to some concerning historical records,
this was built in the 7th year of Eternal Peace period in Han Dynasty (64
A.D) with the use of drawing salty water from Ningchang to the Wu Gorge by
bamboos. Later because of the stop of the projects on drawing salty water
it was used as plank rood. Also the folktales said that it was used in
ancient war, for instance Songtaizu(the first emperor of song dynasty)
sent out the army to suppress Shu (a small nation next Song Dynasty's
boundary),but Xiegang betrayed Tang Dynasty, and ZhangXianzhong entered
Sichuan province and they all used this plank road . It was connected with
zhuxi in Hubei province to the east, zhenping in Shanxi province to the
north, and Chengkou County to the west. These Plank roads formed the
ancient plank road web which was as long as several thousand kilometers
.It can be estimated that this plank road web played an important role
politically, militarily, economically and culturally for this region in
the ancient times, Its broad scale, tremendous project and dangerous
geography could apparently share the beauty with the famous Jiange Plank
Road. As for this huge project, when on the earth it was firstly built,
how the construction was undertaken, who proposed to build it, how long
the project last for, and what it was mainly used for have left so many
solicitudes. It provides the travelers with involvement and research
programs for archeological association.
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Zongzi
Eating Rice
Dumpling and Dragon Boats Competition At the time of May 5th in
lunar calendar there is a tradition of eating rice dumplings and
dragon boats competitions prevailing all through the country. This
hereditary tradition is to honor Quyuan, a well-known ancient
Chinese official.Why on the earth is this convention popular in
China?he reason can be found in an interesting story,which is
popular in Quyuan's hometown. After Quyuan drowned in the Miluo
River, his country fellows suddenly dreamed one night that he came
back.
He work the same clothes he wore when he was alive, but there was
a bit of misery and paleness of his complexion. The country
fellows with great happiness and saluted him. Quyuan said with the
back solution," Thanks for your warmth, Chu country's people
are so clear about what to love and to hate, and haven't forget me
yet, I have no regrets in spite of my death." People found
out that Quyuan was much weaker than before during reminiscing the
bygones, so they asked concernedly: "Quyuan, did you take the
rice that we sent for you?" " Thank you ", Quyuan
appreciated at first, then sighed: "It was a pity that the
rice you had sent for me was eaten by the aquatic animals such as
fish, shrimp, tortoise and clam". The countrymen were all
worried by hearing that: "What can we do to make the aquatic
animals not to eat it?" After while, Quyuan said: "if
the rice balls were covered by bamboo leaves and made into shapes
with sharp horns the aquatic animals wouldn't care to eat them
because they would take them as water chestnuts". At the next
Dragon Boat Festival the countrymen made a lot of horned rice
dumplings covered with bamboo leaves and cast them into the river.
But after the Dragon Boat Festival, they dreamed Quyuan as he
said: "I have taken many horned rice dumpling that you sent
for me, but there were still a lot which were grabbed by the
aquatic animals ". All people asked him again: " Is
there any other better method? " Quyuan answered: " The
method is that you add the signals of dragon to the dumplings when
you casting them, because the aquatic animals are all in the
charge of Dragon king. They will think of them as the Dragon
King's sending and dare not snatch them at the sight of the
beating of drums and the blare of trumpets from every side and the
paddle's churning." The horned rice dumplings are today's
Zhongzi. From then on, the custom of making the Zhongzi and
paddling the dragon boats at the Dragon Boat Festival was extended
from Quyuan's hometown to the whole country. |
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The
Legend of Goddess Peak
In the ancient times the 23rd daughter of the immortal Queen of
the heaven named Yaoji lived in the Yaochi palace. She learned
various fairy crafts and was entitled Madam Yuanhua. Yaoji was
born active and surely couldn't endure such lonely life in the
celestial palace. One day she finally left the celestial palace
and roamed the Donghai Sea with the accompany of her attendants.
However, when she saw the strong winds and furious waves causing
sever disaster for the human being, she left out of the Donghai
Sea and mounted the clouds westwards. On the way she flied over
thousands of mountains and ridges and appreciated all the
fantastic views of the man's world. How happy they felt! When they
got to the sky over the Mt. Wushan covered by boundless clouds and
rains, they say 12 dragons stirring up trouble and causing damage
to people. Yaoji got so furious that she determined to get rid of
dragons and disaster for mankind.hus she stopped moving clouds and
pointed at the dragons slightly. Then the roar of thunder was
heard, the quake of the earth and mountains was seen. Till the
winds and wines waves down, the carcasses of the 12 dragons had
turned into 12 mountains Which flocked up the Wu Gorge, congested
the Yangtze River, mate the surging flood over flew to the fields
and residence and changed the zone of Sichuan nowadays to a
boundless ocean .In order to bring the flood disaster under
control, the hero Xiayu who was good at dealing with flood came to
the Yangtze River from the Yellow River immediately. However, it
was not so easy to take the manner if clearing the mountains and
dredging the flood under the condition of such nigh mountains and
swift flood. when Xiayu was extremely anxious, Yaoji was moved by
his indomitable spirit, called on Huangmo, Tongjing and some other
4 assistants to exhibit their fairy crafts and to help Xiayu
dredge the Three Gorges watercourse and let flood flow smoothly
into the Donghai Sea. When Xiayu knew the fairy had helped him
secretly, he climbed onto the Mt. Wu to thank Yaoji for her
assistance. Getting to the top, he surprisingly found out a tall
and erect blue stone. After a while it turned into a wisp of blue
smoke and rose slowly, then into flocks of blue clouds, fast and
thickly falling and floating dragons, colorful phoenixes, white
cranes flying among mountains and valleys. As Xiayu was surprised,
beautiful Yaoji appeared suddenly in front of him. She said:
"you are creditable for dealing with the flood, but you
should comprehend the changing causes of the things over the
world". As saying so, she took out of a precious book covered
with yellow sick fabric on handling with the disaster, and
presented it to Xiayu. Although the flood has been brought under
contort, Yaoji didn't leave but still stand firmly on the top of
the Mt. Wu pointing out the courses for the passing ships, getting
rid of dangers for people, summoning winds and rains for mankind,
planting precious herbs for medicating. Year after year, she had
forgotten the heaven as well as herself and finally turned into
the attractive Goddess Peak, and her assistants also turned into
several mountains just like natural barriers and warriors, quietly
guarding around the goddess .The legend of the Goddess Peak
spreads extensively with all kinds of forms .The ancient people
around Mt. Wu called her "Miaoyong zhenren"(means
ingenious person) respectfully in order to commemorate the goddess
in their hearts and set up a NingzhenTemple (the Goddess Temple )
for her at the foot of the Mt. Filing Phoenix. |
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Dangled
Coffin
On the east bank of the Bawu Gorge, there is a rectangular hole
located about 4 or 5 hundred meters high at a yellowish- brown
cliff, in which a pitch-dark coffin is placed. That's
"Dangled Coffin" More than 2000 years ago Dangled
-coffin burial was the customary burial manner of Pu race Who
dwelled on the zone of Daning River. As result of textual research
in Chuqiu zhanuwo period, the people made the coffin after their
parents passing away and located it in the hole at the middle of
the mountain facing the river, and lung the dead body from the top
of the mountain. The higher the coffin located more dutiful the
descendants appeared to be .The Danged -coffin Tower was built on
the other bank of the river, where travelers can an get off the
ship and land to appreciate the Bawu Gorge dangled coffins by
high-degree telescopes.
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Longgu Slope
Ancient Ape-men's site
Longgu Slope Ancient Ape-men's site stands at Longgu Slope, Longping
village, Miaoyu town, Wushan County, and takes up about 700 square meters.
It was discovered in 1986. People found here the jaw bone fossils as well
as soores of fossils which was the same level as the human being's,
fossils of the Giant Monkey, the sword-toothed Tiger, the Double -horned
Rhinoceros and so on. As a result of textual research, these fossils
belonged to former renew century, 2,040,000 ago. This great discovery
fills the gap of Chinese ancient human being's fossils, and has an
extremely important scientific value in the research of the human beings
origin and the history of Three-River Valley's development.
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Daxi cultural site
Daxi cultural site, located at the eastern outlet of the Qutang Gorge, the
Daxi town at the bank of Daning Rivers wide valley, is the origin of the
Yangtze River's ancient culture. It's the important site of China's
matriarchal New Stone Age. Guomo'ruo called it as " Daxi culture
". On the west of Daxi town, which belongs to Wushan county, there is
a stream flowing into Yangtze River .It is named " Daixi"
because of its dark green water. There are vast and mighty waters in the
flood season, so it's also called "Daxi". |
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