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Recording the end of an era in China

Residents being relocated from the Three Gorges Dam area, by Huang Chengping. PHOTO COURTESY OF RHYTHMS MONTHLY

By the time you read this, the waters of the Yangtze River (長江) have risen up to 135m above sea-level because of China's new Three Gorges Dam (三峽大壩), marking the beginning of the final stage of construction of the world's biggest hydro-electric project.

When completed in 2009, it will have cost over US$25 billion. The 26 generators at the Three Gorges Hydropower Plant will have a capacity of 18,200 megawatts, 40 percent more than that of the Paraguayan-Brazilian Itaipu, the biggest hydropower plant at present.

To make way for the 39.3 billion square meters, 1.13 million residents from 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,300 villages in Hubei and Sichuan provinces were forced to relocate before the their hometowns were submerged in water.

The Three Gorges scenery, which has inspired numerous poets throughout history, has been changed forever by the "Great Wall on the Yangtze River."

Since construction started on the dam in 1993, media from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, have documented the historical project. There have been TV documentaries on the waves of relocation and the dam's spectacular construction, and written accounts of the project have multiplied.

In San Xia Ji (三峽記), a new book by dozens of photographers and writers across the Taiwan Strait, the dam is seen in an archeological, geographical and technological light, in relation to Chinese literature and the history of national heroes.

To accompany the book's launch last Tuesday, a photo exhibition showed various aspects of the landmark. The 80 medium-scale photos were taken mostly by photographers working on the Three Gorges Dam for a long time, including Zheng Yufeng (鄭雲峰), a freelance Chinese photographer who has been working on the project for seven years, and is still shooting there now.

A self-appointed witness to the dam project, Zheng has produced, from his rented fishing boat, memorable images of both journalistic significance and high aesthetic standards. His ingeniously composed pictures of the Yangtze River serve as a solemn commemoration of the breathtaking landscape that will never be the same.

Zhou Hao (周浩), another Chinese photographer who is exhibiting, documented the last festival at Zhang Fei (張飛) Temple in Sichuan's Yunyang (雲陽), before the reservoir started operating on June 1. The picture of crowded worshippers' faces reflecting the surrounding red candlelight captures the subtle emotions of the Yunyang residents in their last ever community event.

Captions for the images of relocating residents are mostly sorrowful, even indulgent and sentimental, which is a pity for an exhibition aiming to bear objective witness to a historic project.

Among the selection of photographs are well known Chinese documentary photographer Yang Yankang's (楊延康) portraits of local legend Tan Bangwu (譚邦五), a 91-year-old captain leading a group of chianfus, or river-side workers, who guided boats through the rock-scattered Sichuan section of the Yangtze river. For thousands of years, chianfus were a vital part of the Yangtze scene, but have been made redundant by the dam. If a single image can round up the impact of the Three Gorges Dam, it's probably this aged former captain rowing ahead, the hazy Yangtze waters behind him.

San Xia Ji photo exhibition will run until July 25 at Tzuchi (慈濟) Foundation Songshan Branch, 16F, No. 188, Nanjing E Rd, Sec 5, Taipei. (台北市105松山區南京東路5段188號16樓).
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