The End of the End

It’s my final day here and I’m so sad to leave but so happy that I’ve gotten the opportunity to visit this wonderful place. I’ve seen many different people along the river as well, and they all live very different lives, even though they all live along the same river at the same time. As I pack my bags I can’t help remembering seeing so many families that depend on the river and I have have seen how well the can keep their own and protect their families by working hard, and using the Yangtze river the their advantages. I have seen the rice farmers work with it and work hard at that with angles for children, and I have seen the animal sanctuary owner where a man can protect those animals for a living and give them such a beautiful place to be. I still can’t believe the life that their are living and that it can give them so much for all they do everyday. Even though I have only gone through this small part of the end of the Yangtze river and I have learned so much. I have seen so many things and learned a lot in this short amount of time that I have been traveling through the Yangtze River. I can’t wait till I can come back again. I hope that more people can live a life with an equal amount of passion that the owner had. In addition to the amazing hard working attitude that the rice farming family had. I can only dream about the day where everyone can have the mind set like they do.

The Animal Sancuarty

I left at dawn to be able to travel to my next destination. I sailed along the river and watched the beauty of the sunrise. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it, the colors were so beautiful and they all perfectly blended into the light blue sky that as you turned around the sky would become a perfect dark navy blue. The sky blended into the river as I saw my destination in the distance. An animal sanctuary. We sailed into the dock and l got off. I walked up to the door as the owner came to greet me. We walked together inside as I put my things down. We chatted for a while before he offered to give me a tour. I agreed and we walked around the building. I notice that everything was very organized. Lucky for me is was a small building so we would soon get outside. We left out the back door as he told me about how it was started. It was quite a good story, starting back when he was a boy. He had an extent love to animals so he always wanted to help them stay alive. All of his live he has been working hard to keep them around and he is finally able to do so. I was very inspired and so happy that he could do it for a living. We walked around and I could see all his hard work. From the hand painted fences to the beautiful landscape. I saw many aquatic animals including the siberian crane, finless porpoise, river sturgeon, and a  baiji dolphin and a lot of fish. I’m so glad that all of them a happy.

The Rice Farm

I been traveling for I while finally I’m here. I was warmly greeted and quickly was ushered to a seat for dinner. Their food was delicious and I watched as all their children kept the house clean and all did their chores. Everyone fell asleep at sunset and woke up at sunrise. I followed the children as the got ready for the day. I walked with the parents to their rice farm. I watched for only a short time before they invited me to join them. I walked into the field and watched them work swiftly and quickly. They handed me one of their cutting tool that I couldn’t quite get the name of. I watched to see how they did it and tried it myself. I was easy yet really hard to get the hang of it. I tried by always cut it too short of too long. I watched as they easily cut dozens of bunches quickly while I could barely cut a dozen correctly. After what felt like forever they finally said that they had enough to go back home and separate the rice. I barely have half a basket full when they had two almost overflowing. I walked back so tired with my half basket and sore aching back while the children were finishing with their chores. They were surprisingly still had energy to play. I help them cook dinner and set the table. I watched as the girls helped their mom cook and was amazed of how much they knew and could do for how young they all were. Finally it was time to eat. I was so hungry. After we ate I know knew why they always went to bed a sunset, because they were so tired from a whole day worth of work and chores and they had to wake up at sunrise the next morning to do more work and chores.

The Begining of the End

Salutations, my name is Trixie. I’m an explorer and been traveling along Yangtze River. I’m traveling during the Jin Dynasty. I have not been traveling here long, but I did pass through the other areas in the river to truly get the full idea of it’s beauty and culture. I am currently exploring the end of the river, Nanjing to Shanghai. I have found the end of the river most exciting and beautiful. The Yangtze river flows all in China and empties into the East China Sea. I’m traveling along the end of the river so I can learn about the culture, what they do, and how they live. The river is very important to many different people for many different reasons. The used the river for many things. The used the river for crops. They grew many crops along the river, some of the crops that they grew were rice. Lots of rice. They  also grew cotton, barley, wheat, maize, and beans. Lots of different animals use the river too. Some of the animals that used the river are the Chinese alligator, Chinese paddlefish, finless porpoise, and the Yangtze River dolphin. I’ve see many parts of the river along my travels but the end is always the best. I am currently traveling to see a nice family that is willing to let me stay at their humble home for a day to see what live is like for them. I will go as soon as I finish packing, I hope to see them before dusk. I do not want to keep them waiting too long for me to come.

GOOD NIGHT

At that night I had a dream that I was still in the church. I looked around and I didn't think this was a dream. When I was at the hotel I was sleeping and I was the only one there. I looked at one of the widows and saw that it was morning. I looked to the left and I saw the priest staring at me. I looked at him and i said, “Um gotta go”. He moved out of the way and said, “GET OUT OF MY CHURCH!” He shoved me out of the building and I was surprised that It was super early, I still had time. So I headed to Andy’s house and I knocked on his door. He came out with his shirt off and said “hold on a sec.” I waited a couple minute and he came out the door with very nice silk cloth. I asked him where he got it and all he said is “I found it”. He asked me why I was sleeping. I responded with a little giggle. We started to travel to wuhan. When we got there We saw a lot of smoke.(did you know china was polluted). Andy lead me to this giant church filled with a lot of people. There was meat po waiting to talk to us. He told us about his how people all over the world love the dragon show they put on, on tuesdays and the food that he loves and the food that he make (all of the foods he loves are the foods he makes). We worship with him until it was time to leave china. I was headed back to where I lived. THE END.

The Broken

It was about 8:58 when I got there and everyone was talking. (I dont know why he was getting married here but well I don’t care) the priest told us to take a seat. I sat in the third row. Next to me was a very nice guy named Ping. I think he was Andy’s father. So that would mean that Andy was here. I looked around for him and I saw a lot of old people. So I kept looking around and I saw Andy in the 5th row. I quickly waved at him, he just looked and said “Sup”. (I heard that back then they did not get married. They would just have relationships) My eyes started to close and I started to doze off. I awoke when I heard people opening the door to get out of the building. The other person next to me told me to move. I moved so he could get out. “Hey at least my brother didn't notice me”, I said to myself. By then when I walked out the door I wasn't as tired as I was when I walked into the building. When I looked at the moon it was midnight. I had to find a hotel. So I found a hotel about 2 hours later and the cashier was half asleep. I woke him up and I checked in. Then he gave me the keys. I went into my room and it was a mess. cloths all over the floor. I looked at the bed and said “Well at least the bed was made”.

The wonder

2 days later I start on my journey again but this time to Wuhan. But when I get there the first couple things I say are “THIS PLACE IS BEAUTIFUL”. I saw a lot of nice people. I'm walking down the path and I’m like “HOLY COW MOO MILK, THIS PLACE IS AMAZING!” Andy calls me over to see a statue of a man. I said “I have never seen this person”. He tells me that it is the Mao statue. It is one of the three Mao statues and these are spread all over Yichang. Tomorrow I want you to meet Meat Po. Meat Po is a priest. He is also super nice and kind. If you were poor he would give you free food and maybe let you live in his house for a little while. Really that is nice of him. I might go and visit him. You know maybe get some rice. “Ya sure,” said Andy. “OH ya and i will “Meat” with you tomorrow, get it MEAT,” I said.

“No I don’t get it”, said Andy. “You know because his name is MEAT,” I said. Oh ya I guess. Well I guess I just embarrassed myself. “Now I think he won't meet me tomorrow.” At this time it is about  8:30 pm and I am pretty tired running around all day. But of course my brother was getting married this night and i had to be there. It started at 9:00 pm and I was pretty tired. By now the time was 8:40 pm. “Hey at least its super close, but i better start running”. I said.  

The beginning

Hello my name is Dempsey and I'm going to be traveling from Jiangzhou to Wuhan. This is going to be fun. If you had heard of Jiangzhou, you would know that it is a big city and there are a lot of people there. I thought this would be a good place to start because of that. I am going to one of my friends to help me with this journey. His name is Andy I'm going to meet him in the biggest building in Jiangzhou at early in the morning.  The next day when I meet him he shows me a map about where we are going. 1 hour after I meet him we start going to Yangtze. We visit this guy named Jian Mae he sells lots of food like rice and wheat. Millet, corn, buckwheat, potato, sweet potato and many kinds of legumes. I was going to get some rice and maybe some sweet potatoes. If you don't know what a legume is, it is a kind of crop. It’s a seed and it tastes AMAZING. It is about 24º F. Later I start on the road (that was metaphorically). My first stop is a place called Wuhan but that is pretty far away.

The Fantastic Finish

Today I am making my way to my final destination, the Lijiang Junmin prefecture. Before I go on the last leg of the journey I am being told by many people that the crops this year are bringing many profits and are abundant. Some of the most abundant crops were cotton and rice. to see what I was than her be up against I went to one of the local villagers called Borer the Great. Borer the Great told me that cotton was introduced from Hainan island into central China. Cotton flowers were collected, then the pits were removed, and then they were beaten loose with bamboo bows which I thought was very cool. After that they were drawn into yarns and weaved into cloth. They called this cloth Jibei. The cotton Jibei that they made had a great variety, the cloth had great width , often dyed into brilliant colors. If you stitched up two pieces of Jibei you can make a bedspread, stitching four pieces of Jibei would make a curtain. One other thing they used to make linen was something called Hemp. Independent farms flourished in the Mount Dongting region because of it. The weird thing though, was that the farmers there didn’t make a living on farmland, but instead they grew mulberry trees and bread silkworm to harvest silk. Also, the Jin Dynasty also flourished on tea, it almost tripled the Tang Dynasty in the amount it had. By the time he finished telling a story I had to be on my way. On my way there I found out that everything he said was true. At last my journey is complete and I have to get back into the Jin dynasty’s territory. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of new things on this journey and I definitely wish to come back. THE END.

The River of Facts

Today I’m halfway through my journey and I am starting to wonder what powers this river holds. Some of the things I already know are that the Yangtze River is one of the busiest rivers in a large area, I would say in the world that I don’t know if that’s accurate. One of the other cool facts I know about the Yangtze River is that the Tiger Leaping Gorge on the upper Yangtze is the deepest gorge in the world with mountains towering 4000 m above it. There is also The Three Gorges which is a beautiful site. I don’t know when or if I will be able to visit this place, but if I could, I would visit the Fengdu ghost city, also known as the home of the devil, a town of tombs and temples. One other thing about the Yangtze River is that it is the third longest river in the world, but it is the longest river within a single country. It has the highest source of any of the world’s major rivers at over 5000 m above sea level. The Yangtze River goes over the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shanghai from west to east. More information about The Three Gorges is that they are called Qutang, Xiling, and Wu. I think it is very cool how all of these things are just for this one river and I think that they Yangtze River is an amazing river.

Rock Carvings

Today I have journeyed farther down the Yangtze River and have discovered some more Intel for the Jin Dynasty. I have discovered that they are Buddhists and that they are definitely very committed to their religion. I know this because I saw some stone carvings on a rock wall and I was wondering what it was. I went to ask a local he said that there were over 50,000 sculptures with a 100,000 Chinese characters of inscriptions. Most of them were made in Bei Shan and are still there. They are very precise we handcrafted which makes me wonder if they did the same with their weapons. It is said that soon they are going to make a lot of sculptures here, nearly 10,000, and that would be one of the most impressive carvings. There is one group of sculptures that is 500 meters long and is on an overhang. one of the most sculpted characters is Kwanyin, the goddess of mercy. These Dazu rock carvings were high up on a mountain so I had to climb up the trail to get there, but when I got there, people inviting me to pray with them. They were very nice and kind which might be a weakness, they might be too open to visitors, or too kind to visitors. When I got back down I noticed a shop that opened up that were selling some small little stone carvings I decided to buy one just as a souvenir. After that I had to be on my way again, but there was one other thing that I have to do before I left that looked like a lot of fun, I jumped into the Yangtze River and just started swimming around. I always remember that memory of how kind they were, and how committed  to their religion they were.  

The Secret

Hi, my name is Tyrone Jr and I am here on my journey down the Yangtze river. My journey is starting in the town of Jiangzhou and ending in the town of Lijiang Junmin prefecture. I am part of the amazing and powerful Jin dynasty and the year is 1169. I am a spy from the Jin Dynasty because the place I am exploring is controlled by the Song Dynasty, I am here to learn who lives here, how many people there are, what’s her geography, if they have any natural defenses, what they eat, if they have any weaknesses, what religions they belong to and how committed they are to their religion, what transportation they had, and how did they use the river. Even though the Jin dynasty is the more powerful dynasty the song Dynasty has control of this area which is why I have to be a spy. but the song are getting more powerful and they might just take over the Jin Dynasty. I’m starting my journey at Jiangzhou which sits close to the Tibetan plateau and is on the Yangtze River which has a moist climate zone. In January, February, and March, it is about 20°F to 36°F, but then in April, May, June, July, August, September, and October it springs all the way up to 92°F to 175°F, but then November and December go back to 46°F to 25°F. I don’t have a lot of information so far, I can’t find anything good, but I did manage to find some good facts about the river here think that it was used for transportation and was very important for food and also helped a lot a little bit for defense.

This the end

Day 4: END OF MY JOURNEY: I have moved on to the city of Lijiang. Today I will be visiting three houses. In each house there will be a family. Each family will believe in one of the three main religions. Buddhism, Taoism and lastly I will visit a family who believe in comfusism. Today I will be visiting the buddhist family. I arrived at the family to ask them a couple of questions. As buddhist they welcomed me with very warming comfort. I gave them some situations and I want to see how they will react depending on their religions. First, If someone takes your goods after you buy them what would you do. He said that he would ask him to give back the things in a polite manner because if you did not and you decided to get them back with brute force or violence then you will get bad consequences and be punished in the afterlife. As buddha has said  “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” He said he lives by that quote and he can emajin buddha saying that to me.Taoism House #2 I visited the second family, I asked them what they will do if someone was very kranky. The mother said that she would do everything in her power to make his day better and to calm him down. They think that harmony is the most important factor in life. Lastly I visited The third family which was the comfushism family. I told them that their son was not listening to his father, what would you do. He said that he would leave for a little while but his son would never do that because that is not respectful.

PANDA

Day 3: Laow loves pandas: After they told me about their crops, the wonderful family invited me to a peaceful dinner. I learned that they have rice at every meal. I found that very cool because I love to eat meat and so at every meal I have some type of steak or something. I realised that every farmer’s enemy are animals. The ones that eat all of their crops and they are almost impossible to keep out. He told me that there are a lot of animals that are all are fascinating but one animal is called the Siberian crane. They migrate from yangtze to Siberia. It migrates this rout to catch fish and molluscs. The father whose name is Laow, his favorite animal that lives around his house is the giant panda. He gave me a drawing:

He gave me a picture and he said that his kids were being not giving him respect so in the confucian way, he went outside for a calm walk and he saw this cute panda and since they are going extinct he decided to savor the memory and draw the panda. He says that the panda inspired him to keep on working hard your whole life and to never give up. I asked him if he would be happy if he was the emperor. He told me that it would be nice to be emperor Wudi but he is happy that he earned his place in this world and that almost nothing was given to him for free.

All about that plant life

Day 2: All About that farm life  : I slept at Mr. Po’s house that night and I just thought about what I have gotten myself into. I could have chosen the hudson river, but noooo, I had to do something adventurous. That morning I decided to go to a famous bar in the middle of a town called the Lotus Blossom. When I was walking there I passed some very interesting farms that intrigued my interest. I walked around to the front of the property and I saw a cute hut that I assumed that that is where the property owners lived. I lugged my pack to the front door and I knocked in a polite manner. Because they probably have never seen an awesome purple derp guy with a pig nose in there life. The kind family opened the door and were startled at first. I used my awesome language skills to figure out that they are poor bamboo farmers or that they loved to slip on bananas but I think it is most likely the first one. He also said that he grew dove trees. The nice family invited me in to their lovely home and gave me a cup of green tea to sip on while I ask him a couple of questions. I asked him all about his lifestyle and he told me a couple of cool facts about farming. First, I learned that the dove tree takes 6 to 8 years to grow flowers and 10 to 15 years to grow fruit  that we can eat.

Mr. Po and Wudi

Day 1: I meet Po: Hello, my name is Tyrone and I am traveling the world and I am visiting the Yangtze river. Currently, the Jin dynasty is ruling. I am going to be visiting a certain part of the river. I will be visiting the start of the Yangtze river all the way to Lijiang. I think it will be a very exciting journey. When I arrived here I learned a couple of very important things about the dynasty I am traveling in. First of all I learned that there is an Eastern jin dynasty that ranged from 265-316. The man that told me this wonderful fact is named Hye Po. He is a wonderful man I met on my travels here. He happens to live on the source of the Yangtze river. The Yangtze river happen to be the exact point in which I will be starting my journey. How do you feel about our loved emperor Wudi’s death. I know how it is very hard to lose an emperor but It seems like an emperor dies every week. Hye: I think that he was a very good emperor and by the way he ruled from 236-290. I think he was a good emperor because for one thing he was a good strong general from the army which shows that he is bold and has guts. I think he was a good emperor because he attempted to reform the government which was a good idea because it disbanded his armies and lowered costs. All and all I think he was a good emperor.