Today our hotel-boat stopped\u00a0at yet another Chinese tourist attraction along the Yangtze – Fengdu Ghost City. The moment I set my foot on the ground I kept asking myself – to which ghost city do they refer? Is it the 2000 years old collection of pagodas and bizarre statues depicting scenes from the afterlife?<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n
Or the present life collection of what used to be the real city of Fengdu?<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_1_placeholder\n
Seems that the Chinese tourists do not care much about the real Fengdu,\u00a0dismantled by hand, brick by brick, only to be built higher on the other side of the Yangtze.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_2_placeholder\n
They rush up the mountain in guided groups to get a glimpse of afterlife, something that the Chinese don’t do usually – they are mainly busy cultivating their current life.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_3_placeholder\nngg_shortcode_4_placeholder\n
For me, the real story takes place right on the banks of the Yangtze, where water level gradually go up due to the construction of the “Three Gorges Dam”. Seen from above, a new river bank is already being built, while the remains of the city are still there<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_5_placeholder\n
I spend the rest of the time left till the boat leaves wandering around, in a place that seems\u00a0as if it was hit by earth-quake. People seem lost. Dead Men Living.I was told that some of Fengdu residents were relocated to the new city across the river, but others were relocated thousands of kilometers away to East China.<\/p>\n
Those who are still here try to make a living from the tourists that still bring life to the place.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_6_placeholder\n
Looking at this symbolic sight I could, for a moment, imagine that these people are planting, rather than\u00a0uprooting this tree…<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_7_placeholder\n
So there’s a city\u00a0which is a tribute to the afterlife, that survives the colossal dam project, while the present life city and its people are forced to get their afterlife in another place.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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A casual stop at a touristic site along the Yangtze river turns into a journey in a city being dismantled brick by brick. The Yangtze water level is rising due to the Three Gorges Dam construction, local people of Fengdu are relocated, their real city becomes a Ghost City, while tourists rush to see the other Ghost City that lies above – a tribute to the afterlife. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[16,42,55,80,59],"class_list":["post-5865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-east-asia","tag-architecture","tag-people","tag-tourism","tag-urban-exploration","tag-water"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5865"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5873,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865\/revisions\/5873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guyshachar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}