Huckleberry Finn on the Li River

Huck Finn loved to explore the Mississippi river by raft. We decided to try our luck at adventure by booking three spots on a riverboat that floated down the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo in Guangxi Province, just north-west of Guangzhou.

This is one of the most beautiful corners of China. The Li River has inspired poets, and romantics for generations. It runs through a chain of limestone mountains, and it is still pretty wild out here. We saw water buffalo swimming to escape the summer heat. And we saw something that Huck Finn never saw, the famous Cormorant Fishermen.

For those of you who love Venice, because of the gondoliers, China has something better. The fishermen here have built bamboo rafts. They are sturdy, no doubt rather tippy, but I never saw anyone fall off of one.

They've also invented a rather ingenious way to fish. Rather than cast their lines into the water, they've usually got a team of cormorants lined up on their bamboo rafts.

The birds are tied to the raft by a string that is knotted around their legs. They've also got a collar around their necks so they can't swallow the fish. When the birds fly into the water to catch a fish their masters pull them back to the raft, open their beaks, and voila...DINNER.
Chinese fishermen have caught their fish this way for generations, and they still do.

And that's what is so remarkable about rural China. This country may be rising in the cities, but life in the countryside appears largely unchanged. It's not an easy life.

The Li River mountains are covered with cedar trees, the riverbanks are lined by bamboo, but every inch of the river valley is cultivated. The rice harvest is on right now, and what is surprising is that much of this work still happens by hand.

We saw many groups of men and women wearing their traditional straw hats working the land themselves, hunched over in the fields picking the rice. Men pull their own carts. Women carried large straw baskets filled with melons, or vegetables, hanging from poles balanced across their shoulders. They walked into the market. We didn't see a single air-conditioned tractor.

It was a real eye-opener for all of us, especially for Louis. Because it showed us all what life is like for millions of people living in rural China.

But what's amazing is what was happening just a few kilometres down river in Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is an absolutely gorgeous river village. There are stone streets here, and people in straw hats, and little canals, with old stone bridges, and pretty pagodas. There are mountains all around, clean air, not too many people, fish in the river, places to escape.

In the afternoon, when it gets really hot, the people of Yangshuo head to the park. It is heavenly here. There's a lake filled with pink lotus flowers, and weeping willows all around it. Men were sitting on the edge of the lake fishing.

We walked along the paths which were as beautiful as the prettiest country roads in France. Every road lined on both sides with trees, everyone on bikes, it was breath-taking.

There were couples sitting on park benches, grannies walking their grand-children in strollers, and just about everyone else was sitting around tables playing games. Some were playing Chinese Chess, or Dominoes or Cards.

It was so beautiful, it made me very proud to be adopting a child from China.

But how to keep this incredible culture alive in Jasmine? Pierre and I have straddled two languages and cultures while raising Louis. Now we are about to embrace a third. And what a culture!!!

We are China newbies, we took Mandarin classes to prepare for this adoption. But we've found sign language works best here.