THE BOAT TRACKERS IN THE THREE GORGES

The boat trackers are old professionals in the boating-route in the three gorges area. In the time when there were no engine-driven ships, the boat trackers had to draw the boat with the tracking rope over their backs when a boat was sailing against the current.The boat trackers frequently encountered with dangerous shoals and they had to fight with winds and waves in the water, or they had to step on the boat in wet, therefore, they were often naked. The energies out of the boat trackers appear to be able to topple the mountains and overturn the seas, and the chorus-like work songs in the river shouted out by the boat trackers seem to be able to pass through the cloud in the sky or to break the stones in the earth.

Many years ago, boat tracking was a majestic view in the boating-route of the Three Gorges. During World War II, the photos of the stark-naked boat trackers who were carrying the wartime materials and goods appeared in a newspaper in the United States, and the whole world got shocked. It is a story happened during the time of the anti-Japanese war in China. When the Japanese invaders occupied the Wuhan city located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, a great many of the factory equipments and national treasures from Beijing were assembled in the east end of the Three Gorges. It is very critical to save the future of the nation to sail against the current to transport those important economic resources to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. All the boats in the Minsheng Boating Company of Chongqing were involved in the transportation. At that moment, both big boats and small boats, and both soldiers and civilians in the Three Gorges area were busy transporting day and night. This is a competition of volition and power. Eventually, the Chinese people finished transporting materials and goods before the attack of the Japanese invaders came. And they are the boat trackers in the Three Gorges area during World War II, they are the boat trackers who fought against iron and steel with their bare flesh when the country was in the most dangerous situation. A modern Chinese historian said, “The Three Gorges saved China, spiritually speaking rather than militarily speaking.”

Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese government has been actively engaged in the dredging of the shipping-route in the Three Gorges, in the mean time, engine-driven ships are extensively used, and as a result, the boat tracking as a profession gradually disappeared in the main shipping-route of the Three Gorges. However, we can often find the boat trackers in some of the branches of the Three Gorges.

Liu Sanmei’s husband was a boat tracker in the Wujiang River, as mentioned above, it is one of the branches in the Three Gorges. The team of the boat trackers led by her husband was well known in the Wujiang River valleys. However, he passed away because of illness. All the team members elected the widow of the former leader unanimously as their new leader in order to show their respect for the ex-leader. As a result, Li Sanmei became a capable boat tracker, and she won the title of the most capable woman in the water of the Wujiang River.

Since a woman joined the team of the boat trackers, all the boat trackers in the team began to wear trousers. And this is a very particular team of boat trackers.

In the recent years, all the boats in the Wujiang River gradually got engine-driven. The Three Gorges and the Wujiang River no longer need boat trackers. As a result, Liu Sanmei’s team of the boat trackers was dismissed. Liu Sanmei has started a new profession. Of course, it means a conclusion of a hardship to Liu Sanmei, however, this disappearing profession will be stored in her memory forever.