Three Chapters on Maoyan River
Three Chapters on Maoyan River by Qin Erjian. Preface: Maoyan River is an ancient river that has silently flowed for millions of years among the towering mountains of mysterious Xiangxi. Maoyan River is a newly born river. With the rise of Zhangjiajie tourism, Maoyan River has become China's first rafting tourism hotline. Its towering canyons, cascading waterfalls, emerald-green river water, and surging waves leave tourists from home and abroad utterly amazed. Listening to the Waves at Maoyan. The sound of the waves of Maoyan River, I think...
Three Chapters on the Maoyan River
Qin Erjian
Foreword: The Maoyan River is an ancient river that has flowed silently for millions of years among the towering mountains and steep ridges of mysterious Xiangxi. The Maoyan River is also a newborn river. With the rise of Zhangjiajie tourism, the Maoyan River has become China's first whitewater rafting tourism hotline. Its towering gorges, hanging waterfalls, emerald-green waters, and surging waves leave tourists from home and abroad utterly astonished.
Listening to the Waves on the Maoyan River
I find the sound of the waves on the Maoyan River quite special.
From childhood to now, I have probably traveled the Maoyan River no fewer than a hundred times. Every time I travel the Maoyan River, my ears are filled with the rumbling roar of its waves. Indeed, my impression of the Maoyan River's waves has completely surpassed the magnificent and majestic scenery on both banks. Even when I travel far from home and drift in a city a thousand miles away, as long as I sit quietly, my mind is immediately filled with the rumbling surge of waves.
The sound of the Maoyan River's waves is different from that of the sea: the sea is vast and boundless, with misty waves stretching for thousands of acres, giant waves sweeping the sky, and the sound of its waves rumbling like a long howl.
The sound of the Maoyan River's waves is different from that of a mountain stream: the mountain stream flows murmuring, winding and tumbling, with spray flying in countless droplets, and the sound of its waves chattering like playful frolic.
The sound of the Maoyan River's waves is also different from that of ordinary rivers: ordinary rivers have ribbon-like beds and field-like banks, with waves pushing and surging, and the sound of their waves splashing like joyful singing.
On both banks of the Maoyan River, stone cliffs stand majestically, and the river channel is narrow and winding. The Maoyan River thus rushes and struggles left and right through the narrow, winding channel between the crevices of the stone cliffs. As a result, the water appears extremely turbulent, emitting a surging roar, angrily striking the rocks, charging toward the cliffs, and forming one dangerous rapid after another with the force of a thousand jun.
Thus the sound of the Maoyan River's waves gives people the feeling of a battle cry!
——That is on a casual listen. Yet when you savor the sound of the Maoyan River's waves carefully, it gives you an entirely different feeling.
That was an unforgettable summer. Because I had suffered a setback in my official career and my mood was poor, and on top of that my work was not going smoothly, I became extremely depressed. So someone who knew me well invited me: “Seeing how troubled you are, why not go to the Maoyan River to listen to the waves and watch the moon for some diversion?” I felt it suited my mood, so I happily agreed.
Toward evening, the day's clamorous rafting on the Maoyan River had ended. I had the boatman take me and two or three close friends in a small boat deep into the Maoyan River gorge. We set up a tent on the stone beach beneath the cliffs. I lay quietly on the silver riverbank waiting for night to fall.
The scorching sun withdrew its last trace of afterglow, and the stone cliffs on both banks of the Maoyan River gradually became gray and solemn. A bright moon rose slowly from the top of the cliffs, and its silver radiance spilled onto the river. The river flowed full of shattered silver.
There were no night birds crying, the mountain seemed utterly silent, all worldly noise could no longer be heard, and the only thing rolling through the whole world was the rumbling sound of the waves.
Accompanied by that rumbling sound of the waves, my restless mood gradually became calm. As my mood grew calmer, the sound of the waves seemed all the more vivid and moving.
I listened quietly to the sound of the waves.
I felt that the sound of the waves was like a comfort: like a pair of warm large hands gently stroking my head, my feet, my feverish skin, my uneasy soul.
I felt that the sound of the waves was like a reprimand: it used a voice like a great bell to admonish me, to scold me. It admonished my worldliness and scolded my lack of striving.
Suddenly I felt again that the sound of the waves was like a kind of telling: rumbling on and on without interruption or pause. What was the sound of the waves telling? I do not know. Was it its unyieldingness, its repression, its indignation? Or was it its view of the world and the true meaning of life?
Gradually, I felt that I was entirely dissolved by the sound of the waves. I seemed to feel that I no longer existed. I seemed to feel that I was the sound of the waves, and the sound of the waves was me. Together with the sound of the waves, I lightly soared and drifted in the moonlight, among the gorges……
The moonlight gradually faded.
The sound of the waves remained as before.
The next morning, facing the fiery red rising sun, I walked out from the gorge, I walked out from the sound of the waves, and I felt full of vigor.
This was the transformation wrought by a night of listening to the waves.
Writing of the Cliffs on the Maoyan River
When rafting the Maoyan River, what remains fixed in my mind are those two stark white stone cliffs. Upon entering the Maoyan River, the rubber boat enters the crevice between two stone cliffs. After that, no matter how you pitch forward and backward, lurch left and right, you cannot avoid being gripped by those cliffs. Upon leaving the Maoyan River, the channel suddenly opens wide. Without the stone cliffs, rafting also loses its interest. It is clear that all the varied pleasures of rafting the Maoyan River lie in the Maoyan cliffs.
The Maoyan cliffs range in height from about a hundred meters to several hundred meters. They are knife-cut steep walls. The two gray-white cliff faces and the clear, smooth rock strata joints on those faces fully record the antiquity and vicissitudes of the Maoyan River.
The white cliffs of Maoyan are a cutaway painting of the mountain.
As early as the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic Era, 570 million years ago, Maoyan began to receive marine sedimentation. After passing through the Carboniferous and Triassic periods, and then through the intense Yanshanian movement and Himalayan orogeny, and afterward through millions of years of wind and rain erosion and geological changes, the waters of the Maoyan River washed ceaselessly day and night for millions of years, and only then created such a majestic and peerless wonder!
The Maoyan cliffs are solemn!
Because of the solemnity of the cliffs, the sparse shrubs growing in tangled roots among the cliffs also seem profoundly experienced, stirring endless thoughts and evoking emotion in the viewer. And those unnamed flowers scattered lightly in bloom among the walls seem as if they had been blooming there for hundreds of thousands of years, allowing no trace of frivolity. One often sees red and green things like women's undergarments hanging from the treetops among the cliffs; those are absolutely flotsam left by some flood, but out of reverence for the cliffs no one dares rashly touch them.
The Maoyan cliffs face each other and tower aloft, so that within a single day the sun can shine into them for only a short time, thus creating a cool and chilly atmosphere throughout the gorge. In the gorge, no monkeys, flying squirrels, or other wild creatures are seen. Occasionally one can see a lone bird standing on a stone by the water, not uttering a single cry, black as a Daoist priest, with an appearance of profound mystery and long vicissitude, easily reminding one of a relict bird species left from the Ice Age. Perhaps one may see a few black-and-white goats; those are raised by farming families from beyond the mountains and set loose in the Maoyan gorge. But because the wild environment here has absolutely no connection with the atmosphere of villages beyond the mountains with small bridges and flowing streams, it inspires both warmth and a sense of being in another world.
The two stone cliffs squeeze fiercely together, pressing the Maoyan River into a narrow, winding shape like chicken intestines. The Maoyan River thus rushes and struggles left and right through this narrow, winding riverbed in the crevice between the cliffs, releasing one rapid after another and creating one dangerous shoal after another. The river water collides with scattered rocks, river water collides with river water, river water collides with the stone cliffs, producing a deafening sound of waves——that is the river's battle cry——that sound of waves climbs and rises and surges back and forth among the cliffs, always wanting to rush out of the gorge and gallop beyond the mountains, but in the end, because the gorge is too narrow and too deep, the sound of the waves exhausts its strength, rushes to two-thirds of the way up the gorge, and then crashes down with a roar. Thus the sound of the waves in front and the sound of the waves behind converge, forming an even greater roar! Thus the gorge resounds all day with a booming like thunder!
Rafting in a rubber boat means traveling through such stone cliffs, charging over such a river, and cruising within such an aesthetic atmosphere. Then I think that for anyone with a little thought, the experience of rafting the Maoyan River is by no means limited to the tiny bit of sensory excitement gained from riding the waves and surfing the breakers.
“Water Fights” on the Maoyan River
We set off from Maoyan Port in a rubber boat, passed Suoyin Pool, got thoroughly drenched and refreshed by the crystal waterfall at “Jade Pearls Falling into the Pool,” then passed the Fir Stump Stone House, braved the “First Shoal of Maoyan,” and entered the broad, expansive lake surface of the Mandarin Duck Island scenic area.
On the glistening water, a rubber boat was already drifting lightly. On it sat eight female tourists in a neat row, all wearing orange life jackets. The women sat astride the boat's black pontoon tubes like riders. The black tubes contrasted with their white skin, so that inside the boat was a row of jade-like legs, and outside the boat another row of jade-like legs dangled in the emerald-green river water. The boat drifted leisurely, and songs were softly sung. At the bow, a woman held a red parasol over her shoulder, lazily stirring the river water with her jade-like legs while softly singing like silver bells…… That leisurely air made one feel pleased at a single glance.
“Brother, want to exchange some feelings?”
When our rubber boat drew close to that pleasure boat, the girl with the parasol over her shoulder tilted her head and asked with a smile all over her face.
One could tell that the whole boat was full of “Sichuan girls.”
“Yes!” Our boat was full of men, and we were just lamenting that this marvelous scenery seemed to lack something. When we heard that feelings could be exchanged, and moreover with a whole boat of lovely beauties, everyone perked up from head to toe.
Before our “drake” voices had even settled, the jade hand holding the parasol lightly rose, and a handful of pearl-like river water splashed all over my face. Accompanying it was a string of silver-bell laughter.
Then the “Sichuan girls” used prepared water guns, mineral water bottles with their tops cut off, plastic bags that could hold water, cosmetic cases they carried with them, and the paddles in their hands to splash river water over our heads and faces. What followed was another string of silver-bell laughter.
We immediately realized that the so-called “exchange of feelings” was this sort of game, so one by one we lunged toward the side of the boat, laughing and shouting as we desperately threw water at the other side.
The water of the Maoyan River is clear and emerald green, spotless, and since it was midsummer, that water thrown on the body wet the skin and moistened the heart and lungs, truly a marvelous enjoyment.
For a time, you poured on me, I poured on you, and the two boats quickly became entangled. After a while, a motorized rubber pleasure boat came putt-putting over. A dark-faced fellow in a sweat shirt and shorts stood at the bow, and in pure Shandong accent loudly joked: “Hey, I am the Black Whirlwind Li Kui! I specialize in punishing those who bully women and children!” So saying, without further ado he resolutely joined the “Sichuan girls” camp and launched a fierce attack on our side. The three boats quickly became one big scuffle, and for a time water splashed everywhere, mist and rain blurred the scene, and spray flew. Our side was attacked front and back, with the “Sichuan girls” in front and the “Black Whirlwind” behind. We fought back with all our strength, charging left and right. Luo Changjiang, chairman of the Writers Association, known as “General Luo,” was nearly forty but full of playful spirit; he shouted the loudest and fought the fiercest, but he lacked method and got half the results with twice the effort. Because he attracted attention, he suffered repeated heavy blows and ended up as bedraggled as a drowned rat.
Just as the fight was at its fiercest, “General Luo” had a sudden idea and wanted to capture the “Sichuan girl” with the parasol as a “prisoner.” Unexpectedly, as soon as he stood up, the boat rocked a few times, “General Luo” stepped into empty space, and with a “splash” fell into the river.
Seeing this, the people on the three boats all stopped what they were doing without prior agreement, and each stared at “General Luo” in his comical state in the water, nearly splitting their sides with laughter.
“General Luo” was pulled back onto the rubber boat along the paddle handed down by the boatman, water pouring noisily from his trouser crotch, and everyone burst into hearty laughter again at the sight.
“Brother, do you surrender?” The parasol-holding “Sichuan girl” wiped the water from her face and asked with a tilt of her head and a smile.
“General Luo” then took off his white sweat shirt and held it high:
“I surrender…… I surrender.” The river surface returned to calm, and the tourists on the three boats, with hearts full of pleasure and songs and laughter, continued drifting slowly onward.
“Next time we'll exchange feelings again.” The “Sichuan girl” waved her hand and said.
“Next time we'll exchange again.” A boatful of “drake” voices.
Suddenly, shouting and laughter arose again behind us. Everyone turned sharply, “Ho, the two boats behind are fighting again.” “General Luo,” still wanting more, pounded both hands on the pontoon tube and urged everyone on:
“Hey, brothers, next time we come rafting on the Maoyan River, let's each bring a water ladle……”.