The Ancient State of Chu, the Province of a Thousand Lakes

Compiled by Dong Chu’er Translated by Chase Coulson

The Ancient State of Chu, the Province of a Thousand Lakes

Compiled by Dong Chu’er Translated by Chase Coulson

Hubei Province enjoys a reputation of “the province of a thousand lakes.” It is a place where its magnificent lakes are embedded in its rich and beautiful land, and has nurtured its people throughout the course of Chu civilization, and bestowed its unique gifts upon its descendants from generation to generation.

Multitudinous lakes, shining like stars in the sky and sparkling like freshly polished pearl that radiates over Hubei Province while the zebra-stripe patterened waterways are woven into the tapestry that captivates tourists with its unique watery vistas and jade lake islands. These lands of great rivers and small lakes are dotted with villages and scenic spots, imbuing the scene with both powerful momentum and a touch of feminine flavor. If you visit, you will stop for quite a while to take in its eye-catching natural landscapes and the wealth of history and cultural relics and heritages.

In this issue, we would like to introduce the most representative lakes in Hubei Province to our readers, accompanied by exquisite photos.

Honghu Lake

No. 1 lake in Hubei, becoming popular with the song “The Waters of Honghu”

洪湖：湖北省第一大湖，一曲《洪湖水》唱红天下

Honghu Lake, dates all the way back to the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States time (770-221 BC), is situated in the southeast of Yunmeng, an ancient county of China, and is converged by the torrential waters of the Yangtze and Han Rivers.

On a rainy winter morning, we boarded a sailboat and set out for the cold freezing lake.

The fish hawks were shrouded from sight; lillies caressed the billows light. The floating hearts kissed the comber; wispy reeds stood erect in the rustling breeze. Frosty wind lapped at the waves, in the dim and obscure mist that unfolded across the serenity of Honghu’s vastness. The distant sound of song announced the boat’s arrival, the familiar melody, grazed past the scene like the wings of the gulls:the waters of Honghu, the waves crashing over the waves.

In modern Chinese history, Honghu is not best known for its waters, but its revolutionary spirit that sways over its surface and the clumps of reeds that sprout from the deep. Making our way through the villages and streets that were once lands full of red flags, spears and guns, the legendary songWaters of Honghuthat inspired one generation after the next are still echoed and repeated to this day. “The waters of Honghu, where waves crash to the shore, oh the fair banks of Honghu are my amour.” This classic melody and a revolutionay heroine named Han Ying are the shining symbols of Honghu’s brilliance in history. In the operaThe Red Guards of Honghuwhich quickly swept over China, Han Ying was featured a legendary woman who ledHonghu Red Guards to fight against the Kuomintang reactionaries and the“Lake Lords” during the second Civil Revolutionary War in China.

Honghu, once a land stained by the blood of soldiers and martyrs, begins to embrace its grand dream of the new epoch and its majestic power unfold at a rapid pace.

Honghu, occupying an area of 308 square kilometers, ranks first in all lakes in Hubei Province, and is the seventh largest freshwater lake in China. Every year its water stores may reach 1.5 billion cubic meters and in certain years, up to 5 billion cubic meters. It can irrigate 167,767 acres of farmland, benefiting a million people living nearby, even in its neighboring Jianli County.

Hence, in a province of a thousand lakes, Honghu Lake is credited with“king of all” for its enormous circumference and rich fertility; for generations it has nourished the people who reside along its shores.

Since the 1950s, people from Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Zhejiang and other provinces migrated here in throngs and settled down next to the lake, out of admiration for its beauty and rich fertility. Nearly 500 households, more than 900 people (including 210 households, totaling 580 people in Honghu City; and over 200 households with more than 300 people in Jianli County), made a living here as the place was a cornucopia for those who lived by its life-giving shores during a time of famine and death in China. Liu Junqing, secretary of Chuantouzui Fish Farm, a migrant whose hometown is near Hongze Lake, Jiangsu Province, came to Honghu with his starving parents when he was one year old. “My parents heard there were abundant lotus roots in Honghu Lake, they fled my hometown to settle down here, and we have now lived here for 50 years.”

Honghu Lake is now a source of life for not just local residents in Honghu and Jianli, but people from far and wide.

Danjiangkou Reservoir

National massive inter-provincial aqueduct and source of china’s south-to-north water diversion

丹江口水库：中国南水北调水源地，国家大型跨省水库

Driving along the Han River at Tianhe entrance, you may see a magnificent, towering concrete dam locking in the powerful torrents, and forming the boundless expanse of jade waters of the Danjiangkou Watercontrol Project.

The first glimpse of Danjiangkou Reservoir will invite you to immerse yourself in a vivid scape whose vastness you can get lost in.

Standing on the dam, and surveying its seemingly endless expanse of crystalline water of what the locals call “the Mini Pacific,” you may feel the surface of the lake ripple ever so slightly and peacefully. The wavelets undulate in a shimmering scaled pattern, as if any human gaze would be lost in the sheer depth of the indigo waters.

There right in front of me, the azure water of Danjiangkou Reservoir is a crystal liquid, limpid and translucent; a magical looking glass, brilliant and resplendent; a vast sea, but bluer and purer; a glowing sky, yet more crystalline and immaculate; a silk satin but softer and downier; an oil painting, but glossier and sprightlier.

The waters of Han River are clean and unspoiled, sheer and deep; simply pure and intoxicating.

The water quality is amazing, and from it the people of this region bring forth a vast array of local specialties, of which the most famous is the savory cutler alburnus fish (a kind of grass carp).

Legend has it that, while on a southern expedition, Emperor Yongle (1360 -1424, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty) set out for Mount Wudang. On the way as he rode the imperial barge down the Han River in the territory of Junzhou (now Danjiangkou City of Hubei Province), a white fish suddenly bounded out of the water and fell right on the deck of the ship, where it flip-flopped about glistening and silvery in the sunlight. The Emperor ordered the imperial chef to prepare it for the next meal, and when he took the first bite he laid back in his chair with a smile of extreme contentment. Since then, the cutler alburnus carp is considered a royal delicacy.

In 2008, the culter alburnus was recognized as a product enjoying geographical indication protection (GI), and was listed as a product with national geographical indication. China’s Geographical Indication Organization identifies it as the first and foremost of the protected live fresh fish. In addition, the Danjiangkou yellowcheek carp and Danjiangkou freshwater shrimp have also been under national protection as geographical indication products.

As a proverb goes, “It’s better to eat something with two legs than four, and it’s much better to eat something with no legs,” the local people invites the world to “drink the clean water, taste the fresh fish, and enjoy the picturesque landscape” here in Danjiangkou Reservoir.

Longgan Lake

A rich and wonderful natural museum of wetlands and biodiversity

龙感湖：白头鹤数量多达425只，占全球总数的3.3%

In a cold winter season, we are lucky enough to enjoy the spectacular vistas in Longgan Lake of Huangmei County, where nearly 10,000 migratory birds have come to perch.

Row upon row of white swans float silently on the lake’s surface, as if the white lotuses were in blossom in the distance, filling it with vigor and warmth in the dead coldness of winter. Hooded cranes, geese and ducks flap their wings and fly across the sky. Row after row of birds once resting on the surface of the lake suddenly disappear from view in the far off nearby villages’ treetops. As we are taking our snapshots, a “flapping” sound emanates from amongst the reeds in front of us, and out flies a massive bird taking to the cloudy sky followed closely by the countless throngs of birds all in different shapes and sizes. The whole place is alive with tweeting and twittering as the thick wave of winged creatures briefly obscures the heavens, their calls as diverse and varied as life itself; some chirping a long legato, some tweeting a short staccato, some warbling a soft lentando, others singing a sonorous fortissimo, their song becoming a grand symphony—an airborne avian concerto.

Longgan Lake Reserve, which covers an area of 54,363 acres, is one of the most important resting places for migratory birds in Asia, and also one of the attractive winter habitats for first and second level protected animals in China. Because of its premium water quality and little human disturbance, many rare birds as waterfowl would like to spend the winter in this wetland.

20 years worth of monitoring results indicate that hooded cranes—a listed endangered species found here—have their largest numbers in all of China in the Eden that is Longgan. In January 1987 alone, it was observed that the hooded cranes in Longgan Lake numbered as many as 425, totaling 3.3 percent of the global sum.

Longgan Lake is also the largest winter habitat for black storks in China. Experts reported recently that they have observed many rare birds as oriental white storks, white storks, Chinese bustards, whooper swans and white spoonbills inhabiting here. Also, they found hundreds of cormorants and spotted redshanks, more than 2000 wild geese and ducks. In one contest named “China Bird Town” sponsored by China Wildlife Conservation Association, Longgan Lake was honored one of the 12 “bird towns” in China, the only one with such honor in Hubei Province. We are proud to say that Longgan Lake is a rich and wonderful natural museum whose wetlands and biodiversity have caught the attention of many scholars both at home and abroad.

Zhangdu Lake

As soon as winter hits, the dazzling image of black-headed gulls is visible across the entire lake

涨渡湖：10万只红嘴鸥，如红色的锦缎，铺满整个湖面

As I tread through a stretch of unspoiled land with no fences, no bamboo groves and no fishing boats in sight, a vast expanse of billowing water shrouded in white swirling mist appears before my eyes.

I’ve traveled to so many lakes lately where my sight was obscured by dense thickets that partition off the embankment. But when arriving at Zhangdu Lake, at long last my eyes can travel fully across the endless expanse of the vast water’s surface all the way to the lake’s head, as if the lake and the sky meet seamlessly. Thousands of waves undulate in the foreground, contrasted against the backdrop of the sky—a mammoth painting of astonishing depth and breadth.

It’s early spring in Zhangdu Lake, and though it’s a bit nippy out, I can feel the first hints of spring in the air. “The ponds birth forth spring’s shoots, willow groves fill with songbird’s hoots.”As I proceed along the lake’s edge, the fragrance of the golden rape flowers in the first warm wafts of spring fills the air all about me, taking me into its tender embrace, while beneath my feet forms a patchwork of yellow ribbons that dot the shores of Zhangdu Lake. At the mouth of the lake, pink plum blossoms flutter in the gentle puffs of breeze as if waving to me, beaconing me saying, “Weary traveler, please be my guest and sit awhile and listen to the call of the birds.”

At Zhangdu Lake, bird enthusiasts, many of whom are foreign expats, frequently come toting along their own food, tents and necessities for bird watching. Here along the shores gilded with rape flowers, they set up their camps by Zhangdu Lake, some planning to stay for a long time, and others—for a brief spell. For those staying a short while, it could be for a few days, and for the others—several months. People call these enthusiasts “bird men.”

Precisely how many birds are there at Zhangdu Lake? Armed with only his incredible ears and acute perception, Professor Yang Qiren can literally hear the number of them.

In June 1995, Yang Qiren (now retired), famous ecologist and professor from Huazhong Normal University, came to Zhangdu Lake.

During the summertime, Professor Yang rented a boat from the local fisher, and took a slow, leisurely excursion onto the lake. Drifting on the lake at a closest possible vantage point to the birds, with his eyes perfectly tuned, and his heart perfectly stilled, the sweet sounds of nature came from every side of the lake in waves; some emanating from on high, some from down low; at times for long spells, at times in short bursts—a mellifluent euphony. The professor sat in his tiny vessel enjoying the concert held exclusively for him with wild ecstasy.

After three days of straight listening, the professor developed the ability to accurately distinguish the number of birds at Zhangdu Lake that summer—37 species in total.

If you make a journey to Zhangdu Lake in the wintertime, you will definitely not feel you had come in vain. Be sure to bring along your camera to capture some of the most lively and dynamic images you’ll ever point a lens at, namely the nearly 100,000 black-headed gulls covering the surface of the lake like a satin quilt.

Wang Hualin, director of Xinzhou Water Preserve Office, once said it best that, as soon as winter hits, the dazzling image of black-headed gulls is visible across the entirety of Zhangdu Lake’s 50-kilometer range. They go out foraging for food during the day and return “home” to rest at night. “As the light of sunset ignites the western sky, the late birds can’t even find a place to land.”

You can imagine how spectacular it must be taking in a scene so vivid and pulsing with life. And how content the people living in Zhangdu Lake must be that, even in the dead of winter, a down quilt descends from the heavens, keeping them warm and snug in their beds at night.