These are freight barges moored beside a loading crane in a tributary in Suzhou. All along the Grand Canal there are tributaries that operate similar to mainline railroads that have spur tracks that service warehouses, factories and train stations. In most places, the banks are quite low so loading and unloading by hand over gangplanks is feasible. But here the banks are so high that a crane is needed. The canals were designed to avoid silting and were well maintained during the historical period. But in the era starting with the Opium Wars of the first half of the 1800’s, then the Taiping Rebellion, the overthrow of the dynasty, the warlord period, the Japanese invasion, the civil war and the Cultural Revolution, the canal maintenance was neglected. Water stagnated and commercial use fell away. The PRC has restored the canals and now the Grand Canal is heavily trafficked for business and tourism.

China’s ancient Grand Canal is 2700 miles long. It is eleven times longer than the Panama Canal and the longest man made waterway in the world. The Grand Canal was designed to bring the harvests from the grain rich water abundant south to the power center in the north. Construction began in the sixth century CE. The PRC government has made great efforts to restore the canal to operational use as seen here near Hangzhou. Rivers in China run from west to east. The north-south canal, needing to cross many rivers at varying levels, required the Chinese to invent water locks around 900 CE. Locks first appeared in the West 400 years later.

There was a surge of new construction starting in 1979 before World Bank loans and foreign investments began to take hold. Construction materials and techniques were still primitive compared to what was coming in the following decades. Here, along a canal in Suzhou, boats full of rocks for building and road construction are unloaded by hand.

These boatmen in Suzhou carry produce and passengers to the cities along the Grand Canal and its tributary canal system.

Boats like this one in Suzhou carry freight and produce in and out of the city. In old China, waterways were the principal transportation arteries, particularly in the south and along the eastern seaboard. Now concrete highways and heavy trucks dominate.

This bamboo raft is carrying cargo down the Xiang River in Hunan Province. A scientific study in England proved that oar sweeps like these are much more energy efficient than rowing oars. It was China’s use of bamboo rafts that led China to become the inventor of watertight compartments for ocean going vessels. Every ship that sails the oceans today is based on 2nd century CE Chinese maritime architecture that was brought to Europe by Sir Samuel Bentham in the late 1700’s. Marco Polo described them 1295 but no one paid attention.

These motorized boats are used to transport freight on the Grand Canal. These are moored in a tributary canal in Suzhou. The oldest parts of the canal date back to the 5th century BC. It has allowed for faster trading and has improved China’s economy. The southern portion remains in heavy use to the present day. From the Tang to Qing dynasties, the Grand Canal served as the main artery between northern and southern China and was essential for the transport of grain to Beijing. Although it was mainly used for shipping grain, it also transported other commodities and the corridor along the canal developed into an important economic belt. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the canal has been used to transport vast amounts of bulk goods such as bricks, gravel, sand, diesel and coal.

The construction boom that began in the 1980’s required construction materials to be brought into town by canal boats from the quarries and kilns in the countryside. The loads they carried were staggering. The materials were then were off-loaded by hand.

These boats are hauling human waste collected from the honey buckets in the city. They will be used for fertilizer for farms in the outskirts of Suzhou after fermenting in pits.

The 2700 miles of the Grand Canal system require constant maintenance. This is muck dredged from a backwater area. It will be applied to farmland to offset erosion.

A tugboat shepherds six barges with quarried stone to urban building sites downstream on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It 1979, everyone in China was organized like an army and assigned to units. In China, as in any army, everything is organized around a unit and nothing exists outside a unit.ÊFrom 1949 to 1979, everyone and every activity were organized into a Danwei, or unit. No matter what you sought to do, whether to buy socks in a store or buy train tickets, the first question you were asked is, ÒWhatÕs your unit?Ó A unit upstream would be assigned by the government with the task of breaking up stones in a rock quarry and loading them on to barges. The barges would belong to another unit that would have many barges in its command. The unit would be tasked with the responsibility of hauling cargo. The rock unit would pay the barge unit, just like a business would in a capitalist economy. The buyer of the stones would be the construction unit in the city and they would pay the rock unit. Ê But unlike private companies in a Capitalist country, a China unit does not have to make a profit because the government runs things. You can see what this leads to. So if a hotel is full of guests, the employees have to work hard making beds, cleaning rooms, etc. If the hotel is empty, everybody can sit around and drink tea, smoke and read the newspaper. Either way, the employees get the same pay because the hotel can be indifferent to the profit and loss ledger. Very often in the 1970Õs and 80Õs, weÕd be told that there were no rooms when in fact the hotel was near empty. The great weakness of the Chinese Socialist System was the lack of material incentives. When China opened up to the western world in 1979, tourists began streaming in wearing good shoes, carrying expensive cameras and spending wads of money. Chinese citizens began questioning as to why their Socialist system and all the Socialist countries in the world were so much poorer than the Capitalist coun

A long string of barges are towed around a bend in the canal town of Suzhou while two stinky barges convey night soil from the town to the outlying farms. This is part of the Grand Canal that began in 600 CE and which is now the world’s longest man-made waterway. Needing to cross many rivers of varying levels, the solution was to develop water locks many centuries before their appearance in Europe.

These barges are maneuvering in a busy section of the Suzhou canal. Suzhou is a picturesque city with a rich history going back 2,500 years. When the Grand Canal was completed in about 600 AD, Suzhou became an important trade route for silk and other important products along the waterways. The area is now heavily industrialized. Trucks and modern highways have replaced many of these barges seen in 1979.

Numerous canals in the city of Suzhou are constantly busy with in and outbound traffic from the city center. Note the distinctive type of head covering Suzhou women are famous for. 1981, Suzhou City was listed by the State Council as one of the four cities of historical and cultural heritage protection. Since then, the city developed into one of the most prosperous one in China.

Construction of China’s Grand Canal started during the Sui dynasty in 605 CE. Over five million people including women and children were conscripted into the project and an estimated two million died. The canal provided for a safe inland transportation system against storms and pirates that connected the agricultural productive south to north China where the central government is located. Today, many houses line China’s Grand Canal and its tributaries.

Construction of the Grand Canal started during the Sui dynasty in 605 CE. Over five million people including women and children were conscripted into the project and an estimated two million died. The canal provided for a safe inland transportation system against storms and pirates and connected the agricultural productive south to north China where the central government is located.

The closest thing to organized sports in ancient China was the annual Dragon Boat Festival that often saw teams from different villages competing against each other. In agricultural societies festivals tend to occur at regular intervals throughout the year. In fact, the word for festival in China is the same word for the regularly spaced knots on bamboo.  The festival is believed to have originated in the death by drowning of a loyal official, Qu Yuan, who was banished for his honest criticism of his ruler in the third century BCE. Local people, it is said, raced out on the water in boats to save him, and when they realized he had drowned, they took meat in rice balls, wrapped them in bamboo leaves and dropped them in the river to lure fish away from the revered man’s body. Always ready to turn any occasion into an opportunity for dining, this is said to be the origin of the famous Zongzi dish, which are prepared exactly like what was put into the river so many centuries ago.

The Grand Canal in Hangzhou was begun in the 6th century CE and designed to bring grain from the fertile, water-rich south to the semi-arid power center in the north. At 2700 miles it is the longest manmade waterway in the world. It silted up from neglect during the century and a half of China’s turmoil, but the PRC invested in dredging, repair and restoration so that it now carries considerable freight traffic.