Wuhan, China 21 October 2006 Dear Justin, ‘Ni hao’ (pronounced knee-how)! That’s how people in China greet each other; much like we say ‘hello’ at home. It literally means “Are you well?” I’ve just arrived in China with Aunty Becky, who’s here for 15 days. Our journey today has taken us from Kuching to Kuala Lumpur to Guangzhou (our first stop in China) and then finally to Wuhan. Luo Guangchuo was at the airport to meet us. He works with the World Wide Fund for Nature (or WWF) in China, and is based at the WWF Field Office in Wuhan City. Our long drive from the airport to the hotel gives me a chance to see quite a bit of the city – it’s nice, with lots of trees and some very nice-looking parks. We are going to be staying at the Holiday Inn Riverside Wuhan, Guo tells us, where we will have a room with a view of the two rivers that flow through Wuhan – the Yangtze River and the Han River.

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province. The first people to live in Wuhan arrived here more than 3,000 years ago! In the late 1800s, Wuhan was the most important trading city along the Yangtze River and many, many ships from countries all over the world used to bring goods to be traded at Wuhan. The picture on the left is of the customs building in Wuhan, which opened in 1862. The first bridge to be built across the Yangtze River was built in Wuhan in 1957. Before that, the only way people could get from one side of the river to the other was by boat.

After checking into the hotel, I only have time for a quick look out the big picture window at the two rivers before we have to leave to have dinner with the rest of the WWF team. Dinner is a merry affair because Aunty Becky knows all these people from her last visit here two years ago. They laugh and chat all through our huge dinner – 12 courses in all!

We head back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. I slip between the soft sheets with a sigh of relief – it’s been a long and tiring day for a little boy, and the white sheets feel soft and comfortable. Goodnight! The next day we visit the WWF Office where Aunty Becky has meetings all day. At lunch time, we take a walk down the street in front of the office. The weather is nice today – the temperature is around 14 degrees Celsius and the sun is shining brightly. I see lots of people on the street. Aunty Becky tells me that there are 1.2 billion people in China – more than any other country in the world. Wow! That’s more than 5 times the number of people in all of the US. Wuhan City alone has 9 million people. People here live in very tiny apartments, because there’s no room for large houses, so they like to spend the day outside in the parks. Before I go on with my tale, perhaps I should tell you a little bit about what Aunty Becky does. She is a wetland expert. A “wetland” is a natural place where there is always water – lakes, streams, rivers, marshes and swamps are some types of wetlands. Wetlands are found all over the world, from high up in the mountains to down by the sea. The Everglades in Florida is one of the most famous wetlands in the U.S. Wetlands are beautiful places and are special because the animals and plants that live in them are not found in dry areas like woods and forests. Wetlands also provide human beings with water and food (like fish and shrimp), and in some parts of the world, with medicines and firewood to keep them warm and to cook their food with. People in the poorer parts of the world depend on wetlands for their daily food and water because they are not lucky enough to live in cities where they can buy food from the supermarkets and get water from a tap. Unfortunately, wetlands are being destroyed in many parts of the world because people don’t understand how important they are. Aunty Becky and many other people like her are trying to make others understand how important wetlands are so that these beautiful and special places can be protected for a long, long time. Aunty Becky’s work takes her to many parts of the world where she visits different types of wetlands and helps people to understand how they can protect wetlands. “What an exciting job!” I say. Aunty Becky agrees but reminds me that it is not all fun; it takes a lot of time and hard work to do what she does. The next morning we pack our bags and leave for our road trip. Aunty Becky tells me that we will spend the next 6 days visiting many different towns and villages along the

Yangtze River. She has to do this because her job here is to visit all the WWF project sites to see how the projects are being run.

Let me tell you a little bit about the Yangtze River or “Chang Jiang” in Chinese. It is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America. The river is about 6,211 km long and flows from its source in Qinghai Province in western China, eastwards into the East China Sea.

The Three Gorges Dam, which is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam along the Colorado River in the U.S.) is being built on the Yangtze River, halfway between Chongqing and Wuhan. I will tell you more about this dam later on in this letter because Aunty Becky and I were allowed to take a walk along the top of it!

The first stop on our road trip is at Middle School No.7 near Lake Hong. We’ve been invited to visit the school to watch a play about wetlands by the local kids. They won first place in the district championships and were keen to show us their prize-winning play. The costumes were wonderful – each of the kids was dressed as an animal found in the local wetland – there were baby fishes and a Mama fishy too,

cranes, swans and ducks, a crab and mud lobster. I didn’t understand the words because the play was in Chinese, but the music was beautiful and the dancing was great. After the play, Aunty Becky’s friend Lei Gang introduced me to the kids and explained how I had traveled all the way from Denver to visit them. They all wanted to have their picture taken with me – I felt like a Hollywood star! Then we had to leave to continue our journey, although the kids really wanted us to stay!

One of the kids, Ding Jing, insisted on having her picture taken with me before we left and so Aunty Becky agreed.

We then took a boat ride on Lake Hong to visit the nature centre which is right in the middle of the lake. There they’ve built a bird-hide, which is a little wooden building from which we could watch the birds without disturbing them. I saw ducks and many other kinds of birds which I did not recognize.

Ding Jing and I

Wang Lu from WWF and I outside the nature centre

The next day we traveled to the Tian’e Zhou Oxbow. An oxbow is a type of lake which forms when a section of a river gets separated from the main river and forms a lake. This particular oxbow is very important because it has finless porpoise in it. The finless porpoise is like a dolphin but, as the name suggests, it does not have fins. We are lucky enough hen we get there. We also

visited the Pere David’s Deer Reserve, which is right beside the oxbow. Aunty Becky tells me about this very special deer, which is called “Milu” in Chinese: Unlike most deer, the Pere David's deer is very fond of water. They swim well, and will spend hours wading up to their shoulders. The Chinese also call this deer "sze pu shiang" which

to see a few of them swimming near the edge of the lake w

means something like 'none of the four'. This odd name refers to the odd appearance of this deer – it has the neck of a camel, the hoofs of a cow, the tail of a donkey, and the antlers of a deer, though it is not completely like any one of these animals.

Aunty Becky then tells me a story about the history of this deer: This deer was once

Aunty Becky’s friend Wang Limin tells me another great story about the deer: In 1998,

We visited the Wetland

e had lunch with Prof

found only in China. Unfortunately, it was hunted for food; the last deer was shot in 1939 near the Yellow Sea in Southern China. That would have been the end for the deer but some deer were saved thanks to the efforts of a French missionary named Pere Armand David (the deer was named after him because he was the first person to realize that it was very different species of deer). In 1895, he and some other people from England sent 18 deer by ship to the Duke of Bedford's Woburn Abbey in England. By the time the last deer was shot in China, the population of deer in the Duke’s park had increased to 300. In 1986, 64 deer were flown from Woburn Abbey to China and reintroduced to the Tian’e Zhou oxbow where they had not been seen for about 100 years. In October 2005, the children and grandchildren of some of the English people who saved the deer back in 1895 came to visit the Reserve. What a great story!

this part of China suffered from very bad floods. The area around the oxbow was completely flooded and all the deer were left stranded on a small strip of land with no food and, because the water was so deep, they could not swim to higher ground. The people working in the reserve loved the deer so much that they went out in small boats in the raging flood to find reeds and grasses, and took this food to where the deer were to feed them. They did this twice a day every day for 28 days; that’s how long it took for the flood waters to go down again. For their hard work and dedication, these people were awarded with medals of honour by the President of China. I was lucky enough to meet some of these brave and wonderful people during my visit. Today, there are about 600 deer in the entire area; I saw big deer and little baby deer. They all looked very happy. I hope they will be around for a long, long time.

Education Centre at the Tian’e Zhou oxbow where we saw some stuffed deer. I wanted to have my picture taken with the deer so Aunty Becky’s friend Lei Gang climbed into the exhibit to put me on the deer’s head! WWang Ding who works on the Chinese River Dolphin, known in

Chinese as the ‘baiji’. These dolphin are only found in the Yangtze River and nowhere else in the world. Unfortunately, they have been hunted for food or killed by boats and none have been seen in the river for many years. Prof Wang Ding will lead an expedition in November to look for baiji in the river. Any baiji they find will be transferred to the oxbow to save them. Aunty Becky and I wished him and his team lots and lot of luck. I hope they find some baiji because it would be a great shame if there are no more of these beautiful gentle creatures in the world.

After spending the night in a town called Yichang, we were taken on a visit to the Three Gorges Dam - boy, is it enormous! We were given special permission to walk along the top of the dam because it is not an area that is usually open to the public. Aunty Becky took the picture on the left from the top of the dam. Aunty Becky tells me how million of acres of land had to be cleared and millions of people moved out of the area to make way for the dam. The

dam is expected to be completed in 2009, and after that, will supply the electricity needed for all the cities and factories in the central Yangtze area. China is developing very rapidly and they need a lot of electricity to run the factories and cities. We are told that once it is fully operational the Three Gorges Dam will supply enough electricity to power a city four times larger than Los Angeles!

We were then taken to a public exhibition centre nearby where there was a model of how the dam will look once it’s completed. I loved the flowers outside the exhibition centre more than the model of the dam!

After that we visited the Chinese Sturgeon Research Centre. The sturgeon is a very valuable fish because it produces caviar. Caviar is a special kind of fish eggs, which people all over the world are willing to pay lots of money for. At the research centre we saw a large stuffed sturgeon which was caught in the Yangtze River in 1973, and some smaller live ones. These fish are disappearing very fast

because people have been catching so many of them. The centre breeds baby sturgeon so these can be released back into the river. The Government of China has introduced a new law which forbids people from catching the sturgeon so the baby sturgeon should be safe. Here’s a picture of me with our guide, and another of me looking at the Chinese Alligator inside its tank!

from the Yangtze River

The next day we visit Zhangdu Lake. Before visiting the lake, we meet with

the Governor of Hubei Province. He’s the most important man in the province and it is considered a great honour to meet him. We have lunch with the Governor so he and Aunty Becky can talk about wetland conservation in the province. After lunch he insists that we use his official car for the rest of our time in the province, so we set off in his posh car, with two police cars in front of us and another two behind us. All four police cars have their sirens on for the entire journewith the Governor.

y – what a racket! Here’s a picture taken during our meeting

At Zhangdu Lake we visit two project sites: At the first site in Nanshan Village, the village people have started a bamboo farm. As we walk into the village, a whole bunch of kids come out to meet us and insist on showing us their brand-new wetland education centre which has been built next to the farm.

At the second village, called Qiuhu Village, we have lunch while Aunty Becky talks to the village people about their project on fish farming.

After lunch we visit a cotton farm. It’s first time I’ve seen cotton fresh from the tree! They spread it out on the ground to dry it in the sun before it is packed and sent off to the factory to be made into cotton cloth and clothes.

The next day, we returned to Wuhan and after a few more meetings, we took a flight to Beijing where we were going to spend our last 5 days in China. In Beijing we stayed at the Red Wall Hotel which is just outside the famous Forbidden City. I’m sure you know that China is going to host the Olympic Games in 2008 – you can’t help but know this when you visit the city because there are flags, posters and banners all over the place!

The WWF office in Beijing is inside the grounds of the Forbidden City, and is surrounded by a beautiful park with cypress trees that are hundreds of years old. One of these trees is famous because its branches look like the head of a deer!

The park also has some beautiful natural rock sculptures. Here’s a picture of me climbing one of the rock sculptures.

That evening Aunty Becky and I had dinner with cousin Pik Chin and her mom. It was great to meet some members of our family in China! We had Peking Duck which Aunty Becky said was “Yummy!” The next day at the WWF office, we met an old friend of Aunty Becky’s quite by chance. Her name is Liz and she just happened to be visiting China at the same time. What a nice coincidence. Liz lives in New York and was very pleased to meet, and have her picture taken with someone from Denver!

On our last night in China, Aunty Becky’s friends from the WWF office took us to dinner at one of the oldest restaurants in Beijing. We had Beijing hotpot and watched a dance performance by some beautiful women. What a great end to a wonderful trip!

I am glad I had the chance to spend time with Aunty Becky, to learn about how important wetlands are, to visit some very beautiful wetlands and to meet people like her friends at WWF who work to protect these beautiful wetlands. I hope you will get a chance to visit China some day – it’s a really great place! Have a great Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

With lots of love, Flat Justin

4 November 2006, Beijing, China