Henry:

Yangtze Blog Posts #1:

Today was the first day of my journey, Today I would meet up with my cousin to travel 6,300 kilometres to Shanghai in search of fertile land next to the Yangtze river. My cousin was a craftsman and hadn’t traveled much but had studied the layout of the land for about a month and had found a route that could hopefully brings us near some fertile land. We spent the night at a friend’s house and after we ate dinner prayed to Buddha for 30 minutes for good health on our journey before going to bed. Again when we got up in the morning we prayed to Buddha this time for finding nice land at the end of our journey. The friend that we stayed was a fisherman as a lot of people along the Yangtze river. My family was made up of farmers but as the population of our town grew other people became farmers stealing the business. Now my family’s last hope rested with me, I had been sent by the Buddha to find a place for my family to settle down and take up fishing and farming in a less populated area. But the land also had to be fertile and close to civilization to trade with other people in exchange for food and medicine. Since the silk road had not been invented yet there were no distinct routes for the traders to travel, so they would usually travel from village to village in order to sell their goods. Their is a long journey up ahead but I know that if I remember to pray to the Buddha everyday he will guide my away from disaster and into the light.

Yangtze Blog Posts #2:

After the first week of just walking and stopping just to eat I had begun to wonder if we should just stay where we are and chose a different profession. But then I remembered why I was the one doing this and why we had to do it, I was the only one in the family who could work, my mother could barely walk, my father spent all his time taking care of her and my kids were 2 and 3. My wife had died at childbirth, and even if we someone else to work we would need a new place to settle down because we could not afford land anywhere near our village but maybe we could in other places and that was why I was traveling along the Yangtze in search of better land with my cousin who had the same problem. We were going to pick up some canoes but we were running way behind, and if we couldn’t get to the shipyard by tomorrow then we would have to turn around. All in all things were not going well. We then got on our knees and prayed to Buddha for 2 hours straight. After the two hours I had an idea, since the current was so strong we could bundle up lots of branches and then float down the river on them. We set to work, my cousin, Swai Le gathered the branches while I tied them together. It took a full hour and a half but we were pleased with our work. We then prayed to Buddha one more time and then jump on our makeshifts rafts and set off down the river.

Yangtze Blog Posts #3:

Buddha had definitely heard our prayers, we are now 129 miles further downstream than before and progressing smoothly straight through the Shangtze river. We then stopped at a restaurant to gulp down some rice and vegetables before setting off again down the Yangtze. We had to stop again on our way to replenish our supplies and when we did we got half prices because of the dragon festival that was going on in the village to honor the dragon god so he wouldn’t get mad and destroy their village. We past hundreds of rice patties with their owners working away in the fields trying to finish the harvest before the sun set and they had to go home. The sun was setting as we set up a camp down the river under a shelter of trees.

We ate the rice that we had saved from our last stop and fell asleep under the stars. When we got up we prayed to Buddha for 30 minutes before setting off down the river once more. For once Buddha had not heard our prayers because we had reached a waterfall, we would usually slid down on our rope but we had had to sell our rope for food and money when we passed the last town. We started walking to the side hoping to find a way around the waterfall. It took us 2 hours but we eventually found a way down the waterfall.  My cousin looked at me when we got down, in his hand was our food pack and it was nearly empty. Even if we did find a nice place to settle we would still have to go back and back again to bring our families here. My cousin started crying, I couldn’t blame him, there was little hope for us now. We prayed to Buddha for 2 and a half intense hours this time in hope of being successful in our journey. Then we rationed out what little food we had left and fell asleep.

Yangtze Blog Posts #4:

The world somehow became brighter when we woke up, in the darkness of last night we hadn’t noticed we had gone to sleep under a patch of wild apple trees, there were apples on the ground next to us when we woke up, called out to be eaten. We ate about 15 apples each before filling our food pack to the brim, and because we were next to the Yangtze, fresh water was not a problem.  We then set off again towards a promised land. As I walked I thought about what we were going to do once we reach a promised land, if we reached a promised land. My cousin would probably stay there while I would make my way back as fast as I can and bring my family on the journey back. We had gathered some apple seeds and hoped to plant them once we reached the promised land. As we made our way across rice fields I noticed in front of me a hill and after that a valley, I couldn’t see the valley but I assumed it was there because of the mountains in the distance but not right after the hill. As we climbed the hill we noticed how the ground got greener and more fertile the farther we got. We climb the last few feet and then looked down on the horizon. Indeed there was a valley and if any land should be promising it was this one, there was a part of the Yangtze river that had cut off of the main body of water and traveled through this valley before rejoining the Yangtze. There were dozens of patches of wild apple trees growing near the river and the weather was perfect, a nice warm breeze. We had truly found a godblessed place.