“Who would like to see a tidal wave tomorrow?” the guide asked as we got out of the van. I was surprised. What tidal wave? The guidebook said this city was acclaimed for its beauty, there was no mention of a tidal wave. Then it dawned on me. I’d spent the last week in and around Shanghai, without a newspaper or CNN.
An island must have blown up and created a giant wave that was on its way to mainland China. Or perhaps a cyclone.
My speculations were shattered when she continued: “It only happens in two places, here and the Amazon River in Brazil. Tomorrow is the last day we can see it come up the river.”
Our guide explained that this wave occurred every year for only three days and the last day was tomorrow. I’d never seen a tidal wave. Any kind of tidal wave. I signed up.
After squeezing in the last bit of sightseeing in Shanghai, we left by train at 5 p.m. for a four-hour, non-stop ride southwest to Hangzhou (Hangchow). It was standing room only in first class-we had reservations and therefore seats. They were padded and comfortable and there was no livestock sharing the car, but the 110 miles went rather slowly since the sun had set and the windows showed only our own reflections.
At Hangzhou, we made our way to the Xi Zi Guest House on the outskirts of town. The Xi Zi consisted of a series of buildings in the middle of a mist-shrouded, fenced park, patrolled by armed guards.
Actually an army post
Our bungalow was a crescent-shape one-story wood building reminiscent of World War II government housing back home. Each room was furnished with similar pieces of what appeared to be antiques, plus custom-made desks, beds, drawers and lamps. I later learned that this compound, at the foot of Xi-zhao Hill, is an active Army post, used by senior state officials to entertain foreign dignitaries. Mao Tse-tung used this retreat to receive guests. During idle times, it’s used as a hotel for foreigners with hard cash. That’s us.
Breakfast was at the dining hall that we discovered the night before after 15 minutes of wandering through the fog. It served the entire complex. American or Chinese food were the two choices and you needed only to point at your selection on the menu.
None of the staff spoke English, so the menu, in Chinese and English, was a must. Toast, butter, plum jam, coffee, heated milk for the coffee, two fried eggs, a piece of ham the size of a postage stamp and half a peach floating in syrup came to roughly $3.
The day was overcast, but at least the mist had cleared. The bus arrived at 8:30 and $24 later, we were on our way. All 33 seats were filled and our CITS guide from the night before was our leader. Toward the end of the hour and 45-minute drive, she handed out box lunches. Our bus joined a long line of buses parked in an open field along a gravel road. There were thousands of people unloading and walking alongside the road. We stayed close to our guide for the quarter-mile walk back along the same road we had driven in on. She had the tickets.
Pagoda on the river
The first stunning sight we saw was a beautiful six-story pagoda on the bank of the Chien Tang Kiang River. Mao had seen the tidal wave years ago and I knew where he watched it from.
We followed our guide past ticket takers; through open areas with chairs; by guards; past vendors selling fruit, bottled water, soda, souvenirs; walked down aisles; and crawled over chairs to our designated spot, a section of stands covered by an awning, 50 feet from the front row.
Our chairs, armless fold-up types, had been placed for the maximum concentration of people in the least space. The stands had a concrete floor and were stepped so those in the back could see over those in front. The tidal wave was going to come from the left, from the direction of the pagoda, which was still in sight.
There had been problems at this event in the past. People committed suicide by throwing themselves in front of the tidal wave. Others tried to surf the wave. So guards lined the river bank to prevent any mischief.
There was time to kill, so I took a second look inside my lunch box to see whether it was as bad as it first appeared. Originally, it contained bread, some unidentifiable greasy meat, two hard-boiled eggs, a can of orange juice and a napkin. But the box had been bounced around by all the crawling over seats I’d done. The grease was now everywhere. The OJ could be saved, but the rest was a disaster. I put it under the seat. There were very few Westerners in the crowd, and most of the Chinese wisely had brought their own food.
The wave
The type of tidal wave we’d come to witness is called a tidal bore. It happens when a large incoming tide is constrained by a gradually narrowing river channel or by a rise in the river bed or both. A sizable head of water results and moves upstream where the water friction and downstream river current (beneath) combine to present the greatest resistance to the incoming tide. This results in a solid wall of water that can move as fast as 12 knots and continue upstream until reaching a falls or rapids too strong to overcome. The largest known tidal bore is 24.6 feet high on the Chien Tang Kiang River, here in Hangzhou.
Suddenly, a low “Ohhh” rippled through the crowd from left to right like the wave at a football game. All heads turned toward the pagoda, downstream. I had been staring off to the distant shoreline, a mile away. A light haze hung in the air obscuring the far shore.
Looking downstream I could make out only a faint gray line bisecting the horizon. The autofocus on my camera was having difficulty finding something to focus on. I turned the camera to the vertical position and the lens locked on the thin gray line in the middle: The approaching tidal wave. The line extended across the river and was growing in my viewfinder.
As the wave came even with the pagoda, I became aware of a deep rumble. It was churning its way upstream, overpowering the downstream current. Suddenly, the 6-foot wave was in front of the stands moving as fast as a man could run. There was no crash like a wave hitting a beach, just the constant churning of water sweeping over water. It swept by in a crescent shape with the middle held back by the flowing current in the center. Then silence fell. We were behind the wave and the sound. The water behind the wave was turbulent, but it was silent.
It wasn’t 20 feet high as I’d hoped, but it’s just as well. I would have been too close to the shore. I don’t know how far it continued, but I watched it blend into the gray of the upstream horizon. It was time to go and the clouds were starting to look mean. Just as we hit the road, the downpour started. I just made it into my plastic raincoat.
The grass field we’d parked in was now a marsh and the cloud burst didn’t help visibility, but all 33 in our group found our way back to the bus. The buses had taken several hours to arrive and park, and now all wanted to get out at the same time and there was only one road. It was chaos, but I’d seen my first tidal wave.
