Yichen Li
Nanjing, China
2025, Senior, Creative Writing

Standing atop a cliff, I stared at the vast Yangtze River sprawling beneath my feet. Mom extended her hand, pointing toward the deep water: “There—there used to be our hometown.”

I felt a bit dizzy, gazing at the clear river tinged with a trace of murky yellow. Light filtered through the broken clouds between the cliffs, flickering on the water’s surface. Where is it? Beneath the water?

For some reason, the water brought my mind back to the old pickle jar at home in Nanjing, downstream of the same river below us. When the jar is opened, a sliver of light filters in—the thick, amber-colored brine, rich and clear.

As a child, I always looked forward to that moment. I would crouch by the jar, watching as Mom lifted the inverted chipped white porcelain bowl, water droplets sliding down the rim. A sour aroma would rise from the dark mouth of the jar as she pulled out a handful of long beans, a few slices of ginger, and two or three chili peppers. Sometimes they went straight to the table—cold, crisp, and tangy—or were tossed into hot oil with minced meat, sizzling into spicy delight on the tongue.

Then the old jar would be returned to a corner of the balcony, the bowl placed upside down again. Both light and my gaze were shut out, and the brine returned to its meditative darkness. Mom wouldn’t let me open the jar on a whim, making it even more mysterious. What kind of magic transformed vegetables into such flavor after months of confinement? I asked her again and again, but she only said, “It’s the power of that brine.”

“Water? The same water I use every day? How could water have such power?”

“Water is more than just water. Of course it has its power.”

So I continued to crouch by the jar, never daring to lift the lid, only staring at the edge of the porcelain bowl as it slowly released a bubble—imagining that little water spirits were crafting their own kingdom inside.

Not until elementary school did I understand—this wasn’t magic. It was fermentation. Lactic acid bacteria thriving in anaerobic conditions. The sourness? Just a byproduct of their metabolism. After that, when I bent down to look at the jar again, it seemed smaller, its old clay body stained with dirt or dust. I knew now that inside, countless bacteria were simply going about their lives.

If it was just a matter of fermentation, I thought, I should be able to make pickles too, right? Following instructions from the textbook, I tried making my own pickles—jars, vegetables, salt. One month, two months… Eventually, after tossing out my fifth foul-smelling jar, Mom glanced over and laughed.

“I told you, it’s the water’s power. Not just any water—this is old brine brought from our hometown in Kaixian.”

“What? All the way from Chongqing?”

“Yes. Scooped from your grandmother’s old pickle vat, it’s decades old.”

“But why can only the old brine make good pickles?”

“Your grandmother inherited it from her elders. It started with well water, and through batch after batch of fermentation, the microbial balance inside was gradually perfected for pickling.”

“How amazing—like a micro-ecosystem created together by Grandma and nature.”

“Exactly. It’s also shaped by the local climate and soil. Only water from our region in Chongqing can produce the most authentic pickles. But alas, we no longer have true Yangtze water back there.”

No longer have true Yangtze water… The wind blew through the gorge, and suddenly, I understood many things. Why we speak Chongqing dialect in Nanjing. Why the “old house” is brand-new. Why our family gatherings are so rare. Why my hometown, Kaixian, appears in history textbooks—Kaixian, the last and one of the largest submerged counties during the Three Gorges Dam project.

“The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydropower project in the world. Construction began in 1994 and was completed in 2012, lasting approximately 18 years. The dam plays a vital role in supplying electricity to eastern China, improving navigation along the Yangtze River, and enhancing flood control. It is a key component of China’s economic development strategy. Upon completion, the reservoir’s water level rose by about 110 meters, submerging numerous towns and villages and displacing approximately 1.3 million people.” That’s what the textbook says (confirmed by data from Encyclopaedia Britannica).

The cliffs and the flowing river began to blend with the description. Images from thirty years ago emerged: banners along the riverbanks read, “Sacrifice the small family for the big one—Support the national Three Gorges construction.” Red flags fluttered, official voices hailed the dam’s greatness and the migrants’ noble sacrifice. Shabby tricycles wobbled toward riverbank ferry points, carrying whole families. Ships full of migrants sailed into the unknown. Woven bags, wooden boxes, TVs, bed frames, quilts. An old farmer in worn cloth shoes carried a bamboo basket with a blooming peach blossom from his backyard. Among the crowd was my mother, in a yellow padded coat with a fraying seam, long black braid, bags strapped across her back, and in her arms—a half-filled pickle jar. The ferry’s horn bellowed, and the ship drifted downstream, leaving behind the river and the old town deep in time.

Over the next ten years—channels were dug, dams built, water stored, turbines installed. The water level rose, drowning the plants and anthills on the riverbanks, bird nests, and the silent ruins of the old towns. Excavators scarred the land; landslides struck during rainy seasons. The dam choked the river’s throat, blocking migratory paths for fish, destroying habitats of finless porpoises, Chinese sturgeon, and the wild baiji dolphin. Old town alleys, ancient villages, hundred-year-old tombs, ancestral fields—silenced in an instant beneath the water. The fabled Three Gorges, once the fiercest stretch of the Yangtze, where dynasties’ armies galloped and poets drifted through the seasons, where “the mighty river flows eastward” once rang—now mute beneath trucks and concrete.

So I will never again see that roaring torrent surging downstream with thousands of tons of sediment, never again hear the resounding river songs of Sichuan boatmen. I can hardly believe the place I once rowed on or soared over in a swing ride by the lake—the lake that now glows nightly with LED lights beside the new town of Kaixian—is none other than Hanfeng Lake, which swallowed my hometown whole. Time presses forward, economy booms relentlessly. But does time remember the old town Kaixian, buried under Hanfeng Lake? Perhaps some pickle jars cracked down there. Perhaps the shadow of the two-story house my grandmother built with her own hands. Perhaps my grandfather’s vegetable garden. Perhaps the roots of my unreachable hometown. Perhaps, that true Yangtze water.

As melancholy welled up inside me, I heard the boat’s tour guide through a loudspeaker: “Behold the scenic ‘High Gorges, Calm Lake’…” But how could high gorges hold calm lakes? The river stilled not from nature’s will, but from the sorrow of 1.3 million migrants. Beneath the still water lie roots, a homeland, the Yangtze lost.

Just then, my uncle came to pick us up. This homecoming journey took a small Yangtze passenger boat, then hours of mountain bus rides, bouncing over ridge after ridge, until we arrived at Grandma’s new home. She had been relocated inland during the resettlement, settling in the new Kaixian town. Walking through the door, the most prominent thing in the kitchen was still that large clay pickle vat. Her wrinkled hands bent over its rim, pulling out a generous helping of pickles. The kitchen filled with smoke and the scent of cooking. Dishes were soon placed on the table. I picked up a piece of shiny pickled ginger and took a bite. That familiar flavor—it tasted just like the pickles from our jar at home in Nanjing.

Suddenly, I felt a quiet peace. The taste hadn’t changed. It was just like the vegetables once grown in our homeland’s soil, nurtured by its spring water, and handmade by my ancestors. My family had sealed their understanding of nature into the pickle jar—thriving in the micro-ecosystem built by their hands and nature’s own.

Yes, the Yangtze water we lost long ago had already been carried with us in that pickle jar, all the way to our new home. From old Kaixian to Nanjing, across the vast stretches of the river, the Yangtze continues—its strength still nourishing me as I grow.

 

Author’s note:

Kaixian is a large county located in Chongqing, a major city in Southwest China, situated along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The Hanfeng Lake mentioned is a lake in Kaixian, which submerged the old Kaixian county. Nanjing is a city in Jiangsu Province, situated in the middle to lower reaches of the Yangtze River, close to the East China Sea.

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A Jar of Yangtze