Our guide, Tiger Li, arranging our admission to the Three Gorges Dam.

Tiger was one of the best of our local guides. (Like most of our guides, he identified himself only by his English name. In his case, it was also a springboard for a bunch of Tiger Woods jokes.) His information seemed reliable when it overlapped with mine (albeit fully in line with the most optimistic assessment of the dam), and his patter was both fluent and funny. (I don't know if he wrote his own material, but even if not his comic timing was impeccable.)

 

When driving back from the dam, we passed a grove of trees (which I couldn't get a non-blurry picture of) planted in honor of the return of Hong Kong to China. There were 1997 trees, for the year in which it happened. Tiger then speculated on how many trees there would be for Taiwan's reunification with the mainland-- and rather worried me by hopefully suggesting that it might be fewer than 2008, in time for the Beijing Olympics. (One may hope that cooler heads ultimately prevail in Beijing itself.)

 

Done