Steamboats On The Yangtze River | Steamboats Yangtze River

Steamboats On The Yangtze River

After thousands of years of junk and sampan traffic on the Yangtze River (Jiang), river steamers came with the Europeans. The steam engines brought technological improvement. The age of the steamer lasted nearly 150 years—from 1835 to 1980—and had lasting impacts on the Middle Kingdom of China. River trade in China was essential to the economy in a land with poor roads and few railways. Yet the steam engine and its ability to go upstream came with the extraterritorial rights that went to the Westerners.

Famous quotes containing the words yangtze river, steamboats, yangtze and/or river:

“In the Yangtze River waves push the waves ahead; so in life new people constantly replace the old ones.”
—Chinese proverb.

“Hast ever ben in Omaha
Where rolls the dark Missouri down,
Where four strong horses scarce can draw
An empty wagon through the town?
Where sand is blown from every mound
To fill your eyes and ears and throat;
Where all the steamboats are aground,
And all the houses are afloat?...
If not, take heed to what I say,
You’ll find it just as I have found it;
And if it lies upon your way
For God’s sake, reader, go around it!”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

“Bodhidharma sailing the Yangtze on a reed
Lenin in a sealed train through Germany
Hsuan Tsang, crossing the Pamirs
Joseph, Crazy Horse, living the last free
starving high-country winter of their tribes.
Surrender into freedom revolt into slavery—”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)

“There is a river in Macedon, and there is moreover a river in Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ‘tis all one, ‘tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)