The high drama of rafting the Upper Yangtze

A 30-year-old true story that once gripped a whole nation and was then promptly forgotten has made an unexpected reappearance and I'm surprised to find that I played a small part in it.

In 1986, American river rafter Ken Warren led a joint Chinese and US team to go down the Yangtze River. They had the best equipment in the world. To prevent a foreigner from making history as the first person to raft China's longest river, several ad hoc Chinese teams were cobbled together. They did not have any rafting experience and their training took place on urban lakes.

Two of the teams raced Warren's team. They ended up losing 10 people to the rapids and Warren's team lost one member to altitude sickness. The Chinese teams skipped many parts of the treacherous waters and went over the infamous Tiger Leaping Gorge in sealed capsules while Warren's team aborted their expedition after a mutiny among its members.

I did not know any of the details until I read a lengthy account recently published by Elle Men magazine, which chronicles the journeys of all three teams. It would make a great film, said many who left posts to this popular article. Back in 1987 or 1988 when the ABC documentary came out, I was not even aware of the not-so-friendly competitiveness Warren's effort had incited in China. I was asked to host the San Francisco premiere of the film, my first gig of this kind, and I believe I said things like "successful completion", a cliche that must have sounded like sarcasm to those in the know about what happened in China.

Judging from reader responses, most Chinese today felt it was foolish to jump into uncharted waters without proper preparation for the sole sake of snatching a sports title from a non-Chinese. They could understand that Warren loved white-water rafting simply for the challenge of it, and did not have the intention of upsetting Chinese pride. They felt that sacrificing 10 young lives was not worthwhile.

Thirty years ago, such voices would be jarring. Actually when a female reporter told the Chinese rafters that she would pray for their safe return, they were shocked she did not say she would pray for their victory. Obviously people had different notions when it came to the value of life vis-a-vis the value of honor.

Now that we look back, there was a tragically heroic dimension to all three teams. Warren was the most sportsmanlike, but he was said to have acted like a dictator, which did not help him win the support of his own team. The Chinese rafters, on the other hand, were highly united in their goal, but woefully unprepared and hence recklessly suicidal. In a sense they were all heroes and would have found themselves out of place in this age when pragmatism beats gallantry.

Contact the writer at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn