Pingding New and Ancient Channel Survey Review

We visited Pingding Ancient Channel for the first time after school. Our first goal today was to walk on the Ancient Channel which was built in 1835. Its water came from Neishuang Creek, is 3 kilometer-long and usually used for drinking and irrigation. It is the highest Channel among all Channels. We talked and walked at the same time. Suddenly I saw a green caterpillar on my pants I almost freaked out. Fortunately Teacher Wen-Ninig helped me remove it or else I would have screamed out lout. This Ancient Channel is high and sleep; and we were all very nervous when walking along it, worrying that we would fall. Finally we finished climbing this terrible and yet stimulating Ancient Channel, then we arrived to the entrance of the New Channel. Although the roads on New Channel are smoother than Ancient Channel, it was still scary to walk. After a while, we finally arrived to the water origin of the New Channel. The massive amount of water looked like a small waterfall plus the large rocks on the side composing beautiful scenery. As soon as we saw the water, we all got excited and our teachers could tell from our expecting expression, so they agreed us to play in water. I immediately took off my shows and rolled up the pants to jump into the water. We also splashed water to each other and we had a lot of fun. 

After leaving the origin, we arrived to the New Channel tunnel. We went on barefoot and along this very long tunnel. Someone turned off all the lights in the tunnel on our way there, we all screamed in the tunnel. We discovered that Big Brother Lin turned the lights off to scare us but it was also a quite unforgettable memory. Our survey ended when we finished walking in the tunnel. Later we went back to school by bus. I think this visit to Pingding Ancient Channel was really fun for me to experience various water related activities. I hope our next survey in Dengfong Channel will also be this exciting and fun.

This was our first visit in Pingding Ancient Channel and we all looked very excited. For me, this activity not only allowed us to approach the nature but also walk on the Channel with teachers and classmates on a Wednesday afternoon. It was like a field trip and I was really looking forward to it.

From the introduction by Big Brother Lin from Chi-Sing Irrigation Association and local resident Uncle A-Jiang, I realized there are three Channels to Pingding Ancient Channel. From top down, the Ancient Channel has the highest altitude, followed by New Channel while Dengfong Channel is the lowest. In particular, Ancient Channel was built by several predecessors in 1835. The entire Channel is about 3 kilometer long with crystal clear water. The New Channel was built in 1949 and is 4 kilometer long. The late Dengfong Channel was built in 1909, during the Japanese Ruling Period, with other details of content not yet surveyed. However I will look forward to know more about Pingding Channel.

We started walking towards the highest Ancient Channel from where we got off the car. We first saw the Qinfong Pavilion and encountered consecutive ultra-steep uphill along the way. We were all very tired from the walk. At the beginning the Channel road was still very spacious butas we went further inside, the road was narrowed down to the width of two feet standing together. One side was the steep cliff and the other side the crystal clear Channel. We are all very nervous and worried that we could fall by accident. Along the way, we saw the gate for measuring the Channel flow speed and height as well as the protective tunnel for preventing the rocks from blocking the Channel, the open tunnel. It was when I realized that Channel maintenance was no easy task. Then we changed the direction and headed to the New Channel. The road for New Channel was just as bad as the Old Channel, where we often opened our arms in many sections of narrow roads, trying to keep our balance.     

I think the Channel survey activity was really fund and I have learned a lot of knowledge in the process. For example, Channel in Chinese means irrigation. On our way back, I even heard Big Brother Lin telling the teachers that Chi-Sing Irrigation Association would dispatch workers to cut the grass manually in every March, July and November, in order to keep the flow of Channel. It sounded like a difficult job and they have done a good job maintaining the Channel so well.