OK, by the time the machine elves have carried this post forward to your eyes, oh gentle reader, this humble typist and My Languorous Spouse should be ensconced aboard a truly impressive ship heading through the Three Gorges, past Yunyang (hometown of our son((son!))) and Fuling (hometown of Daughter), en route to the wharves of downtown Chongqing.

Fuling's famous in China for its pickles, and famous in America for being the setting of Peter Hessler's marvelous memoir River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. Hessler came to China with the Peace Corps and taught English in Fuling. For most of the locals, he was the first Westerner they'd ever seen, and almost certainly the first to live in Fuling.

He was writing at about the time the Three Gorges Dam was just getting started. More recently, he wrote a great piece on the amazing transformations the area has been going through for Time:Asia back in 2003.

From that:

When I lived in Fuling, I hadn't liked many of the administrators, but Mr. Tan was different—a friendly, open man with a quick smile. Now he asked whether I wanted to drink beer or baijiu (a traditional Chinese grain alcohol). In the past our banquets had often deteriorated into drinking competitions. I told Mr. Tan I preferred beer.

"How about the new Fuling beer?" he said.

"Black Beer?" I asked. The last time I had been in Fuling, locals had proudly served me Black Beer—a new enterprise by the local Quanling brewery.

"That's not new," Mr. Tan said with obvious disdain. "The new one is Green Beer."

"Green Beer?"

"Yes," he said. "It's good for your health."

I told him I'd give it a try. A waitress appeared, and suddenly my glass was full of a color that is difficult to describe: a putting green at Augusta, the Dingle Peninsula in spring maybe. Everybody at the table watched expectantly, so I drank a mouthful. A rainbow of future marketing opportunities flashed across my mind.

"It's very good," I said.

The photo-essay attached to the piece says more than any words.

And if you want to learn more about the area, the book reviews at the Fuling Kids International site would be a good place to start.