From Grits to Chopsticks

As a child, I remember when the crew came to dredge the silt from the lagoon near our house at Barnegat Bay.  With a large pumping rig mounted on a rusty barge, they sucked up the gooey stuff, piled it on the deck, and floated it away.  It was a pretty efficient process.

But in the labor-rich land of China, they have a different approach (which we witnessed while walking through town recently).  First, you divert the flow of the river:

Then, crews of women fill bags with mud:

Then, a chain of people drag the bags across the river:

The strong guys hoist the jelly-like, sludge bags to the top of the bank:

Then, an assembly line moves them into position for removal:

And that’s how you dredge a river in China!

PS.  Notice the guy in the middle smiling and waving as we took his picture.  I think that he’ll be working on this project for a very long time…