By Xiangjun
Meeting kayak for the first time.
“ I am actually very self-contemptuous, and my biggest fear is being normal.” His father used to be tough on him, and he had to be the best to gain his father’s affirmation. This state of mind made Huacan Li became a workaholic after he just graduated, he had worked until midnight for two or three years.
He finally gained confidence in work, but he had a severe disease when he wasn’t even 30. He tried to climb the mountain to exercise, and it was the beginning of the twenty-first century when outdoor sports started to rise in China.
Mountain wind, the sea of forest, strange stones, clouds and nature which is like kaleidoscope had opened another world except for his job for him. He crossed many places until he was exhausted, he kept refreshing his new highest score, and it had become the resource of his confidence which he lacked most.
Soon, this shy young man became the crazy person in his friends' eyes. He had to try the hardest roads, and he created an online name which is Semiten. Semiten is an ancient nation which was good at traveling across mountains and waters, and this name represents his enthusiasm and passion for the wilderness.
But being married, working and having a raise is the “right path” for a man. In 2007, he met kayak by accident when he was 33 years old, the river of his life took a turn.
He kayaked toward the endless sea one time after another with one kayak and one paddle. The broadness is different from the land and reminds of him when he was young. Once he tried to prove to his father that he could when he was ten years old, he ran away from the farm he lived in, swam across five small rivers, one giant field of sugarcane and saw the ocean in astonishment.
The self-conflict of a woman.
Had she thought about the life and death of her husband while facing the Yellow River? Let’s look at the origin of the Yellow River, a woman whose name is Antelope was standing among the snowstorm. This woman seems clever, and she was supposed to be wearing a suit, walking in and out transnational corporations, and having a good career. She never thought that she would leave her job behind and go crazy with her husband.
She thought kayak was just his husband’s hobby, the first time she felt scared was when Semiten lost touch on the Southeast Asia sea. They were supposed to talk at least once in eight hours, but her phone didn’t ring. Thinking about the magnificent ocean and lost husband, she didn’t know where to turn to, her heart was empty, and her legs were weak. She felt she was going to fell into the abyss.
After the longest 44 hours of her life, Semiten finally found communication signal, she cried out on the phone, “come back, don’t ever kayak again!”
But when he failed miserably on Qiongzhou Strait, he stopped kayaking for real and went back to normal life, but Antelope pushed Semiten toward the sea again.
“During that time, he was busy working every day, but he lost his glow.” Looking at her depressed husband, she couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to see him trying hard for his passion, see him glowing again, and that’s the man she loved.
Kayaking in the gorge.
“Are you sure about this?” They were standing in Tangnaihe County, Qinghai Province which is the most dangerous phase of the Yellow River, and Antelope had asked her husband tens of times. It was June, Semiten had survived the coldness of the highland and kayaked for a month, and finally arrived the gorge which had many potential dangers.
From here to Longyang Xia, seven people all died here during the first time anyone had kayaked here. Nobody had ever tried this 20 kilometers long beach again in 28 years.
“They failed 28 years ago because of the temperature. The temperature of the water was below ten, and nobody could survive in the water for more than fifteen minutes after the kayak was capsized. But now we have dry-waterproof clothes, and if I fell over, I will have 15 minutes more to save myself.” They stayed there for a whole day, Semiten was trying to persuade Antelope and himself as well because he had cold feet.
“There is 80% chance that you could fail, but I am confident that you can save yourself.” It would be lying to say that he was not afraid. He went to the bathroom four more times after he set the kayak, his palms were sweating. When the kayak was pushed in the water, there was no turning back.
He raised the paddle, the surface of the river suddenly became narrow. Semiten tried to focus, on the halfway of breathing, he was almost sucked in by a torrent, the fight started.
The gorge was winding, and the stream was roaring, he sometimes charged toward left and sometimes right, he lost control fast, he felt like he was inside a front-loading clothes washer. He passed one rolling torrent after another, and he thought he had survived, suddenly another wave came down like a wall. He thought he was nearly at the end, even stronger torrent kept sucking him like Suck Astral Old Law which is Kung Fu from Laughing Proudly in the World-So Ho Kang Ho and he kept going nearer toward the reef.
He almost hit the reef, and what happened 28 years ago seemed going to happen again. He drew a cold breath and paddled hard to turn the head of the kayak. He passed the reef dangerously close, and the moment he passed, he felt like he escaped hell.
It is more than exploration.
He had a bigger ambition than exploration, he wanted to show more people the real China through this mother river.
The river rushed, he fell into self-conflict again when he was close to the Hukou Waterfall. Facing the most dangerous pass and the 40 meters drop waterfall, the predecessor who is born in the 87 insisted in “not fell an inch” and used a sealed kayak. The Chinese invent the sealed kayak, and the foreigners say that it not kayak.
Twenty-eight years had passed, and in exchange, he with one kayak should explore more rationally or risk his life? He was two kilometers from the entrance, the security of the scenic spot pulled him on the bank by force, and he just went with it. “People is so, so small in front of nature.”
The Yellow River is about ten thousand kilometers long, and it was winter when he was close to the end. On the river with floating ice, whenever he tried hard to poke the ice, he kept remembering similar kayak experience. After four seasons, they had changed and wrote research papers with forty thousand words.
The last night they camped on the outside, in the woods beside the river, the starry sky was beautiful, the birds were singing, and they didn’t sleep all night. For Semiten, the Yellow River which was strange to him became a part of him.
For Antelope, she drove on the mountain road, dirt road, stone road, and sand road, every part of her crappy car was changed except the engine. She felt like reborn too. But was it worthwhile to kayak like this?
In the afternoon December 20th, they arrived Dongying, Shandong Province. They used 234 days, went across 5,464 kilometers on water and 18,000 kilometers on land, Semiten and Antelope finally arrived where the Yellow River enters the sea.
“ The first man who kayaked across the Yellow River alone comes.” The flash made his eyes blurry, a red banner and two bowls of fresh fish soup welcomed them. The fish soup was hot, and it was the food from the land.
At that moment, Antelope felt proud. Everything was worth it when a normal person like her could do this impressive thing with her husband.
Go back to the sea.
“Do we have to do something like this?” It was May 2017, two years after they arrived the origin of the Yellow River, this couple stood beside the river between China and Vietnam in Guangxi. Semiten would kayak across eight provinces and start his brand new exploration which was circling the Chinese coastline from here. Antelope who was on the land had already drowned in self-conflict as soon as Semiten entered the water.
Compare to kayak on the Yellow River, and they didn’t have to be as awful as if they were running away from something. But this time, Antelope who was going to be the backup along the way wasn’t as ambitious as before.
When Semiten was kayaking on the Yellow River, seeing him on the water like an ant, she felt a human being could be so great that a small spot could carry the weight of the world and dream. But now, seeing her husband going away on the sea, she felt human is tiny. Was it time to stop?
“Semiten, do your best!” He was nervous and felt close to the sea when he faced the ocean again, and he cheered himself silently. It had been three years, and he didn’t want to be limited by his old accomplishment, so he set off again. He didn’t have to show his power to the others anymore, but he was longing to prove to himself that he could continue exploring the sea.
The ocean is way scarier than the Yellow River. The river’s torrent is dangerous, but it comes and goes fast. The width of the river is a few hundred meters top, if you are good at swimming, at least you have hope to arrive at the bank. But the ocean is limitless with hidden tides, and it would be hard to reach the bank. Once you misjudge during a lasting storm, any struggle is in vain with one kayak.
Two days after he set off, he encountered thunder on the sea. The weather changed without any warning, and suddenly there was a loud bang and a white flash. The flash shook the boat, and Semiten could only keep cool, paddle and counting the time difference between the thunder and lightning.
Numbers flew in his mind, and he calculated in his mind that the flash was four or five kilometers away from him and on his front-left direction.
The sea surface was empty, and he was the lightning rod between the sky and the sea. When the lightning stroke, a single figure swung on the dark sea alone, a cold feeling passed from his heart to the head. The only way to save himself was to lower his height, so he jumped in the sea without a second thought.
In the bottomless ocean, he only dared to keep half of his head above water. He soaked in the water for more than half an hour. It was windy, and the rain was pouring on the coast, Antelope climbed on the dam, but she couldn’t see her husband anywhere.
She could only call him time after time. Finally, the phone went through, and she heard the calm voice of Semiten, her heartbeat went back to normal. “ Don’t worry. I am safe on the sea. Wait for me on the finish line……”
Wait for you at every finish line.
“I don’t want to live this kind of life anymore.” Going round and round on the land, waiting anxiously on the beach times after times, Antelope was getting more and more tired, she finally couldn’t it anymore and cried out. After such a long journey, she wanted to go back to Zhuhai more than anything.
They didn’t live or eat well along the way, spent all their savings every time, and they were exhausted every day while facing the threat of death. Kayak along the Yellow River once should leave no regret in life. Why do such stuff again and again?
“How about you go back first? I can finish this alone.” Semiten was silent for a while, he had to paddle at least sixty thousand times every day, he was wet, and he was tired, he couldn’t bear to see her like this.
He knew that she had suffered a lot to see this magnificent world with him. All he could do was pat on her head, tell her and tell himself that this was how exploration work.
“ Once he started something, he has to finish no matter how difficult it is.” Antelope knew how stubborn her husband was, and she could only choose to follow him or not.
Two people working together was hard enough, she couldn’t imagine how hard could it be to do this all by himself. If anything happened, she couldn’t have forgiven herself.
“ If someone is waiting, he would feel differently on the sea.” After she threw the temper, she still followed him on this long journey.
Her original name was Haiyan Zhang, and she used Antelope as her online name because antelope runs fast and she hoped one day she could keep up with her husband.
They went north like this with one kayak and one boat, one on the sea and one on land. Semiten paddled through the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea, and Bohai, and they encountered intertidal zone, fishing port, cliffs, islands and so on. They went through four seasons again. On September 28th. 2017, they arrived at another finish line at the Yalu River.
The wind at the finish line was powerful, and they could barely stand still. Time passed by, Semiten didn’t appear on time. Antelope looked at the sea frowning.
