By Ying Xing

Many of the farmers uprooted for the Dahe dam, built 30 years ago on a Yangtze tributary in what is now Chongqing municipality, are being moved again for the Three Gorges project. “To learn more about what goes on behind the scenes in China, this book about the ruinous consequences of one small dam is an excellent place to start,” Dai Qing writes in her introduction to the translation of this important work by sociologist Ying Xing. The original Chinese version of the book, published under the title Dahe yimin shangfangde gushi (A Tale of Migrants Displaced by the Dahe Dam), was banned in China in 2002, but is available on our Chinese site. The on-line publication and translation of this book have been made possible by the Open Society Institute.

(Editor’s note: To protect his sources, the author uses pseudonyms for all people and places below the county level. We have retained these assumed names in the English edition.)

Introduction by Dai Qing
Chapter 1: Leftover problems of the Dahe Dam
Chapter 2: Down to the grassroots in Shanyang
Chapter 3: A flood of troubles
Chapter 4: A crowing rooster and the lonely ghosts
Chapter 5: Bending the rules
Chapter 6: In search of an honest judge
Chapter 7: The conflict heats up
Chapter 8: Good guys and bad apples
Chapter 9: Let them eat bread!
Chapter 10: Baiyang 16 goes into battle
Chapter 11: ‘Time to lay down the law’
Conclusion: Peasant protests: action and reaction