A Single Pebble and the Single Pebble Village
Near the end of the book, Old Pebble loses his life to the Great River and the young engineer is forced to ask himself if he could have played a part in Old Pebble's death. Did Old Pebble simply fall? Was it an accident? Or, did he see his way of life about to change with the coming of technology and the prospect of the dam? Did he give himself to the river, unable to accept a change in the way the world had worked on the river for millennium?
The young engineer completes his journey and writes his recommendations for the dam. In the book, his proposal is largely ignored.
"Four months later I wrote an optimistic, even fervent, report on the possibilities of a dam in Yellow Cat Gorge, where, after further study, during a trip downriver by steamer, the site seemed to me the best of all. It is clear that nothing ever came of that report, or of me. Indeed, my great career began and ended with that sheaf of papers. It was dismissed and I was tagged by sound men as impractical. The tag is still on me. The dam is still to be built. It will be, one day-of that I am sure."
The Building of the Dam and the Single Pebble Village
In 1994, John Hersey's words came to fruition. Construction was begun on the Three Gorges Dam at Sandouping, China. As a result of this construction, travel along the Yangtze will no doubt be greatly improved and the city of Chongqing will become the largest port city in the world.
Meanwhile, people are transplanted, homes and businesses are razed, trees and vegetation are cleared and the cultural heritage of millions of people is threatened. In a country whose main religions are Buddhist and Maoist, temples and holy sites are an integral part of everyday life. One of the sites threatened by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam is a place called the Single Pebble Village or Danzishizhen. The Buddhist monument at Single Pebble Village is located just east of Chongqing near a spectacular bend in the Yangtze, where the river changes course to run south to north.
The main feature of the monument at Single Pebble is a large niche carved directly out of the yellowish sandstone walls of the Yangtze River valley. Dr. Elizabeth Childs-Johnson writes in "The Southern Cradle of Chinese Civilization:
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