麓湖公园

This guide to Luhu Park in Guangzhou opens on a recurring flood problem, six mountain streams off Baiyun Mountain that filled this hollow whenever rains came, remembered for a catastrophic flood in 1833. It follows the answer the city chose in February 1958, when tens of thousands of residents, students and factory workers among them, walked into the mud on unpaid weekends to pack an earthen dam by hand across the low ground once called Youyugang. You'll hear about opera star Hong Xiannu, said to have sung for the digging crews to keep spirits up. Picture that crowd of shovels and baskets as you look at the still water today.