After the Spring Festival in 2024, the ants will have to go to sea again.
As a crew member with more than 20 years of sea experience, Ant has become accustomed to the rhythm of life of working for half a year and then resting for half a year. If you count from the beginning of his entry into Shanghai Maritime Vocational and Technical College, he has been associated with the sea for 30 years.
In 1994, a rural child who was not admitted to university did not have many ways to change his fate. The university's acceptance rate was only 36 percent that year, and it only exceeded 50 percent after the expansion in 1999. After failing to repeat his studies, a maritime vocational school in Shanghai came to recruit students, and he signed up to enter the marine engineering major, studying mechanical maintenance, in addition to learning English, first aid, and some international laws and regulations.
After graduation, I went directly to the ship for internship, and the employers were all countries or regions outside Chinese mainland, and the salary was settled in US dollars, "earning foreign exchange for the country". Year after year, from $120 per month in 1997, to now there is a big increase every month, and the position has also been promoted from an ordinary intern to chief engineer, and he has been a chief engineer for 13 years. However, the annual salary cannot be multiplied by 12, and you will only be paid if you get on board.
Once the boat docked at the dock and I had a video chat with my son, who said, "Dad, you haven't come back for so long, I sometimes forget about you!" He didn't know how to answer, so he could only write in his travelogue: "If I have a stable job at home and an okay income, why should I abandon everything and come to sea...... I can't take a last look when my relatives are gone......"
The voyage is the spiritual sustenance of ants after work. Since 2017, he has insisted on updating for 7 years, with more than 250 pushes and more than 600,000 words. In these 600,000 words, 99% of the stories are about walking and vision.
This is the story of "Ants on the Road":
Clock in all over the world
I saved 1 million
Pictured: Maputo, the capital of Mozambique
I've been as far north as Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and as far south as the Strait of Magellan. The area that hasn't been checked in yet, it's Antarctica.
Needless to say, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal are frequented by the various hub areas of ocean routes, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Magellan, the Cape of Good Hope, the Bay of Biscay, and the important port cities of various countries.
Pictured: Our ship sails through the Strait of Magellan
If you count roughly, there are more than 70 countries I've been involved in, about 50 countries that are easy to travel, and more than 20 countries that don't allow our crew to go down for various reasons – some for religious reasons, and some of them in previous years because of temporary restrictions due to the pandemic. The only time that was special was when we went to Brazil in 2014, just in time for the climax of the World Cup, and for security reasons, our ship stayed at anchor until the end of the World Cup. It's a shame that it's so close to the game site, but you can only watch it live on TV at the anchorage.
Pictured: We celebrate the New Orleans Madipotato Festival with the American people
I've seen the world's tallest lighthouse (Saudi Jeddah Lighthouse), the world's largest windmill (Norite windmill in Rotterdam, Netherlands), enjoyed the world's most famous beach (Rio Copacabaana Beach, Brazil), passed the world's smallest sea (Sea of Marmara) and the world's largest sea (Coral Sea). I've climbed the Eiffel Tower at 11 o'clock at midnight, attended the carnival in New Orleans, watched the circumcision ceremony of the locals on an island, experienced the control center of the moon landing program at NASA in Houston, and chased a thief for a few streets in Rio de Janeiro.
Pictured: Slums in Brazil
If you walk around the places I've been, the average tourist will have to spend at least 1 million.
But now that everyone has money, it's easier to travel abroad, and I've been to many places where I can meet Chinese tourists. In addition to famous attractions, there are also lesser-known spots. In a café in Casablanca, I met a Chinese tour group with rich women in their forties and fifties.
The first time I ran on a boat was on September 22, 1997, and I boarded a ship from Hong Kong to Thailand and then to the port cities of Japan: Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, Chiba, Tokyo, and Yokohama. It's all good places, but I didn't dare to go down and play like other crew members, because the pay was low, and I didn't have experience, so I didn't have anyone to take it. Moreover, container ships are characterized by fast loading and unloading speeds and short port call times, so there are not many opportunities to get off the ship for tourism. Later, when I was a bulk carrier, the loading and unloading speed was slow and the port call time was long, so it became a common practice to get off the ship for tourism.
Photo: Landing in Hong Kong in 1997 and taking a ferry in Victoria Bay
When I was in high school, I once caught up with a college entrance examination reform pilot. The liberal arts and sciences division, which had been in place for decades, was broken, and all candidates were divided into four classes according to their interests: one class focused on physics, two classes focused on chemistry, three classes focused on history, and four classes focused on geography. I chose Class 4. It seems particularly wise now, and it has helped me in my sailing and travel studies.
For me, travel has never been as simple as checking in and taking pictures. Every time I decide on a destination, I do my homework in advance, so that I will feel more when I arrive at the scene.
For example, in high school history textbooks, "Dreyeste" is always a place that cannot be avoided (from a sentence in Churchill's Iron Curtain speech: from Szczecin on the Baltic Sea to Dreyeste on the Adriatic Sea), I don't know how many times I have memorized it, but I am always confused. It wasn't until the ship came with me that I knew what it meant to be at the crossroads of history - the three port cities now called Koper, Drhieste, and Rijeka, which belong to Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia, actually belong to the same country in history, and they all have the same name. Nowadays, they are so close in a straight line that our ships can berth continuously for a short time.
Watching the world on paper appear in front of you, this sense of harvest is very strong. After reading the famous Austrian writer Zweig's "When the Stars of Mankind Shine", passing through the Panama Canal, you will naturally think of Balboa, the first European to discover the Pacific Ocean. But to understand the history of the development of this canal more deeply, as a Chinese, it is difficult not to sigh for the blood and tears of Chinese workers more than a hundred years ago. From the beginning of construction in 1883 to the completion of this canal in 1914, I don't know how many compatriots and ancestors are buried on both sides.
When the boat I followed came to the Panama Canal again in 2020, the construction of the four bridges of the Panama Canal, designed and built by the Chinese themselves, had already begun, and the vicissitudes of history were really coming.
The global village has walked many times, and the biggest gain is to broaden our horizons and know what is credible and what is purely rumor.
24 hours on board
But not 24-hour work
Pictured: In 1997, my family was still in a state of "poverty and whiteness".
When I chose to become a seafarer, there was no resistance from my family. I was born in a rural area, I have two older brothers, two older sisters, and a younger sister, and there are so many children, and it doesn't matter if my youngest son wants to go out and break through. Now it's different, each family has only one child and two children, and parents are not necessarily willing to let them go out and suffer this hardship.
Seafarers are a good job for people whose family conditions are poor, whose education is average, and who just want to earn money through honest labor.
If I had really been admitted to university and majored in maritime affairs, I might have been admitted to the Civil Service and entered the Maritime Safety Bureau. In the group of seafarers, there are more vocational college graduates, and some junior high school graduates or high school graduates, who participate in training for half a year and a year, also come in.
Pictured: I worked as an intern for the first time in 1997
The standard configuration for a group of 18-22 people on an ocean-going cargo ship is generally 18-22 people. Except for a small number of cadres and crew members who graduated from professional navigation colleges, other ordinary crew members basically come from the bottom of all walks of life in various countries.
According to the nature of the work, the crew is divided into two major departments, one is the deck, which is mainly responsible for ship steering, cargo handling and external communication, and the other is our engine room. In our cabin, the most important machine is the main engine, and all other machines are at the service of this main engine. The generator should supply power to the main engine, the boiler should supply steam to the main engine, as well as the air compressor, the water machine (the machine for making fresh water), the oil separator and various pump parts. The highest rank in the deck department is the first officer, and the highest rank in the engine room is the chief engineer I am now. Both department chiefs are accountable to the captain.
As an expatriate worker, we do not sign a contract directly with the shipowner, but through an intermediary company. Of course, there is also an "unspoken rule" in this industry, and the salary standards of seafarers in different countries are different. In some large shipping companies, the crew members of each contract are signed for three months and then take three months, and the three months of leave must also be paid.
Seafaring is an international profession, for example, our seafarers are certified in accordance with the STCW Convention (International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, 1978), the MARPOL Convention (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships) and the International Labour Convention. In addition to the work norms on board, there are also normative requirements for the welfare of the crew. For example, now the owner of the ship will ask the intermediary company to give us insurance, and we cannot get on the ship without insurance.
Although we are on board 24 hours a day, we are by no means working 24 hours a day. International conventions stipulate that we cannot work more than 10 hours a day, and these 10 hours can only be divided into two sections, one of which cannot be less than 6 hours. This rule is set very intimately, and you think, if these 10 hours are completed in several sections, the sleep time is not guaranteed.
Some people heard that I was doing ocean voyages, and they were always worried about whether this profession would be risky, such as hitting an iceberg or something as said in the movie "Titanic". In fact, compared with 1912 when the Titanic incident, scientific management has now been fully realized, and I am not too worried about the sudden problems of nature.
Every day, the company sends out weather reports to tell us when there is a typhoon, when it will blow and where, and how our ship should go. When there is a typhoon near the route, the boat will shake hard, and the impact on us is that we can't eat and sleep well during this time.
Nowadays, there is another layer of safety guarantee for sea navigation, that is, communication is becoming more and more developed, and it is becoming more and more convenient to ask for help in case of trouble. In 2014, while crossing the North Atlantic, we rescued two American sailors in the Caribbean. These two people are professional boat carriers, and their job is to drive the yacht to the place designated by the buyer, but suddenly the engine was damaged on the way, so they had to send a signal for help.
Pictured: The scene of the rescue of the American crew
There have been some shipwrecks, the vast majority of which are caused by human causes. Let me give you an example, for many years, there have always been accidents on ships transporting nickel ore, why? The particularity of nickel ore is that its own water content is very high, and it also has water absorption, and the water content will increase when it encounters a humid environment in the rainy season. During sea transportation, minerals liquefy, friction against each other, moisture rises, and a free liquid surface is formed. At this time, if the ship encounters wind and waves and forms tilting, the cargo will move to the inclined side of the ship under the action of the free liquid surface, increasing the tilt angle of the ship, which increases the risk of sinking the ship. In order to avoid this risk, it is necessary to strictly monitor the moisture content of the cargo on board to ensure that the actual moisture content of the cargo is lower than its transportability limit. In a word, no matter how much you want to make money, no matter how many benefits people promise you, don't pretend to be more things that shouldn't be installed.
Pictured: Loading ore in Santos, Brazil, to the Netherlands
There is only one place where I have really felt the danger. In 2006, I went to Colombo, Sri Lanka. At that time, it was still in the shadow of war, and the roads of the city were full of fortifications made of sacks of sandbags with machine guns on them. But its port is still busy, with most of the world's major container shipping lines arranging for ships to berth here. Now, more than ten years later, I haven't been able to go a second time, and I don't know what has become now.
There are no permanent companions
Only chance meets
Pictured: I was in New Orleans at the Madipotato Festival with a beautiful woman from Boston
My first employer during my internship was a shipping company in Taiwan, which was a small company with only about 10 boats. After a year and a half of internship, I was promoted to the third management, until 2002, and then changed to a British-funded company for 5 years, and then switched to another Taiwanese company, and has been there until now.
The crew of the first boat I got on was from Taiwan, the Philippines, and Myanmar, and then there were two interns from our school. My colleague from Myanmar is very honest, my colleague from the Philippines is very cheerful, and he plays the guitar and sings during breaks.
All of us are working on the ship in English. From the first day we entered the school, we knew we had to pass the language barrier. Documents in the company, instructions for equipment, forms copied daily...... It's all in English. It's not difficult to communicate with a foreigner, you just have to finish what he asks you to do.
The characteristics of our profession determine that we have no fixed colleague relationship, nor do we have long-term colleagues, and we will always meet in the water. I went home after the contract was completed, and the next time I got on the ship was not necessarily which one, and then I got on the ship, and at the same time it was a group of newcomers from different countries and regions.
Pictured: The ship docked in New Orleans, USA, and an Indian-American family came to visit our ship
However, there are some encounters that are also worth remembering. I wrote about one thing in my travelogue: in 2013, I was assigned by the company to pick up a bulk carrier of more than 30,000 tons. Originally, the ship hired an Indonesian crew, but because of a major defect in the Australian PSC inspection, the ship was fired, and the Chinese crew took over. The captain and I had to get on board in advance to familiarize ourselves with the condition of the ship and ensure a smooth handover.
The moment we got on the boat, the last team knew they had been fired. However, not only did they not cause us trouble, they did not even shake their faces, they worked diligently from beginning to end, standing on their last shift, on duty when they should be on duty, and on duty when they should be working. During working hours, we are familiar with the business, no matter what we ask, they teach us seriously, politely, for fear that we don't understand. During the break, when they played cards for entertainment, we were also welcome to join, chatting and laughing, communicating with each other, very happy and friendly.
Pictured: Participating in an emergency drill with Filipino crew
In the history books, friction between countries is commonplace, but in my walk, I always receive a lot of kindness from strangers. While traveling in the Chilean port of Talcahuano, I visited a decommissioned warship inside a naval base. But when I bought the tickets, the staff said that they would not sell them to foreigners, fearing that military secrets would be leaked. But at this time, a Chilean family who also came here for tourism took the initiative to negotiate for us, and finally the staff relented, saying that as long as they did not take pictures of the active warship.
Pictured: Sea lions in the Chilean port of Talcahuano
When we were traveling in Richardsbay, South Africa, the driver who picked us up was a local black man, in his twenties, with pigtails, cheerful and lively. He was paid $40 round trip. Before we left, we asked him whether to pay in one lump sum or half first?—— we wanted to discuss paying half first, and if we paid the full amount, we were afraid that he would not come to pick it up. Unexpectedly, he said very cheerfully: Come back and pay again. All our worries were cracked by his open-mindedness.
Pictured: Port of Richards Bay, South Africa
Although there are always chance encounters in my travels, it is difficult to form long-term relationships. One important reason is that we use completely different social platforms. Only group photos can prove that we have met before.
Pictured: In Tallinn, Estonia, with travelers he met on the road
I first started writing my nautical travelogue because of a reminder from a colleague. It was 2016. Our ship went to Indonesia to pull coal to Japan, but because the goods were not ready, we had to anchor locally, and we didn't have to do anything for three months, and we still got paid. My colleagues' days are all about eating, drinking, and having fun, so I started sorting out the photos I took at various ports. A colleague saw it and reminded me that you should post these things online so that more people can see them.
When you organize your photos and tweet them, it's like you're back in those places:
In Namibe, Angola, in the early morning, adults go out to sea to fish in fishing boats, and children begin to play football on the beach in groups of three or five, jumping, and a broken car tire often becomes an excellent springboard for them to leap and bounce in the air, one after another, over and over again, and never get tired of it. As soon as I saw our foreigners coming to take pictures, all of them came over, posing for a group photo with various POSE requirements, and their faces were full of proud, spirited, and happy looks...
To support the family
So leave home and go far
In 2011, I shipped a shipload of cement to Namibe, Angola. The receiver is a Chinese construction company that came here to help build the goods. Because the people who came to pick up the goods were all Chinese compatriots, the communication was very smooth, and there was a special sense of intimacy. I talked to a few workers from Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, and learned that they were paid 12,000 yuan a month, but they could only go home once every two years.
In 2022, we docked in Singapore, and two young Chinese engineers came up to help us repair the equipment. One is from Jiangxi, who has been working in a Singapore company for seven or eight years and has become a Singaporean citizen, and the other is from Fujian and has just been here for a few months. This Fujian villager spit out his bitterness to me and said: I used to get a salary of more than 10,000 yuan a month in my hometown, and my life was easy and happy, but now after I came out, my salary has risen sharply, but I work every day, work overtime every day, and can only rest for four or five hours a day, and I regret it a little when I think about it.
In the port of Shakwi in the UAE, I have met a lot of foreign workers, mostly Filipinos and Indians. We docked at Shakui Port for two days, and the loading workers, navigators, and agents we came into contact with were all Indians. A 27-year-old guy chatted with me about his home in Cochin and his daughter, who had just turned 3 months old. He has been working in the UAE for nearly 4 years, and he can apply for a work visa every 2 years, and he can go back to India for 1 month of vacation every year. I asked him if it was possible to live there for a long time, and he said Impossible.
Photo: Port of Shakwi, United Arab Emirates
I am especially empathetic to people who go to foreign countries to work and earn money to support their families. Who doesn't work hard for the sake of the family, for a few taels of silver? The price is normal family life.
My daughter was born and I was not at home, my father was sick and I was not at home, my classmates and friends got married and had children, I was not at home, many of my relatives had happy events and funerals, and in 2022, my mother passed away and I was not at home.
In fact, I do half a year off, and I don't have the hardest work among seafarers. One of my classmates had a lot of rolls, and he had to be on the boat for at least 9 months a year, or even 10 months. There is no way, his daughter-in-law has no job, and his own parents, father-in-law, and children are all supported by him alone. He was promoted earlier than me, made much more money than me, but was under a lot more pressure than me.
The biggest problem for young people to be seafarers is to fall in love and get married, get together less and leave more, and one party can't afford to wait and blow it. In 2000, I fell in love for the first time, and I had only known someone for a month, and I had to go to sea, which would be expensive to make international calls, and I could only maintain the relationship by writing letters, but before I could go home, I received a breakup letter.
I have met a crew member who has never married in his life, and the girl with good conditions is unwilling to look for us, and we have been adrift on the sea for a long time, and we have not made any friends on the shore, and we have missed the most suitable time in a hurry.
According to the regulations of the mainland for seafarers, the age of applying for seafarer registration cannot exceed 60 years old, and the deadline for the validity period of seafarers shall not exceed the 65th birthday of the holder. In other words, I can do this business until I am 65 years old.
Pictured: When the ship breaks down, the barbecue starts
But despite all the difficulties, I never thought of moving to shore.
The cadres and crew members working on the deck have more opportunities to transfer to the shore, and they are responsible for cargo negotiations and foreign exchanges all year round, and they are eloquent and lively. It's a little more difficult on our side of the engine, we are more honest, we can't brag, and we can't adapt to the work on the shore. There are many shipping company offices in Shanghai, and I can still go to work if I need to, but the salary there is only more than 20,000 yuan. When I thought about it, I don't have a house in Shanghai, and the cost of living with my family is too high, so there is no point in struggling alone.
This vacation starts in July 2023. The company asked me when I would be on board and I said the end of February. The specific ship is up to the company's arrangement. For me, the constant procedure is: as soon as the route is decided, I immediately start researching which countries I am going to, which ports to stop at, and what World Heritage sites are nearby.
The world we live in
There are always things that depend on each other
Pictured: Salt prepared for export from Australia
There are also many advantages to doing ocean routes, one is high income, and the other is to increase knowledge. In addition to the knowledge of tourism, there is also some professional knowledge. For example, in the first ten years, I made container ships, and the boxes were all airtight and sealed with lead, and I didn't know what to load. In the past ten years, I have been doing bulk carriers, and what goods are loaded in the cabin are clear.
I have shipped coal from Gladstone, Australia to Mormugang, India, steel from Russia to New Orleans, grain from the United States to Mexico, steel from Turkey to Ukraine, urea from Estonia to Côte d'Ivoire, wheat from Rouen to Algeria, and bentonite from Greece to the Netherlands......
Pictured: Coal ready to be exported from Australia
I have transported coal, copper, manganese, chromium, iron, nickel and other minerals, sand, sea salt, cement, fertilizer, all kinds of steel, as well as all kinds of grain, soybean meal, etc. After a long time, I have an account in my heart about what raw materials are produced and what materials are needed in what places. The world is truly interdependent.
Pictured: Coke in Chile on its way to Brazil via the Strait of Magellan
Over the years, with the popularization of the concept of environmental protection, various countries have high requirements for the quality of imported and exported things. For example, food should be seen to see if it is green and healthy, and whether there are pesticide residues. Another fuel of particular note is wood pellets (granular products that are compressed by specialized machinery and equipment from agricultural and forestry residues such as wood chips and straw). This fuel is very popular in developed countries because of its high combustion rate, less dust, and cleaner. It was only in October 2020 that I saw wood pellets for the first time. On that occasion, we were on a mission to carry 50,000 tonnes of wood pellets from Prince Rupert, Canada, to the UK.
Pictured: Loading wood pellets in Prince Rupert, Canada, to the UK
In fact, in the past decade, our shipping industry has also been upgrading in the direction of environmental protection. Earlier ocean-going cargo ships burned fuel oil, and later liquefied natural gas was used instead of fuel oil, but the latest trend has become methanol or ethanol. Many shipyards build new ships and have directly used new energy. For my profession, this means that the knowledge of machine maintenance also needs to be updated.
Note: All the pictures in this article were taken by the interviewee "Ants on the Road" and used with permission