For the past 20 years, Zhang Fuguan has hardly parted from his boat.

Everyday, at 7 am, the 68-year-old man goes aboard the boat and sweeps it clean. At 6 pm, he locks the cabin doors, checks the moorings and is the last man off the boat.

Once every two years he leads a group of four workers, including his son, to dismantle the wooden boat and furniture aboard into some 500 pieces and then paint them, piece by piece.

"The work has always been done in the summer because it's easy to dry the paint," he said.

Every year he can have five days off. These do not, however, usually include national holidays like the Spring Festival. "During those days more visitors come," he explained.

Of course the boat he looks after is not common.

Anchored alongside an island in the middle of the South Lake in Jiaxing of East China's Zhejiang Province, it is a replica of the boat on which the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded.

On July 23, 1921, 13 delegates of the Chinese communists nationwide gathered in a French concession building at 76 Xingye Road in Shanghai to hold the CPC's 1st National Congress. The meeting was interrupted by French policemen.

Under the suggestion of a delegate's wife who was from Jiaxing, the delegates, including Mao Zedong, decided to move the meeting onto the South Lake, a famous scenic area near Shanghai, in a boat reserved for visitors.

So the delegates gathered on the boat and the Chinese Communist Party was founded at the end of the congress.

Early in 1945 the Party decided to name July 1st as its birthday right before it held its seventh national congress in the spring.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the local government in Jiaxing decided to replicate the boat to commemorate the historical event.

On July 1, 1959, the 38th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, the replica, known as "Red Boat," was launched into the South Lake and has since become the dominant tourist attraction.

It is truly worth a closer look.

The boat, about 16 metres long and three metres wide, is anchored alongside the bank just in front of the Misty Rain Pavilion.

It has four cabins under wooden roofing, connected by a passageway.

The front cabin is furnished with a square table at the centre, several chairs and a long bed for smoking. There is a set of teaware and a set of mahjong tiles laid out on the table. It was said that the delegates put mahjong tiles on the table while meeting in the cabin. They would play mahjong in case the policemen came to check.

Every piece of the furniture was duplicated according to the local style of those days and features elaborate carving. Under Zhang Fuguan's care, they still look new.

Behind the front cabin are middle, side and back cabins. There is a bed in the middle cabin and a cooking stove and a cupboard in the back cabin.

A slender wooden tender is roped to the stern of the boat. In those days, this kind of vessel was used to shuttle the delegates onto the boat.

The boat is certainly not the only item of interest on the South Lake.

With an area of some 416,000 square metres, the lake has been a scenic attraction since the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618). During the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279), many gardens and mansions were built around the lake and it was named amongst the "three famous lakes in Zhejiang Province," along with Hangzhou's West Lake and Shaoxing's East Lake.

The Misty Rain Pavilion originally appeared on the lake shore around AD 940. It was ruined by wars in the concluding years of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368).

In 1548, a local official heaped silt from the city moat into the middle of the South Lake while dredging the moat and formed an island with an area of some 12,000 square metres.

He rebuilt the double storey pavilion on the island and planted two ginkgo trees in front of the structure the next year.

The structure experienced more destruction and restoration. The present one was restored by a local official in 1918.

The two trees have grown to a great size and are providing shade to the pavilion even now.

Since the Misty Rain Pavilion was rebuilt on the island, more pavilions and bridges have been built there. Numerous famous people, scholars, poets and emperors have visited the island and left their poems, paintings and calligraphy.

The Emperor Qianlong (reign 1736-95) of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) paid six trips to the island and left 15 poems about the pavilion. He loved the structure so much that he had it reproduced in the Imperial Summer Villa in Chengde of Hebei Province.

The island has been developed into one of the best gardens in the province, with a diverse collection of pavilions, arched bridges, ponds and rockeries.

Various trees trim the lake shore of the island. Potted plants can be found all over. Standing on the second floor of the Misty Rain Pavilion, visitors can see the lake stretching towards the city outlined by high-rises, ferries and barges shuttling on the water, and the Red Boat rippling in the breeze.

One becomes aware of how good the decision to move the congress onto the boat was. With the picturesque scenery, the lake was a perfect place for those "common visitors" to hide.

Besides the sights on the island, there are other points of interests scattered around the lake.

The South Lake Revolutionary Museum is the most conspicuous one and warrants a quick look. Various historical documents like photos, letters and writings, concerning the CPC's founding, are on display.

Zhang Fuguan has been a caretaker of the boat on the island since he worked as a painter for overhaul of the boat in the summer of 1980.

The good skill and hardworking personality of the farmer, who lives on the outskirts of Jiaxing City, have impressed administrators of the lake area.

Through the years, he has witnessed millions of people visiting the Red Boat, among them were State leaders such as President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji.

"When President Jiang visited the boat, I was just three or four steps away from him," recalled the thin but sturdy man with a proud smile.

Proud of being the caretaker, he even asked his son to work with him so there will be someone carrying on his duty after he retires.

"I'm getting too old to paint the boat," Zhang Fuguan said. "So I am handing down my work to my son."

On July 1 of last year, the 79th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, more than 7,000 visitors paid a pilgrimage to the boat.

"I'm sure there will be more this year," he said.

(China Daily 05/26/2001)