This respect for the dragon has relevance today for a remarkable creature which lives around the paddy fields of China's other great river, the Yangtze.
And where water is running low, as it is in so many parts of the world, farmers are letting their fields dry out on purpose, a strategy that also reduces methane, a potent greenhouse gas that rises from paddy fields.
My parents had to leave me with my grandma and my grandma had a solution for me to connect with nature and she took me to the paddy fields and I think she was very creative.