The Ancient Tea Horse Road and the Politics of Cultural Heritage in Southwest China
A very brief post to let readers know that I have published a paper on China Heritage Quarterly titled ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road and the Politics of Cultural Heritage in Southwest China‘.
This is the first instance where I have begun to bring many threads of my research on this topic together and I’m quite pleased with the result. Of course still a long way to go.
If all goes according to plan it will be republished in a much expanded form in 2013 as a book chapter in an edited collection on the politics of cultural heritage in China.
‘Avoiding Donkeys’: Critical Reflections on China’s Emerging Outdoor Culture
As I mentioned in the previous post, in addition to my interest in the cultural heritage of the Ancient Tea Horse Road, I am also actively engaged in research on China’s emerging outdoor adventure culture (the two research projects do coincide insofar as it is my ambition to be involved in the promotion of the ‘tea road’ as China’s first long distance branded hiking trail, a copy of a paper on this topic in Chinese is available here. An English version is expected to be published in 2013). I also introduced the notion of the ‘donkey friends’ (驴友) (that is, ‘Chinese hikers’) in a previous blog here. In this post I present an English translation of an essay by Yang Xiao (杨肖), one of China’s top outdoor adventure specialists. As someone who has been involved in the Chinese outdoor adventure industry since its earliest days, Yang Xiao has seen the rise and rise of ‘donkey culture’, and he has not been very impressed by what he has witnessed. In the essay presented here, ‘Avoiding Donkeys’ (避驴), Yang Xiao outlines in acerbic tones his critical view of China’s outdoor culture.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Yang Xiao through his work with Ed Jocelyn at Red Rock Treks. He displays a demeanour towards local cultures and nature that expresses a deep knowledge, respect and sensitivity. He is also very handy to have nearby when your in the ‘middle of nowhere’ and it is about to pour down with rain.
Yang Xiao's first encounter with the mysterious black gunk that is 'vegemite' ...
Yang Xiao, who describes himself as a ’21st Century Muleteer’, keeps an active blog titled (in Chinese) ‘Long March 2′ here. He does a lot of equipment reviews and is known as one of China’s leading experts in outdoor equipment. He also writes for many of China’s leading outdoor adventure websites and magazines and has taken part in promotional activities (that is, to promote an awareness amongst Chinese hikers of quality hiking trails and experiences) along the Appalachian Trail (United States) and the Overland Track (Tasmania, Australia). The original Chinese text of ‘Avoiding Donkeys’ can be found here. A search engine search using the term ‘避驴’ will take you to pages in Chinese where this essay has been reposted. The remarks by readers are worth noting. The essay has thus generated a lot of attention and discussion, which was no doubt the precise purpose (as well perhaps to let off a bit of steam!). Special thanks are extended to Robert Xia for assistance with this translation.
Yang Xiao demonstrating how Tibetans go about acquainting themselves with strange horses/mules by spitting into their hands and offering it to the animal. Rest assured that when meeting people for the first time he shakes hands (without the spittle).
Avoiding Donkeys
By Yang Xiao 杨肖
The outdoor community in China is saturated with a strong sense of the ‘Jianghu underworld’ (江湖气) and ‘code of the donkey’ (驴气). In browsing through outdoor websites and magazines you will see a plethora of outdoor nicknames [avatars] and gossip about ‘donkey persons and donkey affairs’. [translator note: 'Jianghu underworld' is a popular literary reference to the 'murky brother/sisterhood world' of gallant heroes and wicked villains, well captured in the film 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon']
Take for example this typical post from a donkey forum (驴坛) which is an excellent example of how some people understand the ‘donkey outdoors’ (驴户外): ‘Equipment is the foundation, self-punishment is the method, corruption (腐败) is the essence! Hanging out in bars is a petty [bourgeois] indulgence, hiking is the method, and the photos will last for many years! Travelling is only an excuse, bonfires flame the passions, and amorous encounters are anticipated! Going outdoors is all about being corrupt! If you don’t go exert yourself in corruption then it’s a total waste!’. [translator note: 'corruption' here refers to hiking trips that include lots of opportunities for eating and drinking in restaurants and other such places along the trail]
So donkey!
‘Self-punishment, corruption, flaming the passions, hanging out in bars, amorous encounters’, and what the donkeys (驴子) relish as ‘mixed gender tents’ (混帐), these are key terms that summarise well what is implied in ‘the donkey outdoors’.
Starting at first from the travel forum on Sina.com (新浪旅游论坛), Chinese outdoor enthusiasts since then proudly declared themselves to be ‘donkeys’ (驴) and the forums where they congregate are thus called ‘donkey stalls’ (驴棚) or ‘mills’ (磨房) [translator note: in which beasts of burden such as donkeys were used to grind the grain]. ‘Donkeys travel across the land’ (驴行天下), ‘the power of the donkey web’ (网聚驴的力量) and ‘using donkey eyes to see the outdoors’ (驴眼看户外), all of these phrases are commonly found in the outdoors media. Some strong and fit donkeys who favour this so-called ‘self-punishment’ are more than happy to crown themselves as ‘fierce donkeys’ (猛驴).
Yang Xiao is an important mentor for young guides across China. Here he is sharing a mentor moment with Xiao Li from Haba Village.
For some even this is not enough and they refer to themselves as ‘mules’ (骡子) to show that they are even stronger and fiercer. They specialise in punishing and arduous outdoor activities. They disdain the company of all donkey kind. Some of those who are photographic enthusiasts simply call themselves ‘colourful mules’ (色骡).
Even more ridiculous is one outdoor magazine which has a golden rhinoceros as its emblem referring to the idea that the image of the ‘outdoor elite’ of this magazine is not the donkey or mule but the tough rhino.With regards to all of the above all I want to say is, ‘Hoovies (蹄子们), you have way too many labels!’. Your understanding of the outdoors is too crude. What’s the rush? Why do you need to set up such a tough ‘Jianghu underworld’ (江湖气) donkey image?
No matter how donkeys see the outdoors, at the end of the day the thing they find most attractive is the frivolous gossip of the outdoor community. For a people who usually prefer to take the middle path (中庸) when it comes to the outdoors, the Chinese tend towards the extremes: they have to give labels indicating self-punishment (自虐) and corruption (腐败) and aren’t capable of coming up with anything else.
As you can see, the donkey forums (驴坛), in describing outdoor activities, cannot do so out of the confines of these two terms [self-punishment and corruption] and the donkeys (驴子们) wander between these two ‘camps’ often declaring that ‘both self-punishment and corruption should be firmly grasped by both hands’ [translator note: playing on a Communist Party slogan about ‘grasping the two civilisations of the spiritual and material’].
These terms have been around since the emergence of the donkey clan (驴族). They have now became as stale as those songs that have been played over and over for decades. Likewise, clubs and equipment stores all use the term ‘outdoors’ in their names, making the term extremely clichéd. There is no innovation to speak of at all. Let’s consider the Chinese ‘outdoors’ stores. Only a few large stores sell some sophisticated equipment, while the vast majority of the stores are full of shoddy products. This naturally reflects the level of ‘donkey outdoor’ activities in China.
In actuality, the English word ‘donkey’ means stupidity and clumsiness. Will China’s donkey magazines come up with a Golden Donkey Award, which will be as ridiculous as the Golden Rooster Award for the Chinese film and television community? The English connotation of both award names will make people laugh their heads off.
I did an Internet search on the phrase ‘donkey outdoors’, and what I got were a number of donkey organizations: Lazy Donkey Outdoors, Wild Donkey Outdoors, Stupid Donkey Outdoors, Foolish Donkey Outdoors, Mountain Donkey Outdoors, Veggie Donkey Outdoors and Donkey of Guizhou Outdoors. There is even Wolf Donkey Outdoors! It seems that there is everything except for Dumb Donkey Outdoors. To call donkey outdoors lazy or stupid is fine, but I don’t get how wolf and donkey can be used in the same name! Could it be that someone is trying to be different by creating a new rare species called wolf donkey? We can really find anything in the Jianghu culture of China. No wonder you can find all kinds of people in the outdoor community.
But why is there nothing new now that donkey outdoors has been around for so long? In China, something is fashionable if it’s been around for a couple of years, but disgusting if it’s been around for a decade. It’s not hard to imagine a noisy scene in the fashionable outdoors:
A crowd of noisy donkeys in ‘charge uniforms’ of multiple colors are carrying a huge backpack filled with water bottles, moisture-proof pads, plastic bags and even loudspeakers. They march in the wild, shouting to each other through walkie talkies. On the campsite, tents are very close to one another. There is singing, drinking competitions, shouts, games around the campfire. Used cups and plates are discarded everywhere. It seems that outdoor activities must be done indulgingly and recklessly.
What a bunch of losers! The fact that they copy each other reminds one of ‘One World, One Dream’, the slogan of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and the uniform dance arranged by North Korea for celebrations. People can’t even dream freely. No wonder everybody has to do the same donkey outdoor activities.
Do you still remember that American guy called Nate? He was the only backpacker that we met on Chang2 Road. He is pretty wild and very capable too. He often walks in the wild for many days on end by himself. And he observed wild black bears in Deqin county, Yunnan Province.
An example of the poaching in the mountains of Yunnan. Here Yang Xiao displays a wild bird just recently captured by local villagers.
We thought we would see a bunch of ‘donkeys’ in ‘charge uniforms’, but we didn’t see any. This was quite unexpected. This shows two things: First, Chang2 Road is far from donkey nests and donkey paths, it is a wild road for adventurers; second, even though donkeys carry huge backpacks, they can’t stand the real outdoors and loneliness. So they end up hanging out in bars in Lijiang and Dali, where donkeys cluster. Let’s listen to what the locals think about these backpackers: ‘They came here to relax, but they brought with them many bad habits typical of urban dwellers, and are making things worse.’ A real backpacker knows they should appreciate beautiful scenery by keeping silent. They know how to quietly entertain themselves. Therefore, they will try to avoid the donkey code when deciding on equipment and activities.
You can’t enjoy quietness if you travel with donkeys. Some donkeys even blast music through loudspeakers hanging on their backpack the whole time they are walking, as if they are not aware that other people might not necessarily care for the music they like. Everybody has different tastes in music. Even if you have very good taste, you still shouldn’t blast the music to force others to listen. Things such as ‘one song’ and ‘one dream’ are really things of ‘Chinese characteristics’. Once a song catches on, everybody knows how to hum it. This is really scary. The donkey outdoors phenomenon has its cultural roots too. You will get it just by visiting one of those noisy Chinese restaurants.
In order to avoid donkeys, we didn’t camp where donkeys call the ‘traditional corruption camp’, a filthy place at 2,200 meters high. Instead, we camped on a sunny slope 300 meters above there. At sunrise, we quickly left the site in the warm sunshine, rushing towards the main peak of Mount Xiaowutai before the donkeys arrive.
I never doubt that there still are a small number of outdoor enthusiasts who are self-disciplined and environmentally friendly. But the 2,200 meter-high campsite on eastern Mount Xiaowutai is becoming filthier and filthier, serving as the best sample for studying donkey outdoors. Here you will find out that the outdoor activities done by donkeys are so gross and disgusting. They only know how to make a big mess.
The major purpose for outdoor activities is supposed to be returning to nature and enjoying the spaciousness, tranquility and real wild fun that cities don’t offer. In developed countries, the quietness of a campsite is paramount. There will be nobody shouting or singing out loud. Tents are far away from each other so that no one will be disturbed. People often say they want to have a private moment. This is my ideal kind of outdoors.
When I was a trekking guide, I managed a campsite for as many as 60 people. Those trekkers were very quiet when they saw the sunrise. Nobody felt they had to shout to express their excitement. But whenever we bumped into those noisy and colorful donkeys, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
Why do we despise those noisy donkeys so much? Because they have deprived us of the fun of the restful outdoors. They can do whatever they want as long as they don’t disturb us. But if they do, there won’t be any relaxation on our part.
I disdain ‘donkey outdoors’ not simply for personal reasons. Personal freedom must not be built on other people’s agonies. This is the same with second-hand smoking. If someone smokes in a public place, he will have a good time but I will suffer. If he doesn’t smoke there, nobody will be disturbed. The same goes for shouts. No one would mind if some seniors clear their voice while doing morning exercise on top of Mount Jing or Mount Xiang. We don’t go to those places anyways. But it’s a different story when people shout in the outdoors, our paradise. What on earth are you shouting for?
Since the outdoor activities with Chinese characteristics created the donkey clans with Chinese characteristics, ‘outdoors’ has become a fashionable label for this national sport. You can see arrogance on some donkey faces, as if they were saying: ‘Are you outdoor enough?’ Initially, the outdoors to me was all about being independent, quiet and wild. But in China, once something becomes popular, there will probably be nothing new about it pretty soon.
That’s why I have to question ‘outdoors’ but worship ‘wilderness’, I mean, true wilderness. There are some Chinese people who know how to be wild, but they still know nothing about the real wilderness philosophy. So they are still donkeys, wild donkeys at best. The ‘BBS culture’ has indeed cultivated many bad habits, and it is inevitable to be influenced by donkeys when one spends too much time on donkey forums.
Only by not disturbing nature, can one truly return to nature. So the idea of avoiding donkeys came to mind.
Yang Xiao in Napoleonic pose on Yak Meadow (a famous campsite for caravans along the 'tea road' with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain looming in the background).
Fieldnotes from the ‘Kingdom of Women’: Visit to Lijiang, Lugu Lake and Yongning
Lugu Lake (泸沽湖)
It has been some time since the events and fieldwork described here took place and I was wondering whether it was worthwhile posting at all. But after requests from avid readers (thank you!) I’ve decided to dust off the cobwebs and write up my notes. Indeed, one of the very reasons I began this blog was to engage in a form of ‘thinking out loud’. I have found the process of combining fieldwork with this blog to be very rewarding. To go public means that I have to think carefully about how to write in a way that most people will find engaging (my apologies if I don’t sometimes meet this objective). It also forces me to be as accurate as possible (not that I’m usually ‘inaccurate’!) and to follow up on various points or insights in my notes by providing a broader context. And most of the time I’m learning something in the process as well. In this connection I believe it is important for scholars to communicate their work to a broader public and I have done so as much as possible through public lectures, working with schools, conducting study tours, and so forth. This blog is simply the digital age extension of that process.
Readers of will know that I have two major research projects underway. The first concerns the cultural heritage of the Ancient Tea Horse Road (茶马古道) in Yunnan Province (云南省). The second, and not unrelated by any means, focuses on the emergence of China’s hiking culture (what I like to refer to as the world of the ‘donkey friends’ 驴友). At the moment the cultural heritage project is getting most of my attention as I have a few important writing deadlines and grant funded projects to complete this year. One project I’m quite excited about is sponsored by the Australia-China Council and involves linking schools in Perth and Yunnan via the Internet to share knowledge about cultural heritage, the object being to raise awareness of the importance of custodianship. Part of the project involves me traveling to visit schools in Puer, Lijiang and Shangrila in June. More details forthcoming in the near future.
Southwest University for Nationalities (西南民族大学), Chengdu, Sichuan.
I want to report here on fieldwork conducted in Lijiang (丽江) and Lugu Lake (泸沽湖) in early January 2012. The trip actually began in Chengdu, Sichuan, where I was invited by the Tourism Studies Department at the Southwest University for Nationalities (西南民族大学) to give a paper on hiking and community-based tourism (thank you Xiao Laoshi for the arrangements). The presentation was titled ‘Small is Beautiful’ and discussed the experiences of Australian tourism authorities in developing a strategic plan for inbound backpackers linked to both popular (and cheap) attractions and the need for regional Australia to employ seasonal labour. This was compared with the challenges of developing community-based tourism in western China at a time in which the economic model seems to be dominated by mass tourism and commercial scale. This was my first real visit to Chengdu (having passed through very fleetingly a few years ago). Chengdu is the true metropolis of western China (that is, ‘western Han China’ with a real sense of the cross-over of Han and Tibetan, and other minority, cultural zones). It is also apparently the capital of the ‘donkey friends’ and has an entire shopping strip dedicated to outdoor equipment. Although I didn’t see the sun for five days (they say ‘Sichuanese dogs bark at the sun’ (蜀犬吠日) because it only makes rare appearances), and I nearly didn’t survive the traffic (no offense, but some of the most dangerous driving I’ve seen in China), I will be sure to return when the next opportunity arises.
Through the kind introductions provided by a dear friend (who would like to remain anonymous) I had the good fortune to also meet in Chengdu one of China’s master painters in the tradition of Chinese landscape painting (国画大师), Mr Li Huasheng (李华生). Master Li Huasheng is a famous painter of traditional Chinese landscape painting (国画). Now in semi-retirement he likes nothing better than to get in his van and drive out of the city to 'picnic'. Here we are 'picnicking' on a somewhat chilly and overcast day on a yet to be completed highway. Master Li has lived an extraordinary life experiencing many ups and downs in the Chinese world of art and state/party control, so he has a lot of insights. Although his work now is quite 'modern' he fits well within the tradition of the 'hermit scholar/artist'. One of China's 'living treasures'.
Accompanied by master painter (in the modern form), Mr Li Yunfei (aka ‘Chris’, also one of the world’s most distinguished art journalists specialising in China and East Asian art), I then traveled to Lijiang just in time to experience New Year’s Eve in the old town (World Heritage listed). I’ve become quite interested in Lijiang (technically the name of the old town is Dayan, but for the sake of convenience I will follow current preferences in nomenclature). I’ve written numerous times about Lijiang and Shuhe on this blog. For people in the field of cultural heritage management and studies, the old town of Lijiang is an example of what not to do. Some even argue that the crass commercialism of Lijiang old town contravenes the UNESCO World Heritage convention itself and it should be revoked (and indeed I believe UNESCO did come close to making such a reversal at one stage). The old town is now basically a ‘theme park, shopping mall and bar district’. I totally sympathise with these views and hope that China’s other famous ‘old towns’, such as Pingyao, Shaxi and Weishan (the latter two are both in Yunnan) can avoid becoming like ‘Lijiang’.
I took part in the Second Annual Tea Friends Tea Tasting Event in Lijiang at the Qiuyue Teahouse. The focus was black teas from Fujian (and of course some fine black tea from Yunnan). The event was also simultaneously held in nineteen other locations across China. Each location interacted with the others via a dedicated Weibo site (something like Facebook/Twitter). Awards were given to the location that ran the best event on the day. The event offered some great insights into the ongoing development of contemporary Chinese tea culture.
Having said that, however, from my perspective as a scholar of contemporary Chinese society, there is a lot going on in Lijiang that I find quite fascinating. For instance, did you know that Lijiang is regarded as the ‘one night stand capital of China’ (中国一夜情之都)? This has much to do with the rise of a youth leisure culture and the development of Lijiang as a ‘romance travel destination’ (very popular as a honeymoon destination). There is even something of an urban legend which has incorporated the love story of a local Naxi man and Korean woman into the overall image of Lijiang as a ‘city of love’. The couple set up one of Lijiang’s first backpacker (背包客) hostels and café in the early 1990s in the old town. I remember meeting them many years ago and having the backpacker staple of banana pancakes. That hostel/café has now transformed into a enormous bar and cabaret venue that can accommodate up to 300 people. You can see from this example the dramatic transformation that Lijiang has undergone and in particular how the domestic tourism market is now the driving force (the spendthrift foreign and Chinese backpackers couldn’t even afford to step into the establishment nowadays!).
Mr Yang is a villager from Shuhe (not far from the old town of Lijiang). Given that Shuhe is rapidly developing into a major leisure/recreation centre in the style of Lijiang (thankfully not as noisy), Mr Yang and his fellow villagers are possibly the last generation of Shuhe farmers. Shuhe was an important staging post on the Ancient Tea Horse Road famous for both its cobblers/leather workers and caravans/muleteers. Here Mr Yang is pictured at his ancestral graves in the hills behind Shuhe. Some of his ancestors were well known and well educated lamas (monks in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition), one of whom was apparently a teacher to the famous Joseph Rock. Even the hills aren't safe and the villagers have been at odds with government and developers who want to move the graves to build a resort.
Yet there is still something of a ‘backpacker’ presence in Lijiang. Lijiang, and Dali down the road with a somewhat different ‘vibe’, attract a range of tourists, but in particular they have become important destinations on the ‘Chinese hippie trail’. As such Lijiang old town has more than its fair share of bars. On the periphery of the old town (where it becomes the ‘new old town’) you will find many quiet boutique style bars (in which a AUD$20 bottle of Australian wine is retailed at AUD$100). In the heart of the old town there is one strip now known as the ‘bar street’ (酒吧街) which is probably the loudest and most expensive drinking zone in China. If all goes according to plan I hope to be able to spend a bit more time in Lijiang in the latter half of this year to engage in more fieldwork and observations. In any case we spent the last night of 2011 and the first moments of 2012 in the old town observing just how far noise pollution can go in this day and age.
The real purpose for visiting Lijiang this time was to meet with the up and coming Mosuo scholar Latami Dashi (拉挞迷达史) at the Lijiang branch of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences. Latami is an outstanding scholar who hails from Yongning, a small town near the famous Lugu Lake. And as I discovered his is also something of a celebrity in his home region where he more well known for his skills as a songwriter of contemporary Mosuo folk songs (some of which you can belt out in local KTV establishments). His home is popularly known as ‘the kingdom of women’ (女儿国), the land of the Mosuo people (摩 梭人), a matrilineal community with many unique customs such as ‘walking marriage’ (走婚) (which I won’t try to explain here, suffice to say there are many common misconceptions about this particular practice). You can see where Lugu Lake (泸沽湖) and Yongning (永宁) are located on Google Maps here. You can see a selection of the images taken during this trip on my Flickr site here. Given the very unique nature of Mosuo social life they have found themselves to be frequently visited by anthropologists (the earliest recorded Westerner to visit the region was the famous botanist and amateur Naxi ethnographer, Joseph Rock). Latami told me that there were so many anthropologists and scholars passing through his house when he was a young lad that he too wanted to， ‘be a anthropologist when I grow up!’. I have had the pleasure to know Latami for several years and his have provided me with a good education into the challenges facing Mosuo culture in the age of rapid social transformation (of course any inaccuracies recorded here are completely my own fault). Latami, knowing of my keen interest in the Ancient Tea Horse Road, agreed to take me on a personal visit to Lugu Lake and Yongning, the latter being a very important trading post on the tea road network. This was just too good an opportunity to miss, so when the chance finally came we met as agreed in Lijiang to embark on our own journey to ‘the kingdom of women’. (In this connection I thoroughly recommend the autobiography (co-authored with my former colleague Christine Mathieu) by the most famous Mosuo of contemporary times, Namu, and her story that takes her from the rural environs of a once relatively isolated community to the catwalks of New York and Paris. The book is titled Leaving Mother Lake).
This Yi woman has come to the main street of Yongning to sell homemade charcoal (木炭). The charcoal is manufactured in smouldering mounds in the hills in a process which can take days and even weeks to complete. Although technically illegal (as it requires the use of protected trees) the local authorities seem to turn a blind eye as it is a valuable source of heating/cooking and income for poor families. The practice of making charcoal this way seems to be quite common in mountainous western China.
Latami was extremely generous with his time and knowledge and provided many personal insights into Mosuo culture. He also introduced us to a number of notable scholars, officials and other persons in Lugu and Yongning, thus providing a good foundation for more detailed fieldwork in the future. As with almost everywhere else in Yunnan, the road network in Lijiang (Lugu Lake and Yongning are located in Ninglang County which is part of the ‘rural city’ of Lijiang) is being upgraded. The new expressway from Lijiang to Lugu Lake is near completion. This will dramatically reduce the traveling time to a couple of hours, thereby making it possible for even greater ‘hordes’ of tourists to visit the area, possible even on ‘day trips’. Considering that my first trip to Lugu Lake from Lijiang in the early 1990s took about 17 hours, this is quite an achievement. As I’ve noted before, the increased mobility and compression of ‘time and space’ through the modernisation of transport infrastructure is bringing with it a myriad of social, economic and cultural changes.
The sacred Lion Mountain (狮子山) of Lugu Lake. Also known as Gemu Mountain (格姆山） after the Goddess Gemu (格姆女神). Every year an important circumambulation festival is held in honour of Gemu. It takes place on the 25th day of the 7th lunar month and is regarded by some as a vestige of 'nature worship' (大自然崇拜). The Lige cafe/hotel strip is in the forefront.
Yet I noticed something quite interesting from the visit to Lugu Lake and nearby Yongning, namely the concentration of tourism development in one area and the virtual lack of any form of tourism development in another. Lugu Lake is simply stunning. It is a large body of fresh water on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan, and indeed one of the cleanest bodies of fresh water anywhere in China (something that unfortunately is in quite short supply in this age of rapid industrialisation). The lake is dominated by sacred Lion Mountain (狮子山) home of the Goddess Gemu (格姆女神). One of the legends of the origin of the mountain is as follows:
“… a beautiful female spirit by the name of Gemu had many local mountain spirits as her male friends. The young spirit was pretty and also had male friends among the male spirits from other mountain regions. During one of her intimate dalliances with a local male spirit, a mountain spirit from a distant mountain came to her house on horseback. When he found her in the company of a local male spirit, he felt humiliated and quickly turned his horse round and started going back. Gemu heard the neigh of the horse and realized that a distant mountain spirit had come on horseback to visit her. She came out of the house and started running after the visitor spirit. She could only see a large hoof print at the foot of the mountain where the male spirit had disappeared. As it was getting dark, Gemu could not proceed further and she started weeping frenziedly, which resulted in the hoofprint turning into a lake with her tears. When the male spirit heard her crying, and saw that the hoofprint had turned into a lake with her tears, he lovingly threw a few pearls and flowers into the lake. The pearls are identified now as the islands in the lake and the flowers which floated to the lake shore are said to be scented azaleas and other flowers, which bloom every year.” [Source]
Lugu Lake has developed into a popular tourist destination and mass tourism is changing the culture of the Mosuo people for better and for worse. Pictured here is a young Mosuo man who having worked in Lijiang for a number of years decided to return to Luoshui to work for his family. As this is a matrilineal society his grandmother is the one who tells him what his work duties are.
The surrounding region is still very bucolic, the only other industry being tourism, but this is mainly concentrated in a couple of small villages (some of which have become ‘towns’) around the lake. So it is all very good if your village is close to the lake, but as you move away from Lugu the presence of tourism infrastructure virtually disappears. There is one part of Lugu called Lige Island (里格岛), a small village and strip of beautiful lakeside just at the base of Lion Mountain. At Lige it seems as if someone has air freighted a piece of trendy Lijiang and dropped in right next to the beach. The strip is an assortment of very nice and upmarket cafes and hostels with Lijiang prices to match. If you can afford it, it is probably the best place to stay (although there are some quieter spots in other lakeside locations which would be my personal preference. I wouldn’t bother with the town of Luoshui (落水村) which is the site of most development).
The elongated side profile of Lion Mountain from Yongning. Does it not resemble a crouching lion?
Yet only 45 minutes drive away at the town of Yongning (永宁乡) the contrast couldn’t be starker. Yongning is situated on a small basin with the elongated side profile of Lion Mountain dominating in the east. It is a ‘one street’ town with a strong bucolic feel. As the day unfolds the main street attracts locals from far and wide. Many Mosuo, Yi and Pumi from the hills come down to sell homemade charcoal (木炭), mushrooms and other botanical (and some animal) specimens. Despite the lack of development it still is very appealing as it conveys a genuine sense of the colourful rhythms of local life. It is also home to one of the regions most important and famous lamersaries, the Zhameisi (扎美寺) Temple. The temple is a good indication of the strong influence of Tibetan culture on the Mosuo. The region has produced many famous Mosuo lamas and living buddhas who have been highly venerated in Tibetan circles. The templewas first built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and is the main temple for the local Mosuo and Pumi peoples. At its peak it was home to several hundred lamas. The number today is much smaller but can grow quite large at times of certain religious festivals. It is situated about two kilometres outside of Yongning. There is a great photo taken of a lama at the temple during the 1920s (most likely taken by Joseph Rock, but source still to be confirmed).
Main hall of Zhameisi Temple (扎美寺).
Without doubt the Yongning region is rich in cultural heritage and is a prime location for the development of tourism. My concern is that with the development of the new expressway that the tourism resources will continue to be focused in and around Lugu Lake. This was also a concern of some of the local officials I spoke to during this visit, but they argued that with the increased influx of tourists it would become possible to channel resources towards other areas. Some may also argue that concentrating the ‘harmful’ effects of mass tourism in a few locations is more desirable than doing so across an entire region. In this way, they hold, local cultures can still persist reasonably undisturbed. The problem is, however, that rapid social and cultural change is happening even in the absence of mass tourism. And quite frankly, many local people outside the tourist zones also have the right and desire to improve their living standards (and gain better access to health care and education for starters). There are a few local NGOs and organisations attempting to deal with these issues, but it seems no one is really prepared for the even greater influx of tourists that is about to begin.
The Mosuo (and Yi and Pumi) are well known for the manufacture of colourful textiles (still worn by many local women). The old town of Lijiang has many shops selling a variety of textiles usually with a 'Mosuo' woman in the shop front operating a loom (more for attracting the attention of tourists than doing any actual weaving). Pictured here is the headquarters of a large intangible cultural heritage cooperative just outside Yongning that sells the textiles on behalf of the local villagers (with several hundred households participating)
From my perspective the area around Yongning would be the perfect location for a number of small-scale, community based, ecotourism projects. Yongning has a very ancient history, as the presence of the Zhameisi Temple suggests. It was also an important staging post for horse/mule caravans in the region (connecting as it does Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, including in the past the ancient neighbouring lama kingdom of Muli of which Joseph Rock wrote about a number of times). Mules and horses are still very important beasts of burden in the area and there is a large horse and mule fair (骡马会) every year in November (which I hope to visit this year). A local Mosuo saying goes: ‘To get rich the Han rely on selling land, to get rich the Mosuo rely on raising horses and mules’ (汉人发财靠买土地，摩梭人发财靠养骡马). The caravans of the Mosuo were very famous. Traditionally it was the male members of the household who engaged in this activity (but not exclusively). It is recorded that during the 1920s and 1930s, when the caravan trade in the area was particularly active, that in addition to trading in Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, many Mosuo caravans also made their way to Burma (Myanmar), Nepal and India. As you can see, a wealth of material to explore and a rich source of important work on cultural heritage and community development to be undertaken. Now it is just a matter of finding more time and resources. A final thanks to Latami for his support and encouragement.
Short distance horse and mule caravans are still a common sight around Yongning. The cultural heritage of the muleteer is still well preserved and could be an excellent resource for community-based ecotourism.
To the Source of Tea: The Ancient Tea Tree Groves of Menghai County
This lovely Blang lady is well over 80 years and can remember the time when tea merchants used to visit her village of Mannuo (曼糯) to purchase tea. Whether or not there were any actual merchants from Tibet still needs to be verified. Photo by Ed Jocelyn (all other images are taken by the author unless otherwise stated).
From the 30th November to the 7th December 2011 I travelled to Puer (普洱市) and Xishuangbanna (西双版纳傣族自治州) in Yunnan Province (云南省) to continue my fieldwork into the study of the ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’(茶马古道) and ‘Tea Culture’ (茶文化). The purpose of this particular trip was to reconnect with contacts in Puer (which I have visited several times in the last year and a half) and to make new contacts in neighbouring Xishuangbanna (hereafter abbreviated as ‘Banna’). I also visited a number of related cultural tourism sites and collected valuable resources (books, monographs, pamphlets, and so on). Both Puer and Banna are famous tea growing regions, most possibly the very place of origin of tea cultivation and tea culture itself. The region is also home to numerous ethnic nationalities (少数民族) many of whom are involved in the tea trade in one way or another. Indeed, it is perhaps through tea cultivation that this region first became integrated into the Han Chinese economy and social/cultural sphere of influence well over a thousand years ago (I’m still gathering concrete historical evidence for this process). In particular I wanted to get right to the source of tea itself amongst the ancient tea tree groves of Menghai County (勐海县). You can see where Menghai County is on Google Maps here. The trip was very fruitful and produced a number of interesting avenues of inquiry, not least of which was strengthening my knowledge of the political economy of tea production and setting up potentially good sites for more detailed observation in the future. You can see a selection of images taken on this trip on my Flickr here.
I was joined in Kunming (the provincial capital of Yunnan) by three companions: Dr Ed (a longtime collaborator on both the ‘tea road’ and ‘adventure tourism’ in Yunnan); Mr Gary P. (a tea and fungi connoisseur and expert) and Jinpa (a Tibetan travel operator and guide keen to learn more about cultural tourism in southern Yunnan). A quick plug: If you’re considering travel in Tibet I strongly recommend contacting Jinpa. he can organise everything, check out his website here. In addition to the company of Jinpa the Tibetan connection was actually quite strong as we were seeking to interview a number of persons who could recollect visits by Tibetan tea merchants many decades ago before the ‘modern’ road network was completed in the 1950s/1960s. Look carefully at the map, Tibet is a long way from Menghai and in the ‘old days’ the journey would have taken at least six months (one way). Once again it reinforces what people will do to get their fix of tea.
Jinpa and Ed check the map for the ancient tea tree groves of Banna whilst waiting for transport at Kunming's new long distance bus station. It cost nearly as much in taxi fares to get to the new bus station as it did the express coach to Puer!
On the Kunming to Bangkok International Expressway
We left for Puer on the 30th November taking an express coach on the Kunming – Bangkok International Expressway (昆曼国际大通道), China’s first international expressway (see my earlier posting on this expressway here). A journey that would have once taken several months can be now completed under one day (assuming there are no traffic incidents and ‘leaders’ hogging the road) ( 20 hours to drive from Kunming to Bangkok and 30 hours from Chengdu). As I have mentioned before on this blog, the increased mobility provided by the development of modern transport infrastructure has had and is having a profound effect on all aspects of Chinese society. One of my recent interests in this regard has been the rise of ‘self-drive tourism’ (自驾旅游). Indeed, the first Chinese leisure drivers have already taken the journey to Bangkok. On a Yunnan news portal site dedicated to the expressway there are quite a few items promoting the opportunities of ’self-drive tourism’ (or what we might call ‘independent motoring’) along the expressway with step by step itineraries. Yet the top item on the news list is actually a warning issued by the Kunming Disease Prevention and Control Centre (昆明市疾病预防控制中心) advising travelers going to Southeast Asia to be wary of dengue fever (登革热). I will continue to keep a close eye on all developments relating to transport and mobility and social transformations, part of a study in the new field of ‘roadology’ (academics love making up new words!).
Revisiting Puer: The ‘Tea City of China’ (中国茶城)
I’ve visited Puer a number of times in relation to my current work on tea culture, cultural heritage and the tea road. You can read about those earlier encounters here. This time in Puer there were two objectives. One, to visit the Puer tea markets and talk to people in the tea business and generally learn more about the market, trends and entrepreneurial activity in this area (part of my interest also lies in a ‘governmentality’ of entrepreneurship). And two, to visit a tea cultural tourism site, in particular ‘The China Puer Tea Expo Garden’ (中华普洱茶博览苑).
This sculpture of a prowling tiger is made from one single tree (including the base) and weighs approximately five tonnes. The tree must have at least been several thousands years old. The price is 1.8 million Chinese yuan (AUD$300,000). These trees are illegally felled, of course, and can only be sold in China (not possible to get an export license to other countries such as Australia because you cannot prove where it comes from). So whereas ancient tea trees are now venerated and protected in China the ancient trees of the rainforests of Laos and Myanmar (Burma) continue to fall. Who is buying this stuff? I was told that a lot ends up as 'gifts' for persons of rank in Beijing. Where would you put such a monstrosity?
The China Puer Tea Expo Garden is located 30 kilometres from ‘downtown’ Puer. The site contains 24,167 mu (one mu is approximately 666 square metres) of terraced tea plantations. It claims to be an ‘organic tea plantation’ (有机茶园). A small section of this large site is given over to a tourism venture which consists of an exhibition hall, a small mock ‘ethnic village’ (村村寨寨) displaying the housing and culture (mainly singing and dancing) of various different local minorities, a puer tea production centre (outlining the life cycle of tea and the process of making puer tea cakes) (茶作坊), and a puer tea tasting centre (at which you can of course make purchases if you wish). The site also includes picturesque gardens and walking paths through some of the tea terraces with panoramic views of the surrounding area. The venture is run by the local government authorities with some external investment. The professed aim is to develop a puer tea tourism site that supports and sustains local community development. Total investment in the site on completion was 57 million Chinese Yuan. This was just a preliminary visiting and scoping survey. I will look to conduct interviews and gather more concrete data in a future visit. I’m quite interested in exploring the tangible benefits of tourism and community development.
The China Puer Tea Exhibition Gardens (中华普洱茶博览苑) is a cultural tourism venture 30 kilometres from 'downtown' Puer. Displayed here are the local ethnic workers practicing their dancing routines in the 'ethnic village'.
I did glean some interesting information from the on-site China Puer Museum (中华普洱茶博物馆). The museum (technically it is an ‘exhibition’ rather than ‘museum’) divides the history of puer into four periods:
1) Initiation and Development Period (发轫于发育时期): The Three Kingdoms (3rd Century AD) to 1733. This is the stage where the Puer/Banna tea growing regions are incorporated into the Chinese tea economy.
2) Establishment of the ‘Tea Factory/Producer Brands’ Period (‘号记茶’ or ‘古董茶’): 1733 – 1938. Many tea factories were modeled after the ‘Tongxing Tea Factory’ (同兴号茶庄) first established in 1733. Puer tea also enters the imperial court as gift/tribute tea. Tea production also becomes a common and unified business/farming activity for many different ethnic groups in the region. And finally, puer begins to be exported abroad.
3) The Mechanical Impression Period (印记茶): 1938 – 1973. The first factories to use modern and semi-mechanised production methods begin to be established in Yunnan during this period.
4) The Development of ‘Ripe’ Puer Period (熟茶): 1973 – to present. Refers to the invention of the induced fermentation process to manufacture large quantities of ‘ripe’ puer (which prior to this was aged naturally over many years, the induced process reduced aging to several months). The technique was first developed in Hong Kong, then further developed in Guangdong, and finally introduced on a large scale to Yunnan in 1970s. ‘Ripe’ puer is particularly popular in Guangdong, Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia.
I find this time line a bit odd as it skips out one of the most important developments in the tea industry in China, that is, the collectivisation and nationalisation of tea plantations and factories post-1949 (the year the Communist Party of China came to power). The exhibition also refers to the concept of ‘Humanity Puer’ (人文普洱) which it claims to be a combined function of ‘science’ (that is, a scientific approach to the production of puer) and ‘culture’ (that is, selectively linking puer tea with the rich culture/s within which it is embedded). This reflects a willful combination of ‘material’ (物质) and ‘spiritual’ (精神) aspects, a strong theme within contemporary Chinese concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘civilisation’. This is not the first time I’ve come across this concept of ‘Humanity Puer’ so it seems to have gained some traction (although it may mean different things to different people).
This worker in the Tea Expo Garden is trimming the tea hedges with a motor driven hedge trimmer! Way to go!
First Ancient Tea Tree Groves: Mount Nannuo (南糯山)
Despite much clear felling in Banna there are still many substantial pockets of rainforest some of which are home to China's last wild elephants.
After Puer the next stop was Jinghong (景洪), the prefectural seat of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (西双版纳傣族自治州). The total population of Banna is approximately 900,000. The Dai are the largest ethnic group in this prefecture (approx 30%), with the Han (approx 29%) a close second. Many Han Chinese moved to the region during the Maoist period as part of efforts to populate the peripheries (a security strategy) and to open up rubber and banana plantations. The Dai are very closely related to the ‘Thai’ peoples in Thailand (and Laos and northern Burma as well). They are Theravada Buddhists (with many animist beliefs as well) and have retained a strong ethnic identity. The women still tend to wear their beautiful silk gowns, even in the fields. Along with Han culture it is fair to say that Dai culture has also had a very strong influence on the other ethnic minority cultures in the region (especially in terms of architecture and religion). There are another eleven ethnic groups, including Hani, Yi, Blang (Bulang), and Yao, making this one of the most ethnically diverse regions not only in Yunnan but in China itself. The area is particularly fertile with many basins suitable for growing rice (most of these are occupied by the Dai) and a tropical environment well suited for agriculture (including tea of course, but also rubber which has expanded rapidly much to the detriment of local forests and ancient tea groves). The name ‘Xishuangbanna’ (Sípsɔ́ŋpǎnnǎ in Dai) literally means ‘twelve thousand rice fields’. The Lancang River (澜沧江- the Mekong) cuts right through the centre and is the dominant ‘life force’ along with a very rich biodiversity (including populations of wild elephants). Banna is very hot in summer and best avoided, but winter is quite pleasant. When it’s freezing cold in most of central and northern China it is always thongs and t-shirt weather in most of Banna. It really has a tropical feel and you get the distinct feeling that you’re close to Southeast Asia what with the various sites, sounds and smells. One of my favourite things about Banna is the endemic presence of passion fruit vines (indeed a local variety known as Passiflora xishuangbannaensis). It reminds me of the tropical fruit flavours that I grew up with in Queensland.
We stopped over in the prefectural capital of Jinghong for one night. Jinghong is something of a boom town (actually in China all cities seem to be ‘booming’ and it is hard to tell what is ‘real’ and what is ‘fake’ in terms of legitimate construction). It is certainly no longer a ‘sleepy backwater’ and this time, after an absence of several years, I was quite shocked by the changing skyline. Like everywhere else in Yunnan, Banna is undergoing rapid change, but it still has managed to maintain its charms sitting as it does on the Lancang with streets lined with palm trees and the smells of Dai barbeque (some of the best in China) floating in the air. Whilst in Jinghong I took the time to renew my acquaintance with Ms Lin of the Yunnan Mekong Travel Group, one of the biggest commercial tour operators in Yunnan, and certainly a dominant player in Banna. The company has a project on the tea road that I hope to visit in 2012. Ms Lin has been in the cultural tourism industry in Banna for many years and is a valuable source of information. The company she works for is by far the dominant player in Banna owning a number of the top tourist/scenic attractions (oddly enough the parent company is a Zhejiang based pipe manufacturer … I should have known …). In following further in my inquiries into ‘adventure tourism’ Ed and I (both who are keen researchers and enthusiasts in this area) interviewed Sara and Stone, brother and sister from Guangxi who have been leading treks in Banna for seventeen years. They run the ‘Forest Café’ in Jinghong which is the base of their hiking operations. Sara was able to describe in great detail the various challenges and changes taking place in the small-scale eco/hiking tourism area in Banna. We also bumped into Frank Hitman who has just started organising treks through ‘Zouba Travel’ in the neighbouring region of Honghe. I will be incorporating some their insights into a new paper I’m writing entitled ‘Small is Beautiful: A Time and a Place for Community Based Tourism’. So you can see that I was able to straddle both sides of the tourism industry fence … ‘big’ and ‘small’. Both have their place in the market and have different roles to play in community development. If only government policy was a bit more accommodating for the latter …
In Jinghong we also met up with Mr Li who was our primary contact for a visit to the ancient tea tree groves of Mount Nannuo (南糯山). Mr Li owns a tea factory on Mount Nannuo (and incidentally has just acquired a scenic tourist attraction in Shangrila of all places!). Banna is very famous for its ‘tea mountains’ (there are ‘six famous tea mountains’ (六大茶山) and also many other ‘not so famous’ mountains as well). Mount Nannuo is in Menghai County, just about one hours’ drive from Jinghong (approximately 30 km). It sits at an altitude of about 1,400 metres. Mount Nannuo is well known for its long history of tea growing, well over a thousand years. An interesting legend connects the emergence of tea with the arrival of the famous Three Kingdoms strategist Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮) (181 – 234 AD). In fact Mount Nannuo is also sometimes known as Mount Kongming (another name for Zhuge Liang). The same kind of legend is also repeated in Puer (that is, Zhuge Liang during his military campaign to suppress the ‘southern barbarians’ brings the tea plant and shows the locals how to cultivate it). Of course the locals were no doubt cultivating and drinking tea well before the arrival of Zhuge Liang. The legend instead seems to confirm the Han Chinese arrival on the scene so to speak and the incorporation of the local tea economy into the wider Chinese economy. It also suggests the sense of ‘imperial grace’ in which the Han Chinese share ‘their culture’ with uncivilised barbarians (and hence over time making them become ‘Chinese’, a theme that is common amongst many dominant cultures around the world). No doubt the tea production skills of the Han Chinese (already well advanced in growing tea elsewhere) had some impact on the commercial/trading culture of tea production in Puer and Banna. This is certainly something worthy of further investigation.
This ancient tea tree on Mount Nannuo is reputedly 800 years old ... and still growing strong.
The main attraction at Mount Nannuo are the groves of ancient tea trees (the product of which in Chinese is known as both ‘ancient tea tree tea’ (古树茶) and ‘qiaomu tea’ (乔木茶)). There are approximately 15,000 mu of ancient tea tree groves belonging to a number of different villages (here ‘village’ refers to an administrative entity made up of several ‘natural villages’). Unlike your average plantation variety of tea (台地茶) which is grown and trimmed to maintain a ‘hedge’ shape, the tea trees in Mount Nannuo (and elsewhere in Banna as we shall see) are left to grow freely in true ‘tree’ form. The most famous specimen is aged at over 800 years old and itself has become a major international tourist attraction. This tree is also often cited as evidence that Banna/Menghai is the origin of tea cultivation (and another ancient tree that tragically was destroyed in a storm in 1967 and later aged at 1,700 thousand years). On the day we visited the ‘King of Tea Trees’ (茶树王) I counted four different tour groups hiking their way to the tree (not a very long or arduous hike, quite pleasant actually), at least one Japanese, two Chinese and another possibly European (British?). This was my first true encounter with these kind of tea trees and a bit more of the puzzle fell into place as a consequence. The trees are treated completely organically, in line with hundreds of years of local farming tradition. Such ancient tea trees have become extremely valuable as the tea they produce can attract a very high market price. And yet it was only thirty years ago that some Chinese tea experts advised removing these trees and replacing them with conventional tea hedges (台地茶) or rubber trees. In the two places we visited in Banna where ancient tea trees are grown this story was repeated much to the anger and frustration of the locals who now regret what happened. In any case the trees fortunate to have survived the early stages of ‘reform and openness’ are now well protected.
Mr Wang with homemade crossbow. In addition to stories of tea, Mr Wang also regaled us with the crossbow hunting experiences of his childhood including a near death encounter with a wild bear.
The local ethnic group on Mount Nannuo are the Aini (爱伲人- classified as a branch of the Hani 哈尼族) and we interviewed an elderly gentleman (who I will refer to as ‘Mr Wang’, born in 1950) about the history of tea and his life experiences. One of our main interests was to learn more about the stories we had previously heard of Tibetan merchants visiting the area (and he also drew upon the recollections of his father in this regard). Mr Wang told us that he remembers as a child seeing the Tibetan merchants coming to trade tea for salt (the merchants would have readily been able to acquire salt, which was also pressed into transportable shapes, from one of the many salt wells along the way). He was also able to tell us about the different routes they must have taken to get to and from Menghai. Once the road (albeit a very basic road) was completed between Yunnan and Tibet in 1956/1957 the Tibetan merchants and their horse/mule caravans no longer made the journey.
Menghai (勐海) has one of the strongest claims to being the origins of tea (much more so than Puer itself). Not to be left behind in the rush towards 'Ancient Tea Horse Road' cultural tourism, Menghai has joined the fashion of installing tea road public sculpture. Unfortunately the quality of the sculptures are no where near as good as those in Puer and Lijiang (for example). The other odd thing is that now in the region you are hard pressed to find anyone keeping horses or mules. They seem to have all disappeared and been replaced with trucks and motorcycles (it is not as mountainous in this area as other parts of Yunnan, therefore the basic road infrastructure was completed earlier). You can still spot the odd water buffalo in more remote and poorer locations.
The Ancient Tea Horse Road Theme Park
Equipped with our new knowledge of local tea production and transportation routes we were keen to get to a more remote corner of Menghai and in a very serendipitous way that often accompanies fieldwork we were somehow drawn to the Blang (Bulang – 布朗) village of Mannuo (曼糯), a journey that took us two days, much of it over very rough roads taking a pounding from trucks laden with sugar. But before doing so we first visited the ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road Theme Park’ (茶马古道景区), the third cultural tourism attraction to visit on this trip. It was in Jinghong that this particular theme park came to our attention by way of the designated shop promoting the attraction. We spoke to the shop attendant and acquired the phone number of the owner/manager who was fortunately on site in Menghai when we arrived. The owner/manager, who I will refer to as Mr Zhang, greeted us upon arrival and we spent the next two hours inspecting the ‘theme park’ and learning about his motivations to create this attraction. Incidentally this is not the first Ancient Tea Horse Road I have visited, you can read about my visit to the tea road village at Nakeli on a previous blog posting here.
At the main entrance to the Ancient Tea Horse Road Theme Park in Menghai County.
Mr Zhang is an experienced tour site operator having run a national heritage protected attraction in Qinghai for many years. In searching for a new business opportunity he came across the tea road and spent several years traveling over 5,000 kilometres from Menghai to Lhasa in search of artifacts and inspiration. He finally settled on a site about four kilometres from the Menghai county town. The site actually belongs to the Tea Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science (云南省农业科学院茶叶研究所) and the theme park is in fact a joint venture between the Institute and Mr Zhang’s company (unfortunately on this occasion I was unable to visit the Institute but will do so later in 2012). It sits on over 1,500 mu, much of which is occupied by the Institute’s experimental tea plantations (which also contains every variety of tea grown in China and many from abroad as well). The site opened on 1st January 2010 so by the time we visited it was nearly one year in operation. The total investment was 60 million Chinese Yuan. The park is designated as a National Four Star Tourist Site (Five Star being the top rating).
Mr Zhang claims that the tourist attraction serves a pedagogic function insofar as it aims to educate visitors about the cultural and historical significance of the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Part of this seems to me to be a specific response amongst the Chinese tourist, especially those from urban areas, for a ‘picture perfect’ nostalgia of times past which at once creates a sense of progress (‘see how far we have come’) and a sense of lost innocence (‘life was simpler then’). The site consists of a number of attractions spread out over a large area, these include a ‘tea market’, ‘a caravan inn’, ‘a tea farmer’s house’, ‘a tea merchant’s villa’, ‘a county magistrate’s mansion’, ‘a horse and mule stable and farrier/blacksmith’, ‘a tea road ferry crossing’ and ‘exhibition/event centre’. There were some interesting original artifacts on display but overall I have to say the experience was pretty lackluster. Feedback from other colleagues in the industry have also come to the same conclusion. One thing the site does that no doubt irritates our friends in Puer is that it claims Menghai as the beginning of the tea road and origin of tea itself (and probably rightly so on both counts in my opinion). Puer in its tourist promotion claims to be the ‘source of tea and the start of the road’ (茶之源, 道之始). It appears that the Menghai County Government is right behind such projects with a detailed tourism development plan in place that focuses on both tea culture and the tea horse road. And interestingly enough this was the only place in Banna that we came across any horses. Four in total, on ‘display’ as examples of the Yunnan horse (滇马) in the ‘stable’.
Mannuo village in all its glory. The architectural style here is Dai. We were told that 20 years ago most of the houses were made of bamboo and thatched roofs. With some moderate development the locals have 'upgraded' to what we see here.
Second Ancient Tea Tree Groves: Mannuo Village (曼糯村)
After visiting the theme park we followed one of the main roads out of Menghai up a meandering valley through a number of small rural towns and villages until we reached Mengwang (猛往), a small rural community with a population of approximately ten thousand consisting of Dai, Lahu and Blang. The area is quite poor, predominantly agricultural (rice, maize, rubber, sugar and tea, along with one sugar refinery and some small-scale handicrafts) with an average annual household income of 2,500 Chinese Yuan (most people in Shanghai make this amount per month, so you get a sense of the wealth gap in China). The town of Mengwang is at the end of the line as far as the sealed road is concerned, so you can imagine how isolated it is in the scheme of things. But in fact it is not far from the ancient Lancang River port of Simaogang (思茅港). And it is that which sparked our interest as we surmised that the local tea produced in this area was in the past transported to Simaogang where it was sold at market as loose leaf tea later to be pressed into puer tea cakes. This assumption (well done Ed!) turned out to be correct.
The village chief of Mannuo was very hospitable. We were honoured with a great breakfast on the day of our departure which included wild boar, a freshly killed chicken and some wild bird. Before trying the last item we were instructed to 'watch out for the shrapnel'. Photo by Ed Jocelyn.
From Mengwang it was a half day walk to the Blang (Bulang – 布朗族) village of Mannuo. It is the most northerly of the ancient tea groves in Menghai County (altitude 1,200 m). The Blang, with a total population of approximately 92,000 are primarily found in Banna, but with some communities in Thailand and Burma. One local Chinese official (who shall remain anonymous) once described the Blang to me as the ‘Africans of China … because they are dark, poor and like to dance’. Oh dear! I’m pleased to report that I found my first interaction with a Blang community very rewarding. When we arrived unannounced in the village it wasn’t too long before we befriended the village chief who gave us a personal tour of the tea tree groves and introduced us to some of the locals. The village chief was also the head of a newly established tea marketing cooperative. He explained to us that when the tea was harvested (April/May) each year many tea merchants from all over China and even Southeast Asia came to the village to buy directly from individual households. The local villagers, being somewhat cut off from the outside world, were at a disadvantage when it came to price negotiations. Hence, following the lead of some other ancient tea tree grove communities, they have established the cooperative to negotiate the price on behalf of the overall community. They also hope to help develop the local ‘tea brand’. At the moment the tea is sold as loose leaf variety to the merchants who then make their own tea cakes under their own labels. Some unscrupulous merchants we were told take the Mannuo tea and brand it as tea from other ancient tea growing areas (that is, places which receive a much higher price). The community is still very poor and this tea road to prosperity seems paved with obstacles. I’m very interested in this ‘cooperative’ development, it fits well with my interest in entrepreneurial activity in relation to ‘tea culture’ and the ‘tea road’, and hope to be able to follow the fortunes of the cooperative and this community over time. I think it might also make a good development project with opportunities for creative marketing by some bright students out there.
In Mannuo we experienced a brew of tea the way the villagers like it and have been drinking for hundreds if not for well over one thousand years. Very simple, pick some fresh tea leaves and boil in the pot! The taste was very pleasant indeed. Unfortunately it only works with fresh tea leaves. The tea leaves here, quite large, retain their robust texture (unlike processed tea leaves which tend to fall apart if handled after brewing).
The village chief, along with a few village elders, told us much about the history of the community and especially of tea. The village consists of 110 households, primarily Blang but also with a small attached Han village. How and when the Han villagers arrived was not made clear but we did visit one Han household. The Han villagers also have ancient tea trees (the trees were allocated to households during the process of decollectivisation in the 1980s). The largest tree, with a trunk diametre of 54 cm, is said to be 600 years old, although the age has not been scientifically verified (I think the locals are afraid to do so after the famous case where a Japanese tree surgeon tried to operate on an ancient tree only to end up killing it). As I mentioned above, during the 1980s many ancient tea trees were cut down to make way for rubber. The irony is not only did they lose precious trees but the quantity of rubber is quite low compared to other places due to the altitude. I also regret to report that there has been a far bit of natural forest removed to make way for rubber and sugar cane.
We spent one night in Mannuo in what in reality was a preliminary visit. It would be ideal to return during harvest time but this may be delayed until 2013 due to teaching commitments. With local knowledge of how the villagers used to transport the loose leaf tea we then hiked for two days from Mannuo to Simaogang making our way through many ethnic villagers and over one significant range into the Lancang (Mekong) valley. Our path took us through some good sections of natural rainforest and gave us a sense of how difficult transportation was in this region before the advent of ‘modern’ roads. In what took us two days the villagers in times past did in one single day, quite an achievement considering most of the time they were carrying large sacks of tea with them (horses it seem were not so common amongst the Blang). The village chief told us that some of them even didn’t event stay at the market very long and return the same day!
In this fieldtrip I was fortunate to physically make contact with the very origins of tea cultivation and tea culture and to see firsthand developments as they relate to the political economy of tea production (I have now examined firsthand the chains of production from the grass roots in Yunnan all the way to the markets of Beijing and Shanghai) and the cultural tourism industry based on tea culture and the tea horse road. A great deal of potential but still a long way to go. As the Chinese saying goes ‘the task is as onerous as the road is long’ (任重道远).
Enjoying the hospitality of another Blang village on our way to the Lancang (Mekong) port of Simaogang. And of course over a brew of tea.
Towards a Manifesto for the Slow Tea Movement
Camellia sinensis, the humble plant that has shaped human history.
‘Tea is blood! Tea is flesh! Tea is life!’ Tibetan saying.
China’s Second Cultural Revolution
‘Culture’ in contemporary China is undergoing a remarkable transformation. The combined forces and effects of urbanisation, industrialisation, globalisation, consumerism and myriad other social and economic transformations taking place at the level of the individual, the family, the community and the nation are creating the conditions for both the ‘invention’ and ‘reinvention’ of ‘culture’. At one end many of these cultural projects are supported and engineered by the party and government. In this sense ‘culture’ is an artifact of government, something that can be developed and guided and put to specific social and governmental uses. At the other end of the spectrum is culture at the grass-roots of society. In this sense ‘culture’ is closely tied to economic opportunities, to localised identities, subcultures and ethnicities in which it can be both a reaction to social change as an ‘economic opportunity’ or as a means of highlighting one’s ‘identity and difference’ (and other things besides). Whatever the case may be it is clear that ‘culture’ can refer to many different things and is not readily reducible (nor should it be) to one essential ‘substance’. Here I am simply reflecting on culture as a form of ‘resource’ open to interpretation, meaning and redeployment in certain contexts.
A good example of ‘culture’ as an artifact of government in contemporary China is the establishment and expansion of the Confucius Institutes. As I was the Founding Director of the Confucius Institute at The University of Western Australia for five years and a Foreign Expert in the Office of the Confucius Institute Headquarters I believe I can make some comments on this subject that have some validity. The primary reason for establishing the Confucius Institutes around the world is to help create a positive image of China. The question to be considered by the Chinese authorities and social elites is how will China be understood by a foreign audience as China’s importance and influence in world affairs continues to grow throughout the 21st century. The Confucius Institutes, through the provision of Chinese language education, attempt to work with this agenda. In so doing the question of what kind of ‘cultural representations’ of Chinese culture should be emphasised also invariably arises. The Confucius Institutes present a particular form of ‘soft’ culture that it is hoped is attractive to foreigners. This is thus a good example of culture as an artifact of government, here in this instance in the service of ‘public relations’.
At the same time the issue of ‘Chinese culture’ and what it stands for is also being played out domestically (within China). This is just as crucial and important, if not more so, than the external projection of culture as a form of so-called ‘soft power’. Within China there is much discussion about the role of culture in the form of a common set of shared values in providing a source for stability and harmony during a period of rapid social change and growing social tensions . ‘Culture’ therefore is a key component of the ‘Harmonious Society’ campaign and was highlighted at the recent Central Committee Plenary Meeting (the Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Party Committee to be exact).
Both the external projection of culture and the internal deployment of culture intersect in the form of a cultural nationalism and shared discourse of ‘Chinese characteristics’. When China was relatively isolated and insular (before the period of ‘reform and openness’ launched in the late 1970s) the question of ‘Chinese characteristics’ was not a burning question of global importance. Now that China is rising the question of ‘Chinese characteristics’ has attracted the attention of many sectors within the foreign community. People all around the world are asking, ‘What values are the foundation of Chinese society’?; ‘How will these values influence the behaviour of the Chinese state?’; and ‘What will China bequeath to the world as its legacy during the 21st century’? Once again the Chinese government has responded through programs like the Confucius Institute to direct this discourse in a specific direction. Chinese society itself will also develop different responses in both ‘harmony’ and ‘tension’ with the wishes of the central authorities.
In this essay, which I hope will one day become a kind of manifesto, I would like to propose that we consider the consumption of tea as a possible resource to draw upon to project a certain set of cultural values that will appeal not only to Chinese consumers of tea but also to the hundreds of millions (if not billions) of tea drinkers around the globe. In taking inspiration from the ‘slow movement’ (which I examine in more detail below) I propose we launch a ‘slow tea movement’ as a way of highlighting the significance of tea consumption as part of everyday social life in ways that reclaim our own time at a moment of fast and superficial consumption. This will also be beneficial to the image of Chinese culture abroad as it both highlights the origins of tea and also the set of cultural values that have shaped themselves around the habitual consumption of tea in China.
Mixing business with pleasure,
Cultural Products and Cultural Values: The Origins of Tea and Historical/Cultural Memory
Through the mass media and the sophisticated manipulation of signs, consumerism has been particularly adroit at attaching values to tangible products. Consider the values of individual choice and the ‘American way’ that are associated with a syrupy beverage known as Coca-Cola. Modern consumer capitalism is built partly on the circulation of images of desire and association (that is, to associate a particular set of values or lifestyle with a particular product). Many other examples, including the importance of film as a text saturated with ‘values’, and other consumer products, could be given. These products have been important complements to state directed strategies to develop soft power and good will.
But what about China? Is there any comparable product or tangible cultural artifact that could be said to embody certain Chinese values? The answer for me is very simple. Yes. Tea, of course. Chinese civilisation has contributed much to humanity over the millennia and is well known for the ‘four great inventions’ of papermaking, the compass, gunpowder and printing (and many more besides these). Although these are in their own right revolutionary in terms of their impacts on society and on values they do not necessarily embody any specific values themselves. Tea, by contrast, is an almost universal and integral part of daily life and habitual social interaction. Tea is not just a botanical ‘invention’ but perhaps more importantly it is a ‘cultural and social invention’. We know that tea was most likely first consumed as a ritual/medicinal plant harvested from wild tea trees. Over time people began to cultivate the tea plant and the beverage had important physiological effects on health and social effects on communities. Some have even argued that tea has had a profound social medical effect on human societies by popularising the drinking of boiled water. For example, it is argued that once tea became very affordable and widespread in late Victorian England that the drinking of tea with sanitised boiled water had a positive overall impact on the overall health of the population. Of course tea’s contribution to trade and commerce cannot be overlooked. Tea has played a major role in the economic development of many societies and in the development of global trade networks. This also has auxiliary effects on the development of navigation and maritime technology such as the ‘tea clippers’ which were the fastest sailing ships ever built. The actual contributions of tea to human society are thus very significant. In more ways than we realise tea has shaped human history just as humans have, through selective breeding, shaped the tea tree (Camellia sinensis).
Yet although tea is such a ubiquitous part of daily life and an important part of the story of human civilisation it is often overlooked and taken for granted. In 1839, on the eve of the Opium War (which we may also call the ‘Tea War’ as the acquisition of tea was one of the driving factors for the British to open the Chinese market), the botanical scientist G. G. Sigmond, in a lecture addressed to the Royal Botanical Society, declared that:
‘Man [sic] is so surrounded by objects calculated to arrest his attention, and to excite either his admiration or his curiousity, that he often overlooks the humble friend that ministers to his habitual comfort: and the familiarity he holds with it almost renders him incapable of appreciating its value. Amongst the endless variety of vegetable productions which the bountenous hand of Nature has given to his use is that simple shrub, whose leaf supplies an agreeable beverage for his daily nourishment or for his solace; but little does he estimate its real importance: he scarcely knows how materially it influences his moral, his physical, and his social condition: individually and nationally we are deeply indebted to the tea-plant.’
Hence tea could be said to be one of the most valuable and far-reaching ‘inventions’ to come from China. Yet although in English there is a saying ‘Not for all the tea in China’ (which highlights the enormous value of tea compared to other objects) the actual origins of tea seem to be almost forgotten outside of China. Tea in Western societies, for example, is associated with and dominated by companies such as Lipton’s. In an ironic twist of historical fate Lipton’s is also now the tea company with the greatest market share in China itself. This now brings us to the topic of ‘product nationalism’ and the short term challenge faced by Chinese producers of tea in competing with giants like Lipton’s and Starbucks.
Wrapping puer tea cakes.
Product Nationalism: The Starbucks and Lipton’s Challenge
Starbucks, known worldwide for its coffee shops, now includes tea on its beverage list in its Chinese outlets. At the time of writing Starbucks has approximately 500 outlets in mainland China with plans to reach 1,500 by 2015 (Starbucks Newsroom, 2011). Although tea is still the most popular beverage in China, coffee has begun to make some serious inroads especially through the younger cohort of college students and office workers. Yet coffee consumption is still less than five cups per year per person, compared to 400 cups per capita per year in North America (Coonan, 2011). There is still a long way to go but the trend of drinking coffee is certainly making headway. Indeed companies like Starbucks (for which the average price for a cup of coffee is much more than ordinary Chinese folk can afford) and Nescafe (which has aggressively marketed its series of instant coffee) see their future in China. Most recently the celebrated and controversial writer Han Han has just launched an advertisement for Nescafe. (There are of course Taiwanese style coffee houses in mainland China which are somewhat different in terms of how they are marketed and used as sites of consumption, but I will leave them out of the picture for now).
A few years ago Starbucks was embroiled in a major controversy that generated a great deal of heated discussion about China’s cultural heritage. In 2006 Starbucks opened an outlet within the confines of Beijing’s Forbidden City, the centre of political power in China for much of the Ming and all of the Qing dynasties. It is a World Heritage site (one of the first such sites to be inscribed in China after the People’s Republic of China joined the United Nations in the early 1970s). The presence of Starbucks within this iconic site attracted the heated attention of online discussion. Indeed it is often regarded as the first major instance of ‘online public opinion’. Many netizens felt affronted. Rui Chenggang, a well-known TV anchor-man, called for a web campaign against the outlet that he said, ‘tramples over Chinese culture’ (cited in Watts, 2007). Rui said:
‘The Forbidden City is a symbol of China’s cultural heritage. Starbucks is a symbol of lower middle class culture in the west. We need to embrace the world, but we also need to preserve our cultural identity. There is a fine line between globalisation and contamination.’ (ibid)
In response to the controversy Starbucks soon closed the Forbidden City coffee house. The Starbucks/Forbidden City case is interesting insofar as raises the complex intersection of practices of consumption and the manifestation of ‘cultural’ values.
At the moment there are no tea house chains of any significant size that can compete with outlets such as Starbucks. There are many tea houses especially in cities like Beijing, Chengdu and Hangzhou (approximately 60,000 nationwide according to a survey from the China Tea Marketing Association), yet they are small-scale and scattered. As Xu Fuliang, a tea industry expert at Achieve Brand based in Hangzhou, said, ‘Chinese tea houses lack strategic planning and a standard production process … I know some tea house owners in Hangzhou. They run tea houses based on their personal interest and don’t want to enlarge their businesses’. (quoted in Chen 2010). This is confirmed with my own interviews with tea house proprietors.
But coffee and the coffee house is not the only challenge facing the consumption of tea in China. Probably an even more serious challenge is the growing market share of Lipton’s in the actual tea market itself. There is a widely known saying in the Chinese tea industry, ‘Seventy-thousand Chinese tea companies are equal to one Lipton in terms of turnover.’ In 2008 Lipton’s market share in China was approximately 23 billion yuan, which is almost equal to the entire output of Chinese tea production at 30 billion yuan. Lipton’s has at its disposal over one hundred years of research marketing experience and through its parent company, Unilever, access to sales points across urban China (supermarkets, convenience stores, hotels, etc).
Lipton entered the mainland Chinese tea market in 1992 and it brought with it the humble ‘tea bag’. Tea aficionados often look down on the tea bag, and in terms of the general quality of the tea they seem justified. But by no means should we overlook the massive cultural and social impact that the tea bag represents. The tea bag personifies the ‘values’ of modern urban consumer life: standardised, convenient and fast. In the 1960s in places like the United Kingdom and Australia most people still consumed loose leaf tea. However, by 2007 tea bags made up 96 per cent of the British tea market (United Kingdom Tea Council 2011). Since 2004 Lipton’s has also introduced other teas, such as green tea, into the Chinese market indicating that it is quite capable of adapting to local conditions in order to increase market share even further. Wu Xiduan, general secretary of Chinese Tea Marketing Association, is quoted as saying, ‘The hundreds of different types of tea drunk by Chinese people mean it’s not possible to develop the Chinese tea industry into a company like Lipton’s, which is standardized with no difference in quality’. (cite in Yue 2011)
True. Chinese tea producers cannot compete with the scale and power of the Lipton’s and Starbucks, at least not in the short term. But they having something very valuable to draw upon that Lipton’s and Starbucks have little real hope of acquiring, that is, the rich set of cultural and social values associated with the ‘traditional’ consumption of tea in China.
A welcome brew.
The Slow Tea Movement
Zheng Xin’an, professor at the Chinese Brand Research Center, Capital University of Economics and Business, is a bit more optimistic about the Starbucks challenge. He is quoted as saying, ‘Starbucks will not grab business from traditional tea houses, as they face different consumer groups … Older people like to go to tea houses to relax, because preparing and drinking tea is a piece of slow art in their eyes, while Starbucks attracts young people and office workers in busy downtown areas.’ (cited in Chen 2010)
Yes, that’s right, the consumption of tea is traditionally a form of ‘slow art’ and it is perhaps the ‘art of being slow’ that is one of Chinese tea culture’s greatest virtues.
In my experience of traveling throughout China in search of the perfect ‘cuppa’, but especially in places like Yunnan which some hold to be the very original source of tea itself, I have been struck by the importance of tea as part of daily social life. Often in Yunnan when you visit a friend, colleague or even a businesses, the first thing you are offered is a cup of tea. Many people have ‘tea stations’ set up in their homes and offices and spend much of their time interacting socially with their friends, relatives, colleagues and clients over many cups of tea. Each cup of tea is carefully brewed according to set protocol and customs and guests are invited to saviour the colour, aroma and taste. The consumption of tea is not to be rushed. There is no place for the tea bag here (although admittedly some people will still have tea bags in store for times when ‘convenience calls’, a sin for which I will also make a confession). Yunnan, long known for its slower and more relaxed pace of life, has been able to resist or control the pressures of modern life. Until now that is. With the development of the economy, especially mass tourism, and of modern infrastructure the gap between Yunnan and the rest of China is gradually closing (of course I do not mean to imply that the closing of the gap is an even process).
Thus even the tea culture in Yunnan has not been able to avoid some of the pitfalls of extreme commercialisation and the temptations of modern lifestyles. For instance, there are many small operations which produce very poor quality teas which they sell to unsuspecting and uneducated buyers, typically in the tourism market. The unscrupulous tea salespersons of this kind are cashing in on the craze for puer tea and the associated romance and nostalgia of the ‘ancient tea horse road’. However, there are also many reputable companies, large and small, which take the tea business very seriously. On my travels throughout Yunnan exploring and investigating the world of tea (and Yunnan is home to many more varieties of tea than just puer) I have often heard from those in the business the importance of incorporating ‘culture’ into the tea business. Mu Ga, a fine tea proprietor based in Lijiang (his tea is marketed under the label of Qiuyuetang 秋月堂), for example, refers to his puer tea in terms of ‘humanity puer’ (人文普洱) by which he means it is important to stress that tea is a cultural and social practice that is best consumed bearing in mind certain ethical standards and cultural practices. Proprietors like Mu Ga attempt to distance themselves from the fad for instant gratification and convenience that is often associated with the consumption of other beverages. To avoid association with dodgy tea producers, for instance, Mu Ga does not label any of his teas with the icons or references to the ‘ancient tea horse road’.
I believe in building upon the experience of efforts by Mu Ga and others that we have the embryo of a ‘slow tea movement’ in China, a movement that could grow to international standards and make its mark at a crucial time when people are beginning to increasingly question the shortcomings of modern consumer capitalism. In doing so we can take inspiration from the ‘slow movement’. The slow movement is an international movement that is a reaction to the pressures and commercialisation of modern life. Modern consumer capitalism celebrates convenience and the fast pace of life as virtues in themselves. Yet many people are finding the forces behind the expansion of a standardised form of global capitalism to be wantonly destructive and exploitative. Since the onset of the industrial revolution the pace of life has quickened. The motto of modern capitalism is ‘time is money’ and factories and workplaces have been designed to facilitate the need for efficiency and speed. These pressures have gradually found their way into all fields of working life and have even begun to extend into the private realm of individual, family and community life. The ‘slow movement’ advocates for a cultural change and a shift back towards a more balanced lifestyle in which social and familial time are valued and respected (and not just corporatist slogans of ‘life balance’).
At the heart of the ‘slow movement’ is a certain ethos that advocates for a shift to smaller scales of production that favour local communities, local produce and ethical forms of consumption (non-exploitative and environmentally sustainable, for example). It can be conceived as part of the growing concerns for all manner of ethical considerations in our contemporary period. By its nature and in keeping with its ethos the ‘slow movement’ is not a centralised organisation or political force. Rather it is as disparate and diverse as the principles it advocates for. The ‘slow movement’ now has many branches: ‘slow food’, ‘slow cities’, ‘slow design’, ‘slow travel’, and so on. I believe in building upon the experiences of the ‘slow movement’ that alongside ‘slow food’, ‘slow cities’, and ‘slow travel’ we can now also work towards including ‘slow tea’ as part of the ‘slow movement’ platform. And based on the thousands of years of rich cultural experience I believe that China, and Yunnan in particular, is well positioned to kick start this call for returning both ‘time’ and ‘tea’ to the people.
Tea consumers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your tea bags! You have a whole afternoon of tea drinking to win!
Slow Tea Ceremony.
Sources
Chen Yang (2010) ‘Role Reversal’, http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/business-in-china/100259015-1-role-reversals.html
Coonan, Clifford (2011) ‘China’s coffee consumption: from leaves to beans’, Global Coffee Review, http://www.globalcoffeereview.com/regions/view/chinas-coffee-consumption-from-leaves-to-beans.
Fromer, Julie E. (2008) A Necessary Luxury: Tea in Victorian England, Ohio University Press.
Sigmond G. G. (1839) Tea Its Effects, Medicinal and Moral, London: Longman.
Starbucks Newsroom (2011) ‘Starbucks Celebrates Its 500th Store Opening in Mainland China’, http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=580.
United Kingdom Tea Council (2011) ‘The history of the tea bag’, http://www.tea.co.uk/the-history-of-the-tea-bag.
Watts, Jonathan (2007) ‘Starbucks faces eviction from the Forbidden City’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/18/china.jonathanwatts.
Yue, Ben (2011) Investors get picky about rare, exotic teas (China Daily) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-03/28/content_12235355.htm
Migratory Birds, Reclusive Daoists and the Secret of the Nanzhao Kingdom: Exploring Ancient Routes in Weishan and Weibaoshan
“Yunnan is a special case, a kind of test to which the whole process of Chinese
cultural and political expansion can be subjected. It could be seen as the model
which further expansion would follow, if or when it becomes politically feasible; or
it can be seen as the furthest probable limit of Chinese incorporation of a region
formerly non-Chinese.”
C.P. Fitzgerald, The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People: Southern Fields and Southern Ocean (1972)
The indefatigable Yang Xiao examines a tube of liquid black: Vegemite. Perhaps one day it shall be known as the 'Ancient Vegemite Road'? It goes good with noodles!
From the 28th September to the 8th October 2012 I explored various sites of research interest in and around the historic county of Weishan (巍山) and famous Daoist (Taoist) mountain of Weibaoshan (巍宝山), gathering information, conducting interviews and making useful contacts. Weishan is also one of the more northerly places in Yunnan suitable for the growing of tea (although on this occasion I did not have the chance to visit any tea plantations or indeed sample the very famous ‘roasted tea’ (烤茶) ), so there are important connections to the ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (茶马古道) worthy of investigation (indeed, Weishan has been designated as a ‘Significant Ancient Tea and Horse Road Town’ (茶马古道重镇)). Weishan County lies within Dali Prefecture (I’ve written about Dali and the Third Month Street Festival here) and is 54 kms from the prefectural seat of Dali, approximately two hours drive. You can see where Weishan is on Google Maps here. You can also see a collection of images taken on this trip on my Flickr site here. Once again I did this trip on foot with a mule team organised by the fine people at Red Rock (now also based in Dali). This continues my interest in the combined forces of revivalist approaches to cultural heritage (in this case that of muleteering and caravan culture) and ecotourism. The fieldwork was also very important to me as it was my first visit to Weishan and was a valuable opportunity to gather a sense of how Weishan is presenting itself as a cultural tourist destination along the so-called ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’. This blog entry is a summary of my initial impressions, preliminary findings and thoughts about possible further research directions and follow-up fieldwork.
Give me a home amongst the gum trees: On our way from Midu to Weishan we passed through many eucalyptus plantations and a number of small eucalyptus oil distilleries. Eucalyptus trees have been cultivated in southern China for quite a long time (for at least 50 years perhaps) but it is only in recent years through the emergence of poverty alleviation programs that the number and size of the plantations has increased, especially in Yunnan. The growth of the plantations has not been without controversy. On one side are the advocates who argue that the trees are well suited to the soils and climate and can become a good source of additional income for local peoples, whilst on the other side are those who argue that the plantations suck up valuable water and is changing the local ecology which in turn is impacting on the cultures of the local ethnic peoples.
Introducing Weishan (巍山): The Yi, the Hui and the Edges of Empire
Weishan is designated as an Yi and Hui Autonomous County with a population of approximately 300,000. The main economic activity remains agriculture, but as we shall see below there are also efforts to develop cultural tourism. The Yi and Hui are two significant ethnic groups in Yunnan (and other parts of China). The Hui (回族), with a total population in China of approximately 9.8 million, are a rather interesting ethnic group (and some would argue that they don’t really fit any ethnic identification criteria very well) in which the common feature is the practice of Islam and associated customs (such as abstinence from the consumption of pork). As I have mentioned before on this blog, the Hui have been important traders in the region ever since the Mongol led invasions of the Yuan Dynasty (1271 to 1368). In general, wherever they have settled they tended to adopt the local languages, costumes and architecture of the dominant people in that particular location and yet retain their own religion and associated customs. There is a very good historical overview of the Hui (or ‘Haw’ or ‘Panthay’ as they are known in Thailand and Burma respectively) and their role as traders in Yunnan and mainland Southeast Asia here. Weishan is significant in Hui history for being one of the major centres of the ‘Panthay Rebellion’ (better known in Chinese as the Du Wenxiu Rebellion 杜文秀起义) (1856–1873), an uprising led by a rebellious Hui by the name of Du Wenxiu which caused havoc in the region for well over a decade until finally and brutally crushed by the Qing forces.
Mr Chen, one of our muleteers, fixes the 'luggage rack' to the mule. This was the first time I saw these modern steel fabricated racks, quite an innovation in terms of durability and convenience.
The Yi (彝族) are also one of China’s larger ethnic minorities (少数民族) with a total population of about 7.7 million. Yunnan has the largest concentration at about 4.5 million. They are an extremely diverse group speaking different languages/dialects (depending on your definition) and spread across a large area (Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and Guizhou). Culturally the Yi are also very different depending on region and climate, which in themselves may help explain such widespread variation. As the saying goes ‘Four seasons in one journey, different weather every 10 leagues’ ( 一路见四季，十里不同天). You often find Yi villages high up in the mountains where they grow maize, raise pigs, tend flocks of goats and herds of cows, and roam the forests hunting and gathering edible and medicinal plants and fungi. What make the Yi of Weishan different to their kin elsewhere is the claim that they are the descendants of the people who established the relatively unknown Kingdom of the Nanzhao (南诏) (737 to 902). The story goes that there were originally six tribes/kingdoms in the region around Dali and Weishan. The tribe/kingdom in Weishan, known as the Mengshe tribe (蒙舍诏) unified the other tribes into one powerful kingdom. Over the course of its history the Nanzhao (which at one time extended as far south as present-day north Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma, and north into the rich fertile plain around Chengdu in Sichuan) was sometimes ally and sometimes rival of the Tang Dynasty and often in conflict with the first united and powerful Tibetan kingdom that had also emerged at about the same time. It is also at this time that Buddhism is in the ascendancy across the region and the Nanzhao is no exception. Once again we see the importance for the emerging trading and transportation routes for the travel of ideas, and not to mention of course the marching of armies.
On our way over the pass we passed through a small Yi hamlet and bumped into a few of the locals.
Since the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) Weishan has been firmly incorporated into the Han Chinese sphere of influence (actually it was the above-mentioned Mongol invasion and Yuan Dynasty that preceded the Ming that brought the region into the firm fold of the ‘Middle Kingdom’, but it was the long enduring power and influence of the Ming, which also saw large waves of Han migration into Yunnan, that really established the firm foundations of Han Chinese culture). During much of the Ming and into the Qing the tusi (土司) system was in place which meant that the dynastic governments ruled through the local ‘chieftains’ (in most cases either ‘appointed’ or ‘approved’ by the dynastic centre). The Weishan tusi was one of the longest running tusi appointments from 1382 to 1897 (514 years). As with much of Yunnan, you get the real sense here that you are at the ‘edge of empire’. For me these are some of the most interesting places where different cultures meet and where the story of the consolidation of the nation-state in our own modern times is played out in the peripheries. The Yi of Weishan are in any case nowadays significantly ‘sinicised’ (汉化) and in the towns and villages (especially those in the fertile basin area) you don’t see much in the way of traditional Yi forms of dress and so forth. But as I will discuss below, there has been somewhat of a resurgence in Yi identity in recent years which appears to be a combination of grass-roots identity activism and top-down initiatives to develop cultural tourism and stimulate economic development.
Loading the mules in Weishan. It has probably been quite some time since the centre of Weishan witnessed a 'real' caravan. Good to be part of a cultural-historical revival.
The current old town of Weishan was built during the Ming Dynasty (construction began in 1390) and although it no longer has the original walls and only one remaining gate the central axis of the old town is still intact and very well preserved. Unlike Dali and Lijiang, Weishan has not yet been overrun by the tourist hordes (to elude here of course to the Mongol armies of Kublai Khan). The old town is distinctly locally orientated, that is, most of the shops and activity are orientated towards the local inhabitants. It feels as if you have stepped back twenty years and can see what street life must have been like in Dali and Lijiang before the onslaught of mass commercial tourism. Of course there is some tourism and tourist orientated shops, but the presence of tourism seems rather limited and nonintrusive, at least for the time being. There are a number of old courtyard mansion (most seem to have been built during the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911) and a few during the first half of the 20th Century). The Confucius Temple is currently undergoing restoration, but from what we could see it is very impressive. Indeed, with reference to the Confucius Temple (which in Chinese is often referred to as the ‘Temple of Literature’ – 文庙), Weishan is famous for producing many scholars who passed the highest level of the imperial examination (进士) and since the Ming Dynasty has been widely acclaimed as a ‘famous site for arts and literature’ (文献名邦). These are all signs that Weishan was once a very important and prosperous frontier town during the Ming and Qing.
The Gongchen Gate (拱辰楼). This is the north and only remaining gate of the old town of Weishan. The inscription on the upper story read 'A View of Ten Thousand Li' (万里瞻天) which could also be interpreted as a reference to the vastness of the dynastic empire.
That prosperity has much to do with strategic location along the network of trading routes that crisscross southwest China and the surrounding region. Weishan sits at an important crossroads for traffic to Myanmar (Burma) and Sichuan going one way (roughly east to west) and traffic between Tibet (via Dali, Lijiang and Shangrila) and Simao and Xishuangbanna (roughly north to south). Weishan has been variously described as an important staging post and administrative centre along the Southern Silk Road (南方丝绸之路) and the Ancient Tea Horse Road (茶马古道). I will not get embroiled here in the debates over which one of these terms correctly describes the trading routes in this region. I’m still in the process of making my way through the Chinese and English literature on the subject and will reserve my conclusions for a later date suffice to state at this point that my interest lies not so much at the moment in historical accuracy but rather how concepts such as ‘the Ancient Tea Horse Road’ are being deployed to create new ways of imagining cultural landscapes and new forms of economic activity (notably cultural tourism). In any case it would seem that to a certain extent both ‘silk road’ and ‘tea road’ would apply in the case of Weishan.
Weishan still has the distinct feeling of a county town in the mountains. Locals from near and far come to the town to sell all manner of handicrafts and mountain produce. Local noodle manufactures make their noodles in the traditional way and hang them up to dry for all to see. Pictured here, locals paste public notices on the walls of the central tower (星拱楼). All of which gives Weishan the authentic feeling of a real living town orientated primarily to the locals rather than a commercial tourist centre occupied by souvenir stores and bars.
The Majestic Bird Way Pass (鸟道雄关): Where Migratory Birds and Caravans Cross Paths
We started our journey in the neighbouring county of Midu (弥渡县) and made our way up and along the old caravan road which goes through Longqing Pass (隆庆关). Up to about six or seven years ago the road was still actively used by the locals. Our muleteers (who I interviewed and will discuss in another blog on the lives and times of the modern muleteer), who also hail from Weishan, are in the horse, mule and donkey trading business, and informed me that they used to take this path whenever taking their animals to and from livestock markets in Midu (there is also a weekly livestock market in Weishan which we stumbled upon. I think a study of these markets and associated entrepreneurialism would be quite interesting). Nowadays it is more economical to transport the animals by hiring a truck, which saves both time and money. It was quite evident that even within a few short years of inactive usage that the path was in places quickly becoming overgrown. However, as we approached the pass (which is about 2,600 metres), there were long stretches of remnant road (passing through one very small Yi hamlet).
On the remnant ancient road from Midu to Weishan, just a kilometre or two away from the pass.
The pass nowadays is also known as ‘The Majestic Bird Way Pass’ (鸟道雄关). For thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands of years, migratory birds (候鸟) have been flying over this pass in their seasonal migrations north and south. At the time we passed through (October) the birds were making their way south to India and Southeast Asia to escape the cold winter of northern China and Siberia (a very wise thing to do in my opinion!). The locals have long since known about the migratory habits of the birds and it is recorded that they would set up nets and use fire and smoke to disorientate the birds into their clutches (many birds may already have been a bit lost given the fogs associated with the pass at this time of year). This practice continued up until the early 1980s when the authorities imposed a ban in the interests of conservation.
A deep hoof impression (马蹄窝) in the rock made over the centuries by countless caravans. This impression is approximately 20 centimetres deep.
Yet the practice of catching the birds continues, but this time it is for the the sake of banding (or ‘ringing’) the birds in the interests of science. As I passed by I took the opportunity to have a cup of tea with the ‘banders’ huddled around a fire in their tent (the ‘banding station’) where they were roasting corn and sweet potato (the birds only fly over the pass in significant numbers during the night). They explained to me that in one night it was common to capture several dozens of different species of birds, sometimes even several hundred different species, which goes to show how important this bird passage is for ornithological research (an important onsite meeting of ornithologists from around the region was held here in 1997). The banders were employed by the Yunnan Department of Forests (which is the local ‘banding authority’). Instead of fires and smoke they use lights to distract our feathered friends. Needless to say the migratory bird pass has now been factored into the development of tourism and on the other side of the pass a road has been constructed up to a point which makes access on foot more amenable to day trippers.
At the pass itself there is an ancient roadside shrine, possibly dating from the Ming Dynasty, dedicated to local deities that offer protection and a safe journey. By the signs of recent offering and incense sticks it is evident that the locals still pay their respects. Next to the shrine is a large stone engraving (actually, it is a replica as the original is stored in a local museum) upon which is inscribed in Chinese 'The Majestic Bird Way Pass' (鸟道雄关). This is believed by some to be the earliest written record of any such migratory bird pass in the world. But as to when the original inscription was made I have yet been unable to ascertain
Reclusive Daoists and the Secret of Weibaoshan: Discovering the Kingdom of the Nanzhao
Ten kilometres southeast of Weishan town lies Weibaoshan Mountain (巍宝山). At only at 2,509 metres above sea level it is not a very high or imposing mountain by Yunnan standards, but it has its attractions and its secrets. Since 1992 Weibaoshan has been an officially designated ‘national forest park’ (国家森林公园), which means that it is open to tourist development. The mountain is covered in lush forest and there are many ancient trees in the temples and about the mountain side, but I wouldn’t say there is any significant primeval forest as we can assume the locals (as I will explain below, there are a number of villages at the foot of the mountain) have been harvesting timber and other produce for quite a long time. As early as the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907) (some sources suggest as even early as the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220)) Weibaoshan attracted the attention of Daoists as a site of seclusion, meditation and practice.
Daoist by the name of Xiao Yao at Changchun Temple (长春洞). Well versed in all the Daoist arts of physical and mental cultivation.
Over the following centuries numerous Daoist temples were constructed to the point that they are well scattered on the main northern and southern sides. Weibaoshan is thus regarded as one of the fourteen (some sources give the number as ‘thirteen’) important Daoist mountains of China. We visited quite a few of the temples on this trip. There are too many to mention in detail here but it seems most of the Daoist pantheon are accounted for including the Jade Emperor and Laozi (Laotse). There are also a smaller number of Buddhist temples, temples such as the God of Wealth dedicated to folk religion (and no doubt there is much cross-over between Daoism and folk religion) and some sites of local animist worship. Indeed we can see here the mutual influence these various belief practices have asserted upon each other over the course of history giving rise to some interesting examples of Chinese religious syncretism. Some of the temples that date from the Ming and Qing are absolutely exquisite cultural relics. The Changchun Temple (长春洞) on the northside of the mountain is particularly impressive and is a national level cultural relic. We were fortunate enough to spend some time with the local resident Daoist. Compared to the Daoists on the other, more popular, side of the mountain, this gentleman (Master Xiao Yao) appeared to be the genuine article and gave us a demonstration of taiqi and the flute, amongst other things. His temple can accommodate up to 15 visitors for overnight visits so it would possibly be an ideal place to take a student study tour.
On our final night on Weibaoshan we pitched our tent in the courtyard of a temple simultaneously devoted to Laozi (Laotse), Shakyamuni (the Buddha) and Confucius (from left to right). The elderly lady caretaker was extremely welcoming and given that we had three of the great backbones of Chinese culture watching over us we felt very safe indeed. Just outside the temple in a grove of ancient oak trees I saw signs of animist veneration of the local spirits. An incredibly rich tapestry of religious belief and practice in one location.
I want to focus here on the ‘Patron God Temple’ (土主庙) as it relates to a fascinating ‘secret’ that can be traced all the way back to the Nanzhao Kingdom. The temple is dedicated to the first king of the Mengshe Tribe (see above), Xi Nuluo (细奴逻). In fact it is actually an ancestral shrine used by his descendants who inhabit the villages around the base of the mountain where Xi Nuluo once also tilled the earth. As we ascended the mountain with the mule team, avoiding public roads as is our practice, we were actually following the ancient pilgrimage route still used by the locals on festive days when they honour Xi Nuluo (some sections closer to the temple contained good sections of remnant road). We were fortunate enough to bump into the temple caretaker and he invited us to camp outside the temple so long as we agreed to first pay our respects to Xi Nuluo. We were more than happy to oblige. Later I conducted an interview with him and learnt much about the development of Yi identity and cultural tourism in Weibaoshan in recent years. What follows is drawn from the interview and subsequent research of local and online sources.
The shrine to the ancestor of the Weibaoshan Yi: Xi Nuluo (细奴逻).
The Wenchang Palace (文昌宫) which includes a Qing Dynasty fresco depicting an Yi ancestor ritual dancing and music performance.
Most interestingly he told us of the ‘secret’ of Weibaoshan. For a long time it appears that mainstream culture ‘forgot’ about the descendants of the Nanzhao. There was a good reason for this as the locals themselves wanted to ‘be forgotten’. After the Nanzhao ended the descendants of Xi Nuluo feared for their lives as Chinese history is littered with examples of ‘exterminating the grass by pulling out the roots’ (斩草除根) in which new dynasties massacred whole clans of the previous ruling elite in order to prevent the reemergence of rival claims to power. The descendants of Xi Nuluo changed their surname from ‘meng’ (蒙) to ‘zi’ (字) and ‘cha’ (茶) to hide their origins. Both of the latter two characters contain elements of the character ‘meng’ which is meant to be a hidden reference to their ancestors. It is only since the 1980s that the locals have more publicly and openly associated themselves with the Nanzhao. Nowadays there are two important festivals, one of the 15th day of the 9th lunar month to celebrate Xi Nuluo’s birthday and another on the 15th of the 1st lunar month to carry out the veneration of the ancestors ceremony. A famous and very important nearby Daoist temple (文昌宫) includes a Qing Dynasty fresco (dated 1795) which depicts the singing and dancing associated with this festival, demonstrating that even though it was ‘forgotten’ the locals continued their cultural practices and veneration of their lineage descent. It is also worthwhile noting that Xi Nuluo is also now venerated as a Daoist deity and the story of his coming to power and the rise of the Nanzhao has been incorporated into the Daoist cannon. We were also informed of more recent developments which shed light on the efforts to develop cultural tourism in Weishan and draw upon the history of the now ‘remembered’ Nanzhao Kingdom. The actual original temple to Xi Nuluo is quite small, but behind and now incorprated into it is a much larger temple with a central shrine and two adjoining wings. This construction is quite new and dates from around 2004 (to be verified). It is an extension of the original shrine insofar as it venerates the Nanzhao in its entirety and includes bronze statues of all the kings of the Nanzhao (and including the wife of Xi Nuluo). The buildings and courtyards are adorned with images depicting the rise and fall of the Nanzhao and the unique Yi script (which I can’t elaborate on here to suffice to say it is not a script in common use and its deployment here has more to do it seems with establishing a common identity amongst a disparate ethnic group). On the 8th day of the 2nd lunar month the local authorities hold a large festival in honour of both the Nanzhao and the Yi people. I write ‘local authorities’ as this is a relatively recent festival in which the locals are enticed to provide the dancing and music with small payments (something you wouldn’t imagine was necessary in a more ‘authentic’ celebration). The local literature on this event describes it as a major festival for all eight million Yi people. The first such festival was held upon completion of the extension to the ‘Patron God Temple’ indicating that it may have something to do with the development of cultural tourism. In both cases, that is, the local festivals to the ancestors and of the recent developments centred around a collective Yi identity and cultural tourism, we can see good examples of grass-roots and top-down initiatives being played out. I think there is a rich research project here that cuts across many important issues: ethnicity, identity, memory and history, modernisation, and so on.
The new and very large temple behind the Xi Nuluo shrine. Yi script is on the banners hanging down the front.
As you can see Weishan has a remarkable and fascinating history. I’ve only been able to scratch the surface here. There is plenty of material for research and I now have a long list of questions begging for answers. Stay tuned!
The caretaker of the temple we camped in on the last night on Weibaoshan generously offers us a cup of 'salty tea'. 'It will refresh you and invigorate your weary limbs' she said kindly. 谢谢大妈！祝你身体健康！万事如意！
Shangrila Tourism Conference and Tea Road Fieldwork
Green meadows, blue sky and the vibrant flowers of late summer in Shangrila. In the background is the very imposing Ganden Sumtseling Lamasery (Songzanlinsi in Chinese).
“If we have not found the heaven within, we have not found the heaven without”, James Hilton, Lost Horizon, 1933.
From 9th to 11th August 2011 I attended the First Shangri-lasia Tourism International Forum (第一届香格里拉亚洲旅游论坛) in Shangrila, Yunnan Province, China. Shangrila is the prefectural seat of Diqing (Dêqên) Prefecture (迪庆州). Diqing is an Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture in northwest Yunnan on the border of the Kham region of Tibet. Historically it falls within the Tibetan cultural zone and was an important transit point along the ancient trading networks between Tibet and southwest China. The conference was organised by the International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA), ‘the first China-based global academic association on tourism research’. You can see where Shangrila is located on Google Maps here. With an area of just over 11,000 square kilometres and a registered population of about 130,000 (this figure does not include migrants and the transitory population), Shangrila has plenty of room and there is indeed a distinct feeling of ‘space’ with imposing mountains, wide blue skies, and even the Tibetan houses are gigantic by anyone’s standard. Like some other hot tourist destinations in Yunnan, notably Lijiang (see my introduction to Lijiang and Shuhe), Shangrila has entered a period of rapid development. The Prefectural Governor told us in his welcoming address at the conference that in a few short years they are expecting an annual influx of one million visitors. Good for business most certainly. But will it be good for Shangrila? For its ecology? For its diverse cultures? For improving the life choices and living standards of ordinary people? Shangrila thus faces many challenges and difficult choices as it seeks to become the ‘next big thing’ on both domestic and international tourist circuits and concomitantly maintain the ecology and lifestyles which we associate with the name ‘Shangrila’. There is a very good article by Liu Jianqiang of ‘ChinaDialogue’ (an organisation devoted to discussing China’s environmental issues) on ‘Vanishing Shangrila’ which discusses some of the issues I raise here.
The old town of Shangrila (Zhongdian) is now a major tourist attraction and has undergone quite a bit of expansion which makes it hard to work out where the 'old' ends and the 'new' begins. It has not yet become as overly commercialised and busy as the old town of Lijiang (Dayan).
Just a quick note on the significance of ‘Shangrila’ for upon hearing of its terrestrial existence many readers may be about to pack their bags and get to the nearest airport (indeed, as I explain below, places like Shangrila are attracting people looking for a lifestyle change). ‘Shangrila’ first came into the English language via the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, which several years later was produced as film of the same name. Both book and film were well received and hit a particular chord amongst the predominantly Western audience. Remember at this time that Europe was just on the verge of being once again plunged into bloody warfare on a scale unforeseen in human history, another nail in the coffin for so-called ‘Western civilisation’. Bearing this in mind Hilton used the term ‘Shangrila’ to refer to a utopian paradise where people were guided by wisdom, where the locals (we assume they are Tibetan although we don’t really get too close) live a simple and pure existence in harmony with nature (what in Chinese is known as a ‘peach orchard beyond this mundane world’ (世外桃源)). By my reading ‘Shangrila’ as depicted in the novel and film, and later within Western popular culture, is full of the standard Orientalist tropes and sits alongside a modernist fancy for finding the cure for a materialist and decadent West in the spiritual wisdom of the East (a theme that also became popular in the ‘Asian Values’ debate of the 1990s). If you take careful note of the main plot of the film it concerns the transfer of the corpus of knowledge of human civilisation from one European custodian to another (without any consultation with the indigenous people who seem to exist in a state of blissful subservience). How exactly ‘Xianggelila‘ (Chinese for ‘Shangrila’) is understood within Chinese, given that it has only become more widespread in recent years, remains to be thoroughly investigated (an interesting postgraduate research topic). Prior to 2001 Shangrila was officially known as ‘Zhongdian’ ( 中甸) (and many of the locals still refer to it as such). But in accordance with government plans to develop cultural tourism it was decided to rename ‘Zhongdian’ as ‘Shangrila’. This renaming of places so as to bolster to prospects of tourism has become something of a trend in China, and indeed along the ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’ there are a few examples with ‘Puer’ undergoing a similar name-shift in 2007 (you can read about the Puer case here and here). This is not to suggest that Shangrila is not worthy of this title as an ‘earthly paradise’. Indeed, Shangrila is one of the most beautiful places in China with majestic mountains, rich alpine forests, meadows and lakes, and is inhabited by a mixture of Tibetan, Lisu, Han, Naxi, Bai, Yi and several other ethnic minority groups, all of whom seem to live in relatively harmony (there seems to be little in the way of serious ethnic tension, at least when compared to other parts of Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai and Xinjiang). Tibetans make up about 33% of the total population, followed by Lisu at 27%. At approximately 11 persons per square kilometre there is plenty of space for both ‘man’ [sic] and ‘nature’. I will have more to say about Shangrila as both a place and an idea below, after a brief report on the conference.
Shangrila is home to the Ganden Sumtseling Lamesary (Songzanlinsi in Chinese). It is the largest lamasery in Yunnan and an important place of worship and scholarship in the Yellow Hat Sect. It too has now become a major tourist attraction. Some lamas I spoke to said it is no longer a good place for training due to the large numbers of tourists.
The obligatory dancing with the locals in the old town square ('old' or 'new'?). On my way out to Hamagu (see below) I saw truckloads of village women dressed in their costumes no doubt on their way to perform the public dancing routine.I suspect that the villages nearby take turns.
The theme for the conference was ‘New Horizons for the Future of Tourism’ and there were indeed many papers addressing this topic. Presenters came from many corners of the world, including a great paper on the Kokoda Track (very important for Australians), but it is fair to say that the vast majority focused on China, which was great for me as I had so much exposure to many different aspects of tourism and tourism development in the Middle Kingdom. There were too many good papers for me to go through them all. The opening keynote by Professor Alastair M. Morrison, President of ITSA, is worthy of note as it took a critical look at tourism development in China and presented a number of policy options to avoid the many problems that are arising as a result of rapid development and the sheer scale of things in China. Alastair summed up his approach under the title of ‘China’s ‘new’ tourism’ by which he means that tourism is developing so fast that is lacks sufficient planning and, in terms of marketing which his particular area of expertise, is loaded with cliches. Some of the key concerns he raised, which I have also noted in my fieldwork and reading of the literature, include purporting to be an ecotourism destination without really being true to the fundamental concepts of ecotourism and sustainability; talking about tourism at great length without really understanding the principles; and the tourism ‘trojan horse’ in which real estate developers use the guise of tourism real estate to sell property. I sincerely hope Alistair and ITSA can have some positive impact on tourism policy formation and implementation in China and will stay closely tuned. My own paper, by the way, was on the possibility of developing international standard hiking trails along the ‘ancient tea road’ in Shangrila. This served as a hypothetical entry into a discussion about the rise of adventure tourism in China and the emergence of the ‘donkey friends’. The paper will be published hopefully in 2012.
The last day of the conference was devoted to visits to Ganden Sumtseling Lamasery and Pudacuo National Park (普达措国家公园). The latter is one of China's most awarded tourist attractions in the 'national park' categoy. In China a 'national park' has as its primary objective the development of tourism, quite different to the emphasis on conservation that we associate with the term in Australia. Pudacuo is one of the better examples in China of finding a balance between tourism and conservation.
Two young women from Hamugu Village who kindly directed in the direction of the elusive remnant road.
In the short amount of time at my disposal (like many conferences that take place in the northern hemisphere the teaching commitments of those of us in the antipodes are often overlooked!) I took the recommendation from colleagues to examine some remnant road near the Tibetan Village of Hamugu (哈木谷). Due to its strategic location Hamugu is regarded as an important staging post on the ancient tea road. Hamugu is approximately ten kilometres from the old town, at the foot of Shika Snow Mountain (石卡雪山) (which for the convenience of tourists has a cable car all the way to one of the peaks, apparently the locals are able to use the cable car free of charge on important festivals days). The village is also adjacent to Napa Lake (纳帕海), a seasonal wetland that is now the site of much tourist activity, especially horse riding, and hence an important sideline activity for local villagers. According to some sources, Hamugu was one of the first village communities in China to develop community based ecotourism. It could possibly be a good site for future fieldwork and I’m currently looking for somewhere to conduct a community based ecotourism project (which I hope will be part of a comparative project with a colleague in Taiwan who I met at the conference). Due to time constraints I wasn’t able to meet with anyone from the village in any official capacity (for which my liver and lungs were very grateful!), I simply hopped into a cab in the old town and said ‘take me to Hamugu!’. Once arriving in Hamugu I had a vague idea that I needed to climb up a nearby gorge and I asked two lovely village lasses for directions. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to sure where this ‘remnant tea road’ was, and suggested I make my way to the first major meadow on the mountain and ask one of the herders. Okay, sounded like a plan …
A typical wooden hut found on the high altitude meadows across northwest Yunnan and beyond. They serve as basic lodging for the locals during the summer months while their herds of yaks and cows are grazing.
Using a tea churn to make yak butter tea. Yak butter tea is typically salty and oily.
I managed to find the first meadow after climbing up and out of the gorge. Shangrila was really strutting its stuff, there were plenty of flowers in bloom attracting birds, bees and butterflies galore (although unfortunately the rhododendrons had just finished flowering). Upon arriving at the meadow I headed for the first wooden hut (小木屋), clearly there was someone inside as I could discern smoke rising from the chimney. As I approached I was greeted by a Tibetan woman and her young granddaughter (thankfully the ferocious looking Tibetan guard dog was chained to a nearby post). During the summer months the locals bring up their yaks and cows to the meadows to graze. It seems common practice for someone more elderly to take on the task of caring for the livestock and producing yak butter (suyou 酥油) and cow cheese (naizha 奶渣) during the grazing months, whilst the younger members of the family go about their business ‘down on the plain’ (farming and/or engaging in sideline activities such as tourism (horse riding in this case) and transportation). After a warm greeting, and being somewhat incredulous at seeing a lone foreigner ambling across the grass towards her, she invited me inside to enjoy some Tibetan tea (suyoucha 酥油茶) (in which the yak butter is a crucial ingredient) and tsampa (zanba 糌粑) (roasted barley flower which is mixed with some tea and kneaded into a dough and then consumed, along with more tea of course). We had a good chat about life in Hamugu including the impact of tourism on the community. For me it was the highlight of the trip, sitting there at about 3,500 metres in a simple wooden hut with such a generous local. Admittedly communication was not so straight-forward as I have virtually no Tibetan and her Mandarin was rather rudimentary, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. I asked her the way to the remnant road and she pointed vaguely in one direction. As it turned out I took the wrong path, but not to worry for as I was descending back into the Zhongdian plain I met a young chap from another nearby village. He was on his way down from a different meadow where his mother was looking after their family herd. His beautiful grey horse was piled with fresh yak butter ready for personal consumption and the market. I got talking to him and learned quite a bit more about economic and social life for villagers on the edge of Napa Lake. He knew about the remnant road and had taken both Chinese and foreign guests to visit it previously. He invited me to his house for more tea and tsampa and I promised to return, hopefully, later in the year or in 2012 to take up his offer to be my guide. All’s well that ends well.
Freshly made yak butter (suyou), an indispensible item in daily Tibetan life.
Madam Cheng at the door to her Tibetan style house in a village outside the county town. Tibetan houses in Shangrila are very large even by the 'McMansion' standards of Australia.
Whilst in Shangrila, apart from meeting many wonderful folks at the conference, I also had the good fortune to meet Madam Cheng. Madam Cheng is a semi-retired woman from Beijing/Hong Kong who having fallen under the spell of Shangrila has become a devout follower of Tibetan Buddhism (Zangchuan fojiao 藏传佛教). Along with one of her close friends she has built a Tibetan style house in a village just outside the county town. I’m quite interested in this phenomenon of the ‘mountain changers’, that is, those persons either from the eastern parts of China or from abroad who leave behind the hectic, crowded and polluted lifestyles of the city to find a change of pace and environment in the more idyllic parts of western China. This is something like the phenomenon of the ‘sea changers’ (or ‘tree changers’) in the Australian context (that is, urbanites leaving the city to live in small rural communities on the coast or inland). Of course the term ‘sea change’ has a much longer heritage and can be traced all the way back to William Shakespeare. But in both cases it refers to the notion of a transformation, and in the demographic context of both a physical movement of a household (either permanently or for a prolonged period of time) and a ‘spiritual’ transformation. Another great postgraduate research project. Madam Cheng was kind enough to invite me to her house and whilst there I also was fortunate to meet Thangka Master Lobsang Khedup who heads up the Thangka Art Academy in the old town. I learnt a lot from him about the art of the Thangka and also of the complex nature of Tibetan religious practice. Although time was short I found my time in Shangrila very productive and hope to return in 2012 for a more extended period. Tashi delek བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས 扎西德勒!
With Madam Cheng and Master Lobsang Khedup.
Interview with Chan (Zen) Buddhist Master Gu Dao
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” The Buddha
The Puli Temple at Dongshan is undergoing a major AUD$10 million dollar facelift and will become a modern meditation and well being retreat. All that remains of the old temple complex at Dongshan is this 'scripture hall' that dates from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). There are a number of older heritage structures (tombs, bridges, pavillions) scattered throughout the temple land.
In December 2010 I visited the the Chan (Zen) Buddhist Puli Temple (普利庙) in Dongshan (洞山) in Jiangxi Province (江西省), one of the most important temples in the Dongshan sect of Chan Buddhism (known as ‘Soto’ in Japanese). You can read about that visit by following this link. During the visit I took the opportunity to interview Master Gu Dao (古道), the current Abbot and supervisor for the reconstruction project. Master Gu Dao is typical of many adherents who became interested in Buddhism in the 1980s as part of the first post-reform religious revival. A short biographical account is included in the interview below.
Note: The following translation is my own work and any inaccuracies or errors are my own fault and certainly not those of Master Gu Dao! Some of the discussion does tend to get a bit esoteric, as you would expect when dealing with a philosophy and corpus of knowledge as rich as Chan Buddhism (I myself have only scratched the surface and see the deep wells of thought and wisdom before me). I have done my best to simplify the discussion and make it more readable to a novice audience. Any comments from the more well informed are extremely welcome!
GS: Gary Sigley
GD: Gu Dao
GS: Master Gudao thank you very much for the invitation to visit Puli Temple and spend some time with yourself and the others. It is truly a very beautiful location. This morning as we took an early stroll I was struck by the symbolic significance of the construction site. It seemed to me that the piles of rubble are a broader metaphor for Chinese society in general. By which I mean in the process of China’s rapid modernisation we are literally surrounded by constructions sites. And even the Puli Temple is a construction site, not even a remote temple can avoid the reach of so-called ‘modernisation’. But here the metaphor takes on a new meaning, a new twist as it is not a shopping mall or flash apartment complex that is being built. Instead from the rubble a Buddhist flower is emerging. This seems to me to be very timely and significant. For just as in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), modern China is entering a golden age in which we also are witnessing a significant revival in Buddhism [GS: and other religions and belief systems]. It seems to be a very auspicious time to visit the temple what with yesterday’s lunar eclipse taking place just as we arrived and today being the birthday of the former abbot, Master Miaozong, who did so much to restore the temple in the 1980s. As Chinese people are very fond of saying it seems with ‘have yuan and have fen’ (有缘有份) [GS: that is, have a karmic connection and heavenly alignment for a ‘chance’ meeting]. Can you start by telling us something about the similarities and differences between the indigenous Chinese concept of dao (道) and the Buddhist concept of foxing (佛性)?
One of the only worship halls in operation at Puli Temple during the construction. During this time the monks, only a few in number at this stage, follow their own regimen.
GD: In China the term (character) ‘chan’ [禅, zen] came to represent a particular approach to Buddhism, chan is an abbreviated form of ‘chanding’ [禅定] which means tranquility and concentrated meditation, referring to a process of practice and training [gongfu 功夫], which is encapsulated in the concept of si chan ba ding [四禅八定, GS: dhyāna in Pāli being the language of many of the earliest Buddhist scriptures] [GS: that is, the entering of a peaceful and contemplative state in preparation for persuing aesthetic practice or what is know in Chinese as xiuxing 修行]. But when it came to China this particular practice came to represent an entire school of Buddhism [fofa 佛法], namely ‘Chan’. The reason for this is actually intimately connected to indigenous forms of Chinese thought such as those of Laozi [Lao Tse or Lao Tzu] and Zhuangzi [Chuang Tzu] [both of whom created/added to indigenous systems of religious and philosophical thought in China before the arrival of Buddhism]. According to Chinese thought ‘dao’ [道] already exists, it is not something that you bring into existence through cultivation, but rather something you ‘realise’ [wu 悟], that is ‘to be enlightened’ [juewu 觉悟], and to live a life according to the natural flows of the dao. According to Buddhism ‘foxing’ [Buddhata or the buddha nature, 佛性] is something that everyone possesses, it is not something that you develop through cultivation. Everything living thing has its own Buddha nature. So the concept of dao and foxing have, on the surface, much in common. Some say that they are the same thing, that the East has Saints [shengren 圣人] and the West has its Saints, and that they are simply finding different ways to express the same thing. Whatever it is it is intangible and has no form, you can’t see or touch it, you can only experience it [tihuidao 体会到]. When you have experienced it [that is, come to know it] your life will be very natural, free and unrestrained. It doesn’t mean you will become an immortal and live forever. Some Daoists have claimed that this is what they are striving for, but for me this is just an projection of a human desire for immortality. In Buddhism we refer to the notion of ‘transcending the cycle of life and death’ [liao sheng tuo si, 了生脱死]. The Buddha clearly said that ‘that which is born must die’. So how is it then possible to ‘transcend the cycle of life and death’? So when Buddhism came to China the Chinese practictioners interpreted foxing as dao and Chan Buddhism was created. And what’s more Chan professed to have techniques and practices which were not the same as the methods used in China up until then. It forwarded the notion of ‘sudden enlightenment’ [dangxia juewu, 当下觉悟]. Although in fact the there are very few instances of ‘sudden enlightenment’ and most practitioners have to follow a diligent regime of meditation and practice … and then one day it happens. The way to reach this state is through tranquil meditation in which all desires and thoughts are discarded. By the Song Dynasty the koan [chanhuatou禅话头] became a means of raising doubts with the self [GS: a koan, the term is Japanese, is something like a ‘thought bubble’ in the form of a story, question or statement that seeks to challenge ‘commonsense’ and encourage the practitioner to ‘think outside of the box’. A famous koan is ‘the sound of one hand clapping’]. For example a practitioner may focus on the question ‘what is the Buddha?’ not expecting an answer but using this focus on a single question to the extent that all else in the mind is removed until only the question remains … and then one day at a moment of ‘enlightenment’ even that question is removed and all there is left is the void [kong 空]. Only then can one realise the dao.
Note: Click this link to hear the monks chanting at breakfast: Dongshan Breakfast Chant 22-12-2010
GS: Can you please share with us something about your own background and how is that you came to ‘walk this road’ so to speak?
A cd jacket for the film The Shaolin Temple. How many young Chinese boys rushed off to the Shaolin Temple after watching this film? Quite a few I suspect!
GD: When I was young I didn’t know anything about Buddhism. But I did have a great fondness for kungfu [wushu, 武术, martial arts]. I didn’t know exactly what kind of kungfu I was studying, it was just kungfu! But then the movie The Shaolin Temple [1982] came out and everything clicked I knew that I was studying Shaolin kungfu [GS: the moving Shaolin was Jet Li’s great debut and a very popular film at the time, one of the first mainland kungfu films to be produced after the Mao period]. After finishing school I went off to join the army. One of my army comrades came from a village near the Shaolin Temple. Like everyone in his community he could do kungfu. So I studied with him. After I left the army I went to Shaolin to learn more. But I wasn’t so good at kungfu and ended up become a monk! [GS: not all Shaolin monks turn out to be like Bruce Lee!] I started reading and learning about Chan Buddhism and thought this was very interesting and what I wanted to pursue. There is a Buddhist sect in Zhejiang known as Tiantaishan (天台山) (Heavenly Terrace Mountain). It is a very old sect that dates back to the Sui Dynasty [581-618 AD, the short-lived dynasty which preceded the Tang]. The sect observes some of the most ancient meditative practices in Buddhism in which practitioners focus on their breathing as a foundation for self-cultivation. In my opinion out of all the Buddhist sects the Tiantaishan sect offers the clearest instructions in this regard. The thing is that ‘Chan’ can be so abstract, so difficult to comprehend. Where is your starting point for ‘getting into Chan’? The Tiantaishan practices reminded me of what I learnt in kungfu insofar as they incorporated a step by step process starting from the basic kungfu up to higher levels of practice. Its clarity of method appealed to me very much. So even though I was born into the Chan Buddhist sect I have much respect and admiration for the Tiantai Buddhist sect.
GS: I hear that you followed the path of the ancients and became a hermit [yinshi, 隐士] for some time. Can you tell us something about your experiences as a recluse?
Kongdongshan, Gansu Province, home to many temples and many hermits over the centuries.
GD: That’s correct. I closeted myself away in many remote places to practice [修行]. The longest time was for a period of one year. My most memorable moment was a six month period of reading and meditating in 1992 when I was staying on Kongdongshan [崆峒山] in Gansu [甘肃省]. My simple residence was perched atop a massive precipice and gorge. I had to fetch water once a week. Life was very simple indeed. One day about three months into my aesthetic regime, some time in the afternoon, I was medidating on my breathing following the Tiantai sect method, and suddenly I was not aware of my body anymore. For much of the preceding time given the aches and pains of sitting for long periods it was hard not to notice your body, but suddenly it was gone and my breathing was all that existed, as if it became part of heaven and earth itself. This was not ‘enlightenment’ [悟] or anything like that mind you, it was the reaching of a physical state through rigorous practice. I felt extremely peaceful and quiet. It was a very delicate and sublime feeling [微妙]. Time meant nothing and when I came out of meditation ten hours had passed without even knowing it. Then I had a simple meal of rice and beans and practiced taiqi [太极拳] on the terrace with a majestic scene of mountains and gorge in the background. I then went back to meditating and enter the same ‘zone’ again for another ten or so hours. This then became my routine for the next two months. I never felt tired or the need for sleep. It was quite incredible and one of the most cherished experiences in my life thus far. So now I know from my own experience that this state described by the Buddha and other masters that followed can be achieved. I now also hold at some hope, indeed I’m certain, that the state of enlightenment can also be achieved.
GS: Your experience is very interesting and, if I may say, a bit like the experience of spirituality in China since the onset of reform in the late 1970s. Within China it seems to me there is a spiritual awakening taking place, but it is something that is coming from behind the frantic and rapid economic development and social change that has been unfolding. The lives of many people in China have improved very much at the level of the physical. But life is also become more stressful and frantic, especially in the big cities and populous centres. People are searching for something more than materialism to give their lives meaning. And many are turning to religion to find that ‘something’.
Exercises from the Yijinjing (易筋经).
GD: If you examine Chinese history you see that at times of sustained social stability and economic prosperity, such as during the Tang but also other periods, there is also a great deal of cultural and religious activity. I feel that the current period is a bit like that. But in fact this period exceeds the other periods in terms of its scale, in terms of overall wealth and size of the population, and significance, both for China and the rest of the world. And of course at times like this people naturally turn their attention to metaphysical questions of life and existence. People are also becoming more concerned about their health, and rightly so what with all the pollution and food safety issues. You can see in the cities the growth of interest in things like yoga for example. Yoga in some circles has become quite fashionable [GS: there are now a number of good yoga retreats in and around Beijing for example servicing the local Chinese and expatriate communities]. We have a lot of respect for yoga as it is a practice from which some of our meditative exercises derive. But it also retains a great deal that we seem to have lost over time. For example the famous Shaolin practice of yijinjing] [易筋经, the muscle and tendon changing classic, for a video demonstration go to this youtube link] brought to the temple by Bodhidharma [GS: the Indian monk who travelled to China in the 5th/6th Century and is credited with transmitting Chan Buddhism and establishing the training regime for the monks as Shaolin] is based on yoga but over time changed so much that it is only now remotely related to the original core yoga practices. So in 2006 our Master [Nan Huaijin 南怀瑾] invited a famous yoga teacher from India to provide advanced instruction. Afterall the ‘sichan bading’ [四禅八定] taught to us by the Buddha has its origins in ancient Indian practices. But although yoga has become popular many people simply look upon it as a physical exercise to trim fat and get in shape. But that is not why we study yoga. We study yoga so we can soften our bodies and control our breathing, so we can obtain the physical stamina to continue our meditative practice. Yoga provides an excellent foundation for doing just that. So we firmly believe in the intimate connection between mind and body and that the body is the foundation for working on ‘the mind’ so to speak.
Construction worker at Puli Temple.
GS: This brings us now to the topic of what is happening here at the temple, for I understand that there are plans to turn the temple into a kind of ‘mind and body retreat’. When did you first come here?
GD: I arrived at the temple in February of this year [2010]. I had been here once before in 2006 and stayed for twenty days. At that time the previous abbott, Master Miaozong, had passed away and the temple was very quiet. I couldn’t stay any longer as we had a large project on lake Taihu (Suzhou, Jiangsu Province) that needed my attention. But then I was approached by the local county government and asked if I could return to supervise the reconstruction and expansion of the temple.
Inspecting the Tang Dynasty monk graves on the temple complex. The temple has quite a bit of land for cultivation and Master Gudao hopes to get it active and productive in the years to come as part of the Chan Buddhist tradition of 'back to nature' and 'self sufficiency'.
GS: It is certainly a very large project. What is the total scale?
GD: About 60 million Chinese yuan [approximately $10 million Australian Dollars]. Most of the funds come from funds raised through our association, through the contributions of students and disciples of our Master.
GS: Did the local government contribute anything?
GD: Yes. They contributed to the costs of the design and planning, approximately one million Chinese yuan. They also contributed much ‘in kind’ such as upgrading the electricity network, providing more land and so on.
GS: What is the motivation behind the local government’s involvement in the project?
GD: Firstly it is motivated by cultural concerns. Yifeng County is one of the cradles of Chan Buddhism and therefore historically and culturally significant in terms of heritage value. Many Chan Buddhist masters and sects, such as Caodongzong which comes from this temple, have their origins in and around Yifeng. The second motivation is to promote tourism into the area. The expressway from Nanchang [the capital of Jiangxi] will pass very close by and I believe plans are on the books for a high speed rail as well. The local government has been very generous. In other places where I have resided and practiced, such as in and around Xi’an, to get anything from the local authorities such as land or financial support is extremely difficult.
A ceremonial bell amongst the rubble. We look forward to the day that the sound of the bell replaces the sound of the jackhammer!
GS: So what is the ultimate goal with the project here? How long will it take?
GD: It is all to do with the Caodongzong teachings which place great emphasis on meditational practice and respect for tradition. I hope here in the reconstructed and expanded temple to build two meditation halls in which we will combine Caodong meditation and yoga exercises. We will teach people, of all ages and backgrounds, about the benefits of meditation, yoga and a simple life which will include the growing of our vegetables and food, healthy and green. I want the temple to earn its income in this way and not in the way many temples do these days by offering outrageous ceremonies for contacting the deceased, fortune telling, burning expensive incense, and other forms of, what I regard as, hocus-pocus and superstition, not to mention waste. This is the dream I have brought to the temple. It’s a big project and is giving me a lot of headaches but I’m sure it will be worth it in the end.
GS: I’m sure it will! And I wish you all the best and hope to return when the construction is complete and see what ‘Flower of Buddha’ is blooming here.
An artists rendition of the new Puli Temple.
‘Global Chinese’ Conference and 30th Anniversary Celebrations at Sun Yat-sen University
“Eat in Guangzhou, Study at Sun Yat-sen University”
“食在广州，学在中大”
- Sun Yat-sen University is named after Sun Yat-sen (1866 – 1925), the first provisional president of the Republic of China (founded in 1912) and first leader of the Guomindang (or ‘Nationalist’) Party (国民党). Sun Yat-sen is revered as the ‘Father of the Nation’ (国父) by persons of all political persuasions (communist and nationalist alike). He also founded the university in 1924. It was renamed Sun Yat-sen University after his death in 1926.
From the 18th to 21st June 2011 I attended a conference on Chinese language teaching at Sun Yat-sen University (中山大学). The conference was titled ‘Global Chinese: Chinese Language Teaching in the Global Age’ (全球汉语教学研讨会). The conference was organised by the School of Chinese as a Second Language (中山大学国际汉语学院). The School was founded in July 1981 and was hence also celebrating its 30th Anniversary. It was one of the first such schools dedicated to the teaching of Chinese to foreigners to be established in the People’s Republic of China in the reform era. I had the privilege of going to study there in 1989/1990 and, at the generous invitation of the School, also took part in the celebration as an alumnus. The story of the thirty years of development and growth of Chinese language teaching and research at Sun Yat-sen University from a small concern with only a handful of foreign students to a major enterprise with over a thousand students from around the globe in a given semester also captures very well the evolution of China’s changing self-perception in the world and the projection of Chinese language and culture into the 21st Century.
San Yat-sen University is located in Guangzhou (广州) (known in the past in English as ‘Canton’) which is the provincial capital of Guangdong Province (广东省) one of the wealthiest and most economically advanced regions in China. It is also one of the most populous with approximately 80 million people. You can see where Guangdong is located on Google Maps here. If you look at the map closely you will notice that Guangdong/Guangzhou are strategically located next to Hong Kong (or perhaps we should say that Hong Kong is strategically located next to Guangdong). It was in this region of the Pearl River Delta (珠江流域) that China’s first steps towards embracing global capitalism and stamping it firmly with ‘Chinese characteristics’ started in the late 1970s. If you haven’t been to Guangdong I’m at least 100% certain that you have handled or touched something that was ‘Made in Guangdong’ for just as China is the ‘world’s factory’ then Guangdong is ‘China’s factory’. And if you have ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant outside of China or gone to yumcha in Chinatown then I’m very confident that what you consumed was derived from the the rich heritage of Cantonese cuisine. Indeed there is a famous Chinese saying that goes ‘Be born in Suzhou’ (生在苏州)[because the people from Suzhou are very attractive], ‘Eat in Guangzhou’ (食在广州) [because the food is delicious], and ‘Die in Liuzhou’ (死在柳州) [because they make the best coffins!]. To the ‘Eat in Guangzhou’ part I would add ‘Study at Sun Yat-sen University’ (食在广州，学在中大). Why? Allow me to elaborate.
An image taken in 'Little Africa' (非洲村) in one of the original villages of Guangzhou which have now become 'urbanised' and are now known as 'urban villages' (城中村). I will be writing about my visit to 'Little Africa' on the blog in the near future.
All those years ago at the end of the 1970s and the dawn of the process of ‘reform and openness’ Guangzhou was a very different kind of place. You probably could have fitted all the foreigners residing in Guangzhou at that point in one room. There were certainly little or no provision for anyone to go to Guangzhou to study Chinese Mandarin. Now Guangzhou is home to tens of thousands of foreign residents some of whom, such as in the above image from the ‘Little Africa’ (非洲村), are concentrated into certain residential areas. The influx of migrants, both domestic and foreign, has generated some concern amongst local Cantonese residents who fear the dilution of their language and culture. In 2010 there were some demonstrations across Guangzhou in protest of the perceived loss of cultural identity. The New York Times has a brief report on this subject here.
A picture taken of the Pearl River from the new 'back gate' of the old campus. Back in 1989/1990 the back gate was a bit of a 'waste land' connecting the campus to the ferry. It was a great place to take a few cold beers and watch the barges go up and down the river. It has now undergone a significant facelift. From here you can also see one of the tallest buildings in Asia.
Many people erroneously believe that if you want to study Chinese Mandarin you should go to Beijing or Northeastern China where ‘Chinese Mandirin’ (普通话) is the standard spoken dialect/language. Yes, going to study in these places does have some advantages, but also to my mind some distinct disadvantages as well. Throughout the rest of China people speak different dialects of Chinese (and of course in many cases completely different languages). In fact most people in China do not have ‘Chinese Mandarin’ as their first language, usually it will be a local dialect and/or language (although this is changing as across China the younger generations with greater exposure to education and a unified national media increasingly prefer to speak Chinese Mandarin, which is part of the concern about the loss of language mentioned above). Spoken Cantonese (‘Guangdongnese’ – 广东话) and Chinese Mandarin, for example, are mutually unintelligible (the written script is the same and that’s the core thing that has kept Chinese people united with common bonds of culture and text over thousands of years). What people don’t realise is that the university campus in China is a microcosm of the nation at large and includes people from across the country. In this case Chinese Mandarin is the lingua franca on campus and in the classroom. Of course when you walk out the gates you will invariably be confronted with the local dialect as you would in most places in China. I have personally found exposure to a dialect like Cantonese extremely helpful when it comes to understanding the many varieties of Chinese spoken around China (and indeed around the globe). It’s also quite handy when visiting places like Hong Kong and Macau where Cantonese is the main language (although that is also slowing changing) and the many Chinatowns around Australia and elsewhere where Cantonese can be heard.
Sun Yat-sen University is a comprehensive research-intensive university consistently ranked in the top ten of China's institutions of research and higher learning. In 2010 it was ranked as the fifth top university in China and within the top 200 universities (171st) in the world by Times Higher Education. The original campus is also one of the most picturesque in China and has retained a lot of character and heritage buildings.
The School held a gala event in which both the local Chinese and foreign students provided the entertainment. Professor Zhou, one of the comperes, is on the far right. 帅哥人！
Studying Chinese in China during the Maoist period (1949 – 1976) was generally limited to a handful of institutions in Beijing, most notably the Beijing Language Institute (now known as the ‘Beijing Language and Culture University). And the number of foreign students at any time was also very small by today’s standards. But with the launch of ‘reform and openness’ in the late 1970s the authorities realised China needed to encourage more foreigners to learn Mandarin. Sun Yat-sen University heard the call and established in 1981 the Chinese Training Center ( 汉语培训中心). Over time it became very clear to the teachers and leadership within the Center and University that Chinese Mandarin was going to become one of the most popular languages for acquisition around the world and they were wise enough to begin to develop key strengths in both teaching and research. In 2009, after having gone through a number of other name changes, the Center was renamed the ‘School of Chinese as a Second Language’ ( 国际汉语学院) and is one of the most active and significant centres for teaching and research in this field both within China and indeed globally. The Head of the School, Professor Zhou Xiaobing (周小兵), is one of China’s leading researchers in the field of Chinese language acquisition. It is probably worth noting that in Chinese the name for the School should be literally translated as ‘the School of International Chinese’ which is a strong indication of how the School views the kind of research it is undertaking, that is, it is no longer just concerned with the teaching and learning of Chinese within China but is placing greater emphasis on research into the teaching and learning of Chinese outside of China. And of course like many other such institutions in China the School now as cooperative links abroad via the establishment of Confucius Institutes. One of my teachers, Professor Zhang Shitao （张世涛), is currently the Chinese Director at the Confucius Institute at Ateneo de Manila University (菲律宾亚典耀大学孔子学院) in the Philippines. The School is also home to a national centre of excellence in Chinese language teaching resources funded by Hanban (Office of the Chinese Language Council International, the body which also oversees the Confucius Institutes).
Over the last 30 years the School has trained over 12,000 students from 152 countries, quite a remarkable achievement considering it only started with six students from the United States in 1981! 桃李满天下! What is most remarkable is that more than 60% of the total number of students trained has taken place in the 2000s. No doubt much of the interest has been generated by the growing strength of the Chinese economy. Originally most of the foreign students, with the exception of some students on Chinese government scholarships from Africa, North Korea and other such places, came to institutions such as Sun Yat-sen University to study Chinese for short periods (anything from one month to a year). But these days there are a growing number who also extend their stay to take undergraduate or postgraduate studies. I want to take the opportunity here to encourage anyone keen on studying Chinese in China to consider the option of degree studies, it’s a fantastic way to really deepen your knowledge and immerse yourself in Chinese society and if you manage your programme wisely you will come out ahead of those who just choose to study only the language.
Li Laoshi (Teacher Li) way back in the day. A very fine teacher who incidently is now conducting research on the cultural heritage of the Pearl River Delta. Summer in Guangzhou is brutally hot and humid and in early days we didn't have any airconditioning ... anywhere! One of my fondest memories is Li Laoshi (Ms Li, not pictured) constantly wiping her forehead as she took the class. 谢谢各位老师，你们辛苦了！The only respite we had as students back then was to ride our bikes downtown to the White Swan Hotel (which then was a newly completed five star hotel on the Pearl River) and sit in the air conditioned lobby.
It was really great to see my teachers and to learn about the development of the School. Like most other Chinese cities Guangzhou has undergone a dramatic transformation and the area around the campus (the original campus on the banks of the Pearl River) is unrecognisable (Guangzhou has also had a recent face-lift with the holding of the Asian Games). In the old days it didn’t take me too long to ride my bicycle and find myself passing through villages and fields, but now you have to ride a considerable distance, a feat made more difficult by the dramatic growth in traffic. I had a very enjoyable and productive time whilst studying in Guangzhou in 1989/1990. In those days Guangzhou was probably the most vibrant city in terms of economic development, it had a real buzz. Oh and did I mention that the food was incredible! Yumcha before class was a regular occurrence! I also learnt taiqi from a lovely little old hakka lady who could barely speak Cantonese let alone Mandarin, and I learnt some ‘southern fist’ from a nearby farmer (the village I think is no longer) who introduced me to the ‘underworld’ of Chinese martial arts in Guangzhou.
During my time at Sun Yat-sen University in 1989/1990 I was approached by advertising companies to do some modelling (yes, they were desperate!). Here I am modelling some piece of plastic crap with one of my fellow students from Germany (then West Germany).
I gave a paper at the conference titled ‘Exploring the Use of the Internet as a Method of Chinese Language Teaching: An Analysis of the QQ Social Networking Platform in Facilitating Cross-Cultural Communication and Second Language Acquisition’ (基于互联网技术的对外汉语教学的探索：QQ聊天工具在跨文化沟通和第二语言教学和学习的作用). I wrote this paper in conjunction with my colleague Zhang ‘Pearl’ Yingchun (张迎春) from China Jiliang University (Hangzhou). This is part of our ongoing collaboration exploring this use of digital technology in the teaching of Chinese and the prospects for using the technology to promote both language learning and cross-cultural understanding between students in China and Australia. You can read more about this project with China Jiliang Universtiy here. Unfortunately Pearl couldn’t be at the conference but she was represented by two very fine colleagues instead (Professors Guo Lanying 郭兰英 and Chen Hong 陈红). I was honoured to be able to introduce them to the delights of yumcha and to interpret the local Cantonese (see, it does come in handy!).
If you happen to have studied Chinese at some point at Sun Yat-sen University the Alumni Office is keen to make contact with you. Please email Professor Zhu Qizhi (朱其智) at: flszqz@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Introducing the Donkey Friends: Recreational Hiking in Contemporary China
Travel for leisure and recreation has always been an important activity in China. With mountain ranges as far as the eye can see and myriad streams and lakes the country is heavily endowed with many places of great natural beauty. Scholars and poets have been waxing lyrical for centuries about the landscape, weaving in the human presence amongst the enormity of nature (such writing is categorised as ‘travel record literature’, 游记文学). A thousand years ago the famous Tang Dynasty (618-907) scholar/official/poet (Chinese history is littered with individuals who combined all three) Li Bai (李白) wrote in a poem titled ”Downstream to Jiangling” (《下江陵》) of a journey through the three gorges on the swiftly flowing Yangtse River. Li Bai was on his way home from a period of exile (Chinese history is also littered with such examples , even in this day and age). He wrote (I have taken the translation from here, translation by Andrew Wong and used with his kind permission):
朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。zhāo cí bái dì căi yún jiān, qiān lǐ jiāng líng yī rì huán.
两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山。liăng àn yuán shēng tí bù zhù, qīng zhōu yǐ guò wàn chóng shān.
At daybreak I leave Baidi amidst clouds aglow,
A thousand miles to Jiangling is a mere day’s flow.
Whilst monkeys cry incessantly from bank to bank,
I’ve skiffed past a myriad mountains row after row.
Sampan passing through the Yangtse Gorges.
Of course the opportunity to travel presented itself in different forms, and as Li Bai’s experience suggests it was not always in pursuit of leisure. Many people no doubt spent their entire lives in their village or town and/or immediate region. Those who did travel did so for various reasons (doh!). As I have been exploring with regards to the Ancient Tea Horse Road, engaging in trade is an obvious motive. The merchants on the tea road did not just come from Yunnan of course, but from all over China (and beyond, and of course what we think of ‘China’ now was quite a different entity in times past, but I will leave this for another time). In Ninger, one of the major production centres for Puer tea, the ‘Jiangxi Clubhouse’ (江西会馆) still stands as testimony to the extensive trading networks across China (Jiangxi being a province in eastern China). Journeying to take part in examinations for entry into the bureaucracy was another obvious reason for travel. And as in the case of Li Bai, travelling as a result of imposed exile, banishment or conscription into the army was a sure way to get to see some of the more remote parts of the empire. Indeed there are many towns in the peripheries which were first established as military outposts, the town of Husa that I visited in 2010 is a good example. Sometimes the exile was self-imposed as in the form of persons moving to remote mountainous locations to seek peace and solitude in the quest for enlightenment and immortality (whether Buddhist or Daoist or some combination thereof), as Li Bai also did for some time. Bill Porter has written a fascinating account of encounters with modern day hermits, including a brief history of the place of meditational seclusion in Chinese culture, in his book Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits. At certain times of war, natural disasters and famine, and sometimes during relative peace under the auspices of dynastic government policies to open up more land to cultivation (dare we say ‘colonisaton’?), whole communities moved on epic journeys to the ‘frontiers’. One of the most famous Chinese travellers is without doubt Mr Xu Xiake (徐霞客) (1587-1641) who travelled for much of his lifetime all over the place, even to Lijiang on the ‘Ancient Tea Horse Road’. Xu Xiake also crawled into deep caves to make geological explorations. He goes down in history as proving that the ‘Jinsha’ and ‘Yangtse’ rivers are one and the same. The list of course could go on and on. All I’m trying to point out here are the various motivations for travel and the different forms in which travel takes place. The question I would now like to pose is what, if anything, about travel has changed in the modern era?
Porters on the tea road, most likely around Ya'an in Sichuan.
Tens of millions on the move in the world's largest annual migration: the Spring Festival in China.
For the purposes of this entry, with the focus squarely on contemporary China, let me just highlight two aspects which I believe have fundamentally changed the nature of travel: modern modes of transport and historically unprecedented levels of participation. In the ‘old days’ to get from one end of the country to the other was quite an arduous undertaking, especially if your travel involved crossing the mountainous regions of western China (travel via the extensive river and canal networks and along the eastern seaboard was relatively speaking a much more straight-forward affair). This situation didn’t really change too much until after 1949 when, often motivated by the need to move troops quickly to the frontier, ‘roads’ began to be constructed deep into the mountains. Even so, many of these roads through the mountains were unsealed and prone to landslides and if traversing high passes could be impassable during the winter months. It was not until the 1980s, and into the 1990s and beyond, that a truly modern highway network began to be constructed, and indeed at a very rapid pace. Much the same could be said for railway travel. Add to this mix the rapid development of air travel and associated infrastructure and it is far to say that China has undergone one of the largest ‘mobility revolutions’ in human history (or we might say one of the largest ‘time-space compression’ revolutions of all time). The road network is now beginning to go ‘international’ and there are plans for high speed rail to destinations such as Singapore as well. All of this has facilitated the largest migration in human history as tens of millions of rural inhabitants move to the cities and industrial regions in search of work (and of course there is also a lot of travel within regions as well, not all of it necessarily to the large cities). Every year at the time of the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) tens of millions, perhaps more than a hundred million, take part in the world’s largest annual migration making their way back to native towns and villages. China is literally ‘on the move’. And now with the rise of the private motor vehicle car owners are taking to the roads themselves and venturing far and wide in their automobiles in search of leisure and adventure in ‘driving tourism’ (自驾旅游). In short, transport is relatively affordable and the network is ever more extensive. The once ‘remote’ and ‘inaccessible’ regions are now within reach of the average traveller, some even within reach of those possessing their own car. Scholars working in this field refer to what they do as ‘roadology’, a relatively new branch of research, so new in fact it isn’t even listed in Wikipedia! More on ‘roadology’ in another blog entry.
Chinese tourists in matching hats visiting the ancestral home of President Hu Jintao in the village of Longchuan, Anhui.
A group of Chinese car owners out and about on a driving holiday.
Secondly, more people are travelling for leisure than ever before, not just in China but worldwide. Tourism and the leisure industry have experienced a staggering expansion (it is very hard to come to terms with how fast this has all been happening). To travel for pleasure was a luxury and something that on a large scale, by which I mean something that has become relatively frequent amongst many social classes within society, has only emerged in the modern era. In China modern tourism as we know it begins to develop in the first half of the 20th Century, but it was still rather limited. After 1949 whilst the transport infrastructure began to be slowly improved the emphasis was overwhelmingly on production, not consumption, and therefore ‘tourism’ as an industry didn’t really exist. It was not until the 1980s that tourism begins to develop, firstly in terms of inbound international tourists, but overtime, especially as we get to the 1990s, the domestic tourist market begins to make a credible appearance and the ‘take off’ occurs. The Chinese government actively promoted the development of domestic tourism and the leisure economy by creating a number of official public ‘golden week’ holiday periods. The ‘golden weeks’ proved to be extremely popular. Domestic tourism is now one of the biggest industries in China and combined with the overall development of the ‘leisure economy’ will become the biggest industry outright some time in the middle of this century. You would be surprised as to who is actually counted now in the ranks of the domestic Chinese tourist. Many people seem to think it is only the ‘middle class’ in the big cities that have the disposable income to do so. Indeed they no doubt make up a large portion. However I’m surprised in my own travels to meet farmers and residents from small towns in relatively remote regions out and about on a ‘holiday’. A farmer, butcher and muleteer I know in the small town of Shaxi (an important staging post on the Ancient Tea Horse Road) has travelled many times with his family and friends to Xishuangbanna for annual holidays!
To summarise, scenic locations are increasingly accessible and the relative costs of travel are more affordable to an increasingly larger section of the population. So what are Chinese people doing with their leisure time? As I have noted, tourism is a booming industry, not just domestic tourism but also outbound international tourism as well (inbound Chinese tourists are the largest body of international tourists to Australia these days). But in addition to the packaged tours of commercial tour providers many people are now organising their own leisure and travel schedules. The tourist market is maturing and diversifying. It is in this connection that I want to introduce to you what I take to be an especially interesting and noteworthy group of travellers: the ‘donkey friends’.
Donkey Friends from Beijing just about to embark on a hiking trip in Shaxi, Yunnan.
Group photo with donkey friends at Xianju, Zhejiang.
‘Donkey Friends’ in Chinese is ‘lüyou‘ (驴友) which is a pun on the word for ‘travel/travelling’ – lüyou (旅游). ‘Donkey Friends’ are called such because they engage in outdoor hiking and in so doing invariably carry their provisions and so forth on their backs, plodding along the trail much like a donkey or mule would do (and thus also implying a sense of being able to ‘eat bitterness’ (吃苦) and overcome adversity). ‘Lü’ (绿) is also Chinese for ‘green’ which by extension implies ‘environment’ and ‘nature’. Hence the term ‘lüyou‘ also suggests ‘friend of nature’ (although in written Chinese the choice of 驴友 is overwhelming). So as outdoor activity enthusiasts (户外运动的爱好者) there is a combined sense of ‘do it yourself’ and ‘getting back to nature’ in what the donkey friends do. The ‘donkey friend’ phenomenon has really taken off in recent years. Hundreds if not thousands of outdoor hiking clubs have appeared all over the country. Outdoor fashion and equipment shops have also popped up in the cities like ‘bamboo shoots after a spring rain’. Book stores now have growing sections devoted to hiking and hiking trails. How can we account for the sudden interest in outdoor hiking and the rapid increase in the ranks of those who call themselves ‘donkey friends’?
Donkey friends like to leave their club banners at the hostels along the trail, a sign that they 'came, saw, and conquered'.
Campfires are very popular, even when not actually camping out, as was the case in this instance.
The term ‘donkey friend’ is a neologism that only appeared in Chinese sometime in the late 1990s/early 2000s. According to my preliminary research it first appeared on the Sina travel bulletin boards ( 新浪旅游论坛) (sina.com is a major Chinese web portal). The Chinese (or Sinophone) Internet is a hothouse for the production of neologisms and it is very hard to keep up with the pace of new word creation. ‘Donkey friend’ (lüyou 驴友) has spawned a whole series of associated neologism, such as, ‘donkey travel’ (lüxing 驴行) (a ‘donkey friend’ hiking trip), and ‘donkey head’ (lütou 驴头) (someone who leads a ‘donkey friend’ hiking trip). One particularly interesting term that has generated heated discussion verging on moral panic is ‘hunzhang‘ (混帐) which refers to the practice of mixed-gender tent sharing. As a practice of social networking ‘donkey friend’ culture is also a laboratory for the production of new and often innovative social networks and associational activity. In this sense ‘donkey friend’ is a self-appellation and although a homonym for ‘travel’ is clearly meant to distinguish what they do (exciting, authentic and challenging) from ordinary tourists (boring, fake and predictable). Whereas the conventional tourist on your typical package tour seeks entertainment without hardship, the donkey friend puts him/herself through a gruelling regimen, sometimes even quite dangerous or risky, in which ‘self-development’ is a key factor. Also, many conventional tour groups (旅游团) consist of persons from the same workplace (the danwei 单位 as it is known in urban China) or community (relatives and neighbours).
By contrast, most of the donkey friends are young (under 35 years), urban residents which I divide into two cohorts: the university/college students who are typically organised into university/college outdoor clubs; and the white collar workers who join one of the many ‘outdoor clubs’ (户外俱乐部). Of course there are also many gradients within the extended hiker/outdoor enthusiast community from the very amateur all the way up to the professional/semi-professional adventurer/explorer type. In terms of associational activity it is very clear to me that the donkey friends take participation in the group very seriously but do so in ways that step outside conventional Chinese relationship networks, and this is how they differ from the conventional tour group. As Zhang Ning notes in her article titled ‘Donkey Friend Communities: Harmonious Networks and Harmonious Tourism’ (published in 2008 in China Media Research Vol. 4, No. 4), the friendships formed through the ‘online’ clubs enable individuals to form relationships outside the traditional networks of kinship and workplace. And in so doing the relationships are not burdened by the traditional forms of social responsibility which in China have much to do with obligatory codes of gift giving and reciprocity. Donkey friends reported to Zhang Ning, and my own interactions confirm this, that their relations with other donkey friends are very relaxed and easy-going and provide a valuable break from both the pressures of urban life and the burdens of obligation and indebtedness of conventional relationships.
When space is short there is no choice but to pitch your tent in somewhat unconventional places.
College students from Shanghai hit the trail in Xianju, Zhejiang.
But apart from the chance to form friendships and relationships (and I have observed that the club network does seem to open up possibilities for finding partners and expanding the so-called ‘marriage market’) why do the donkey friends do what they do? Urbanisation and modern lifestyles no doubt bring many benefits and are attractive to many people, but urban lifestyles also have serious downsides. Life is hectic and demanding. Cityscapes are crowded and polluted. Escaping to the hills for a few days offers a chance of respite, fresh air and camaraderie. And as I mentioned above with the ever expanding transport infrastructure it is now possible to get to scenic locations relatively easily. In what I regard as another very ‘modern’ twist the donkey friends, whilst definitely enjoying what they do as a group (and they spend much more time interacting on the social networking sites than actually out in the field hiking), there is the real sense of developing ‘individuality’. This might sound like nothing special but in a society which has ‘traditionally’ emphasised the status of the person in relation to other persons (that is, forming identification in relation to ones position within a familial or social network) and which during the ‘socialist’ period of Maosim (1949-1978) emphasised the interests of the collective over those of the individual, the development of a strong sense of self-orientation is indeed significant. Part of this has to do with the one child policy in which the post-1980s generations have become the focal point of familial and social investment (the development of ‘human capital’ you might say), but also more broadly with the emergence of a individual-orientated consumer economy (Yan Yunxiang (2009) has written a great book on this subject titled The Invidualization of Chinese Society). Part of what they do here is also performative and playful. For example, ‘donkey friends’ give themselves nicknames (avatars) such as ‘old bear’, ‘where the wind blows’, ‘green frog’, and ‘good mule’. Actually, this is a common practice amongst hikers around the world but the difference in China is the way these avatars/personas are carried over into use in the social networking environment.
Ah Liang, donkey friend from Jinhua, Zhejiang.
Foreign donkey friends from Western Australia on the Ancient Anhui-Hangzhou Road.
As Zhang Ning also noted, another key feature of donkey friend activities is sharing of costs (‘going dutch’ or ‘AA制’ in Chinese), which includes the hiring of transport (typically a minibus or coach), hiring of local guides and meals and accommodation. The donkey friend clubs will have a few ‘old donkeys’ (老驴) who are well versed in the ins and outs of organising hiking outings and they generally take the lead in putting together the itineraries. The proposed trip is advertised on the club website (sometimes also through other hiking portals but the donkey friends I associate with tend to keep their activities ‘in house’) and members ‘invited’ to join. Leading up to the event, and when the final number of participants is better known, the donkey friends may have a number of online group meetings where the ‘old donkeys’ discuss the itinerary, what to bring, weather situation, travel insurance, and so on. Other donkey friends in the group will be allocated various tasks, such as booking the vehicle and contacting the local guides (if required). Each outing also has an ‘accountant’. In the group I travel with the last person to turn up at the assembly point is given this task. Another person or persons will be trusted with keeping notes and writing a simple diary to be later posted along with images on the group website once the event is concluded (and this in turn generates a great deal of discussion amongst the members who did not participate). The ‘old donkeys’ also look out for the ‘new donkeys’ and are available to offer honest (that is, non-commercial) advice about purchasing equipment and so on. So as you can see there is a strong sense of community and mutual-aid, very positive features if you ask me.
Litter on the trail in Anhui. Hiking has developed so fast that local communities do not have the infrastructure to deal with the environmental impacts.
Enjoying the scenery from a mountain top in Jiangxi.
The Chinese outdoor hiking culture, dare I say ‘industry’, is still in its nascent stages. There are many ‘gaps’ in the way the hiking is organised, especially at the sites where hiking takes place. Given the risks hikers sometimes take and the nascent status of the hiking industry it is not surprising that ‘donkey friends’ are often getting themselves into trouble. In recent years there have been a number of high profile hiking trips which have ended in disaster, some with lives being lost. In April of this year (2011) 39 donkey friends, all of whom were college students, were rescued after getting trapped on a mountain outside Beijing. China Hush translated a Chinese report on the rescue which includes some comments by readers. In December 2010 18 donkey friends from Fudan University (Shanghai) had to be rescued after getting lost in bad weather on scenic Huangshan (Anhui Province). During the course of the rescue a local police officer fell of a cliff and was killed. There were a lot of news reports on this rescue (here is a link to one report in Chinese). It is no wonder that local authorities are often in two minds about ‘donkey friends’. On the one hand they are a potential source of income, especially for more remote regions, but at the same time they bring many risks and potentially negative publicity. Local officials don’t want negative publicity, it impacts adversely on their chances for promotion. In the past of course they have preferred the development of packaged tourism which can accommodate large numbers and is relatively safe. But hiking tourism is very suitable for certain areas that are inaccessible or for which the status of the environment, particularly when it comes to carrying capacity, precludes the development of mass tourism. There are also questions about the legal liability and status of ‘donkey friend’ organised trips with a number of cases reaching Chinese courts in the last year or so.
Descending Lingshan Mountain in Jiangxi.
One last issue regarding the development of hiking in China and the rise of the ‘donkey friend’. The donkey friends typically like to ‘discover’ their own trails, to visit places ‘off the beaten track’. This is understandable. The problem is that in China once a ‘trail’ becomes more popular, with the ability of the Internet to reach a mass audience very quickly, the number of incoming hikers can, in the space of a few years, expand from several dozen per year to several thousand. The local communities and ecology are often not well equipped to deal with such a sudden influx. On some of the trails I have visited you can clearly see the negative impact of large numbers of hikers in the form of litter, erosion, fires and so forth. So even though donkey friend tourism could be seen as an alternative to mass tourism it actually has the potential to be a form of ‘mass tourism’ in and of itself. Indeed in recent years we are seeing the emergence of this kind of ‘commercially’ focused hiking tourism, much to the chagrin of traditional donkey friends who feels this goes against the ethos. Of course independent hiking and commercial hiking can and do coexist perfectly well in many locations around the world. China has some way to go to sort out these very complex issues. I have spent some time over the last two years in participant observation with a ‘donkey friend’ group based in Shanghai and Zhejiang (a neighbouring province of Shanghai) (you can see some of the images from my trips here and here). Apart from providing many fascinating insights into modern Chinese society I have been very inspired by the sense of community and good will amongst the group members. There is a lot of discussion in the Chinese media about the seeming lack of ethical responsibility and moral certainty within society and the finger is often pointed at the younger generation just as often as it is pointed at officialdom. But in my dealing with my donkey friends, who I must also note include quite a few older ‘donkeys’, I have been impressed by the genuine concern shown for ecological and community support in their activities. Of course I have also heard and seen many examples of unethical practices, but overall the experience has been very positive. I will be back to discuss other aspects of China’s hiking culture in the future, stay tuned!
With donkey friends on a cold snowy day at temple in Jiangxi.
