Letter from China, by an astute observer

Yunnan, China

October, 2005

When you fly over Kunming City at about 10,000 feet and you see the scope and scale of the development below in full view, it appears orderly and not scrawl like and the scale is huge and almost unending. To the north a new super highway cuts and winds through and around the most southerly elements of the Himalayan mountains and valleys that run almost due north and south. The valleys are not narrow and a short time ago were used as irrigated rice fields.

The ground crew that greeted us were grouped in a disciplined semi-military infantry cluster of seven young men and two women, none of which were armed, all dressed in identical uniforms making gender identification difficult. We were off loaded and processed through customs and immigration officials in an efficient and friendly manner .

The Camellia Hotel in mid town Kunming was a real bargain at $20.00 per night. This included a breakfast that was inedible. The bedding was top quality and had more than 400 threads per square inch. The population of Kunming today is around 10 million. There are 65 cities in China that are about the same size as Kunming. You do not feel the push of people until night falls on the huge pedestrian mall that is surrounded by upscale shopping malls and show rooms. Our Chinese friend Charlie pointed out the Lamborghini and Ferrari show rooms with pride.

The Wilson sports shops featured the latest tennis racquets at over $365 each. I bought mine at Big 5 Sports in Tucson, Arizona, USA, for about $150. In Thailand the same unit is available at about $100, unstrung. The pricing of goods and services in China is unpredictable and one has to look carefully before buying.

We found the food in and around town to be expensive and boring largely because our friend had little experience in eating out. We had to go with the flow of his guidance and hospitality enduringly, to avoid hurting the feelings of our well meaning but totally insensitive guide and friend Charlie. We met some of his young women friends and were impressed by their humour, good looks, fluency in English and hip but low keyed fashion style.

Charlie falls into the bin of some of the more interesting but challenging eccentrics I have attracted over the years as friends. Charlie is a 30-something engineer, very bright, very boring, and a bit of a braggart, who lives with his aged mother and father who smokes incessantly. We were invited to their home, a spacious apartment in a trendy neighbourhood.

The Kunming pedestrian mall with the upscale department stores and underground parking for bicycles only, featured an array of really humorous bronze sculptures. The most memorable of which was a photographer dressed in late 19th century clothing, bearing a really funny smile with a bulb clutched in his left hand, looking toward an empty bronze chair. His camera was a huge box camera draped in black cloth, also cast in bronze.

The Chinese people use the whole piece as a spoof on the Chinese compulsive propensity to be photographed always doing everything, everywhere. So you get families in drifts sitting and gathering around the chair being photographed in pantomime. It does not matter whether your picture gets taken. It is the action that is important!

Further north, in the town of Dali, the city government just finished another beautiful cut stone pedestrian mall with local craft shops on both sides and two pagodas festooned with fairy lights at both the north and south ends. Their photo point in the landscape is functional, and was sited at the lower end of a beautifully hand cut stone cascading fountain that tumbled down a slope for a distance of 200 meters. It was laid out with a mix of rushing streams, and flowed by deep quite pools. This was a real  photo point set up for the Chinese tourist to take pictures. The routine was simple and done in earnest. Take pictures of others quickly, then mount the little elevated foot stand under a stone arch to have their picture taken.

This goes on one after another, group after group, day after day. This is where really big families and big follow-the-flag Chinese tourist groups gather. If you haven’t done this you have not been … anywhere.

As a landscape architect I never thought of or studied the possibility of photo points in the landscapes as useful and funny landscape experiences. We are always bound by our culture in ways we may never know until we travel and see for ourselves what pleases people.

We did not meet any of our fellow  Americans until we bunked in at the Wenhai Eco-Lodge located at 11,000 feet above Lijiang. I read about in the New York Times Travel Section dated 24 November, 2004. It was written by Craig Simons who is now based in Beijing as a journalist. When I discovered it I took vows to try to go there with my wife, Noot. The trek up took six hours. Our guide took us cross country to save time.

It was an arduous trek but well worth it in terms of the local flora that consisted of azaleas, rhododendrons, and a huge array of wild flowers that were still in autumn bloom. The overland route was arduous and a challenge to us both. Noot did not have a proper backpack and mine became overloaded.Â

I wanted to trace in part the steps of the early 20th century and later 19th century plants hunters from the UK and the USA. On the way up we made a brief visit to Dr. Joe Rocks’ humble house. It is  very modest and rural compound that was the Asian headquarters for the National Geographic Society from the 1920’s to the time he left China.

Rocks wrote the definitive study of the Naxi people, a nomadic Tibetan tribe that settled in the area above Lijiang some 200 years ago. It was fascinating to see his work room, study, and bed all in the same open space. The bed was a single sleigh type, covered with many different large cat skins. Huntsmen from the Naxi people to this day can be seen selling  these huge and very beautiful cat hides in great numbers. They can be see standing around the local markets.

Rocks’ photo is shown with him in all his Naxi chieftain regalia standing proud and defiant. Dr. Rocks’ major work was lost at sea when the ship that was carrying it was sunk by the Japanese navy off the coast of Vietnam in 1942. He was asked to leave after 27 yeas of work in the area largely funded by the Geographic Society and Harvard University. He left in 1945 for  Hawaii and never returned. He may have died a homesick, bitter and lonely man. I asked the locals if he left any wives or children and their response was a secretive, no.

Our first  fellow  Americans appeared after our second day at the lodge. We needed a day’s rest after the trek and just hung out taking  short walks, looking at the landscape and its flora which was badly over grazed. On one of these walks we discovered wild peaches that were the last of the season in a hedge row between a rushing mountain stream, and the farm wall of a turnip and potato patch. Really a great find because although small and wizened they were very, very  tasty. They may have been the mother of all peaches!

The first  Americans were young bankers that worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington, D.C. They were two young men to be proud of but when questioned every so briefly on the need for this war in Iraq, they came back with the party line of how it is necessary to fight them over there rather at home and how if we left now just another dictator will soon take over. Now these were nice young men with good educations from the University of Virginia  and from suburban Washington, in Virginia.

The second group of Americans were an older brother and sister Chinese American team from Berkeley and Singapore. Robert was in his late 50’s and seeking a place to bed down for retirement. Susan his sister was a banker from Singapore and still active as a business women. Robert said something very memorable that iI would like to share with you you. He said the purpose of seeking a long life was to be able to see and live with your children and grand children naturally. He also said that just as important was to live long enough to become a better person and to be able to have the time to do that.

Well, one needs time, a lot of time. He was a master at Tai Chi and has been practising for more than 15 years. I marveled at his style as he did his routine in the early morning in the court of our lodge. We exchanged coordinates with the hope we would all meet again.

The intercity road north from Dali to Lijiang is sited in the former lake bed of Lake Er-hi which lies to the east and running north and south, parallels Jade Dragon mountains and the Snow Mountain range to the west. This road has defended bike lanes for bicycles, animals, students,carts of all shapes, and motorcycles which were few in number. It is a modern road in every, respect but the right of way has been there for ever.Â

Early in the 20th century, Dr. George Forrest of the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh photographed it showing this road going through a village that was very close to the roadway. This condition exists today.

To the east, the rice fields were coming into harvest, evidenced by neat bundles of rice propped up on end to dry before thrashing just as it has been done for centuries. Immense water buffalos straining against wooded plows could be seen frequently with pairs of plowmen working with the animals and struggling to hold the plows down and straight.

At regular intervals 40 cm diameter water pipes cross the road as they pumped water from the lake and then  released it, so the fields below can be irrigated by using a flood irrigation technique as old as organised agriculture. The Yunnan planners kept development out of the prime agricultural soil areas by restricting it to the east-facing slope of the steeply rising mountains. It all comes together as a productive and harmonious landscape adapted to future grown and hinged to the past.

We are planning to return in the spring of 2006 to see the wild flowers again.  We had a really good time. The beer was super good and a lot less expensive than Thai beer. The food in Dali and Lijiang was really good.

With best regards to all, I welcome your questions and comments. I wrote letter on my iMac G5 from my house in the fragrant hills above Chiang Rai, Thailand.

george

and

noot