WildChina Blog

WildChina’s CEO Albert Ng spoke on November 12^th, 2008 at the World Travel Mart in London as part of the China Contact Future of Travel forum. An expert on China inbound tourism, Albert discussed the diverse possibilities for visitors to China outside of the most-visited sites. While attractions like the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors and the Bund in Shanghai are must-sees for the first-time visitor to China, there are a wealth of world-class attractions that go largely unvisited. Overall, while the travel market in China is slowly segmenting into offerings for a diverse array of clientele, the standard mass tourism mindset still prevails.

According to the World Tourism Organization, China is expected to attract 100 million tourists by the year 2020. This poses an interesting dilemma for sites that are often already packed to capacity. 85% of foreign visitors to China spend their time in only 20% of China’s landmass, and the market is dominated by cookie-cutter, mass-tourism experiences. WildChina, under the leadership of Albert Ng, has worked to expand China travel to more remote, off-the-beaten path areas, offering guests a highly distinctive experience. For example, WildChina has had great success in pioneering a trip to the grasslands of Qinghai for the July Yushu Horse Festival. During this annual event,  WildChina’s guests sleep at night in custom-built tents under the stars of the remote Tibetan Plateau, and during the day take part in the traditional horse-racing festivities.

One of my colleagues and I recently gave a presentation at Nokia’s Beijing office on ways to travel responsibly. While all of the case studies and real-life examples were taken from WildChina’s current practices, I did some web research to find quick tips that travelers can use on their own. There’s definitely a TON of information out there, so I thought I’d share my top tips from my favorite sites.

Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Travel, National Geographic Traveler

This was by far one of the most insightful and well-written pieces I found on the internet. It highlights 50 things travelers should do to minimize the negative impacts of travel, and benefit the communities they visit.  From their post:

“43. Respect Local Cultures

“Treating others the way you wish to be treated is the basic premise of responsible travel,” says Sherry Schwarz, editor and publisher, Transitions Abroad magazine and, director of the Abroad View Foundation. “It sounds simple, because it is simple: When we travel, we are visiting the homes of our global neighbors, getting to know them, and experiencing how they live.”

Schwarz suggests taking these four practical steps to “become a more conscious and conscientious traveler:”
1. Choose local guides
2. Stay in locally owned accommodations
3. Eat locally produced food
4. Respect local customs and traditions

“Only some 5 percent of the world’s population has even been on a plane,” continues Schwarz. “This is a humbling statistic that reminds me how fortunate those of us are who can travel and that we must show great respect and gratitude for the people and places we visit.”"

I have to say that I felt a jolt of recognition while reading that, as WildChina feels a strong commitment to positively impacting the local communities we visit.

Tips for Sustainable Travel: Sustainability Abroad at Yale University

Use accommodations that have a reputation for being sustainable. Sustainability can mean many things: they recycle, use alternative forms of energy, are owned by or employ locals, contribute to local causes.

Ethical Traveler Guidelines

“5)BARGAIN FAIRLY, and with respect for the seller. Again, remember the economic realities of where you are. The final transaction should leave both buyer and seller satisfied and pleased. Haggling for a taxi or carpet is part of many cultures; but it’s not a bargain if either person feels exploited, diminished, or ripped-off.”

Sustainable Travel International Guidelines

Guidebooks. Remember that your guidebook is just that - a guide. It is not your travel bible and it doesn’t know everything. If you want to truly experience a place, head off-the-beaten-path a bit. Talk with the locals, visit the places where they spend their leisure time, and explore!

This is the third day of our Silk Road trip. “So far, it’s been so wonderful.” said one of our guests.

Our trip started in Xi’an, the starting point of the Silk Road. After changing our flight at Lanzhou, a jumping-off point on the ancient Silk Road, now we’re at Dunhuang, a key trading point of the Silk Road.

Dunhuang was the western-most fort of the early Tang Dynasty, where the east meets west. Long ago its ancient name meant “beautiful desert oasis”. Many foreign merchants, monks, and officials came here for economic, military, political and cultural communications, which provided the basis for the flourishing of one of China’s earliest Buddhist centers.

One of the significant sites here is Mogao Cave, which consists of 492 caves with 25,000 square meters of wall paintings and more than 3,000 painted sculptures, spanning from the 4th to the 14th century.

This is an UNESCO site, the same as Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an. Personally I think this site is better preserved by local government. For instance:

• Taking photo is strictly forbidden in the cave, tourists must leave their bags outside before they go in. (While the Terra Cotta Warriors site allows photos without flash, but no one really monitors this.)
• There is a ‘tourist indicator’ installed in each cave, to test the carbon dioxide content. If carbon dioxide is at excess of an average level, a “no-entry” sign will be put outside.
• Guides at the sites are real experts. They’re either working at Mogao Cave study center or Dunuang library.

This is a standard photo spot from outside.

After lunch at a courtyard “farmer’s house”, we rested while expecting the most exciting moment – a Camel Ride in the Gobi Desert.

The Gobi Desert is the largest desert region in Asia and the fourth largest in the world. It covers part of northwestern in China and southern Mongolia. The part we went is Mingsha Sands Dune, means singing sands hills. The sand dunes have beautiful ranges like a mountain range.

Camel – Ship of the Desert, what I learned today is:

• an adult camel weights about 500-600 kg; a baby camel weights about 100 kg
• a camel will need 100 kg of plants per meal, such as grass, tree leaves, corn stalk (it’s costly to keep a camel!I would not want a camel as a pet)
• camels can live without water for a week, once they drink they can drink 6 liters water in 10 minutes.

The end of day - sunset at 6:40.

The first day, our guests liked the lively market at Muslim quarter and amazing dumpling banquet; yesterday, the second day, our guests were so impressed by Terra Cotta Warriors and the Chinese hamburger “rou jia mo”. That’s our trip, every day has something special - the fun never stops!

So, what will we do tomorrow?

Fan Na @ Dunhuang

In Guizhou, a rural and mountainous southern province, WildChina has worked closely with Baibi Village to improve their school facilities and infrastructure, building a basketball court, stairs, and bathrooms. This fall, we will return with a school group from Shanghai to help maintain the mountain roads that lead to their farmlands. WildChina has also worked closely with the Guang’ai School for Orphans in Hebei province, orchestrating musical exchanges with other schools and planting trees on their campus.

Individual and family travelers
also have opportunities to lend a helping hand on their trips through China. In Beijing, visitors have an opportunity to meet with local NGO representatives to learn about preservation of the rapidly disappearing hutong houses in the city. Visitors to Guizhou also routinely contribute to the WildChina Library at the Biasha School by donating books, stationery and school supplies.

Anne Warr is an architect who has lived in Shanghai since    2003. Anne earned an MA in Heritage Conservation from the  University of York, UK and worked for ten years as Heritage Manager for the NSW Government, and then as Heritage Manager for the City of Sydney. She started a tour guiding business, Walk Shanghai, and is a founding member of ‘Save Shanghai Heritage’, a volunteer group producing walking tour brochures of Shanghai’s twelve Conservation Areas. The first brochure, on the Jewish Ghetto area, was published in 2006. Anne and her partner run the Shanghai office of the Australian architectural firm “AJ+C.”

WildChina: How did you get started giving tours of Shanghai?

Anne Warr: When I first came to Shanghai in 2003 I was given the wonderful task of writing an “Architecture Guide to Shanghai”, by Australian publisher Watermark Press. As I explored the city discovering the many facets of its architecture and history, I became very familiar with the city and its stories. So, it became natural for people to start asking me to give architectural tours. The first tour I gave was for the MOMA Board of Directors in 2005.

WC: What is your favorite place to take guests?

AW: My favourite places vary from week to week and tour to tour. I enjoy taking guests to places that will surprise and delight them - and Shanghai is full of such places. I’m always discovering more about Shanghai, and I like to share these discoveries.

WC: Is there one place or building that has a particularly interesting story associated with it?

AW: There are so many interesting buildings and stories, that it’s hard to choose! Over this year I have been researching the work of the Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec who arrived in Shanghai in 1918, having escaped from a Russian prisoner of war camp. He intended to stay for only a few months, but stayed until 1947, becoming one of the most celebrated architects of that period, designing over 60 buildings including the Park Hotel. Only last week I managed to locate one of his later buildings that I had been searching for - the Aurora University Women’s College. I had seen pictures of the College building, which was designed in a very modern style, but hadn’t seen it any where. Finally I was able to locate the building by going down a narrow lane off the busy Huaihai Road and behind the shops was a large garden with the building standing within. It’s very exciting to make such a discovery and find that the building has survived. It’s now part of the China Institute of Social Sciences.

WC: What is your favorite place to go in China on your own?

AW: I like to go to Moganshan on my own. This is a hilltop retreat near Hangzhou built by missionaries in the early 20th century as a retreat for their families from the hot Shanghai summers. It has only been opened up for tourism in the last decade, and is still relatively unknown and unspoilt.

WC: What would your ideal Shanghai day be?

AW: My favourite Shanghai day would start by riding my bicycle to a small café in the French Concession for breakfast. Then continuing on my bike to visit some of my favourite shops and particularly the antique market on Fangbang Lu in the Old City. Then finishing for dinner with friends in the French Concession.

WC: How would you characterize Shanghai as a city?

AW: For me, Shanghai is a city of paradox. By that I mean that it is full of contrasts and is never quite what you expect. For example, many of my guests coming to Shanghai assume that all the old buildings have been demolished and that Shanghai only has new skyscrapers. In fact, a majority of Shanghai’s buildings from the Concession days have remained. The Shanghai government’s careful preservation of so many pre-1949 buildings has made Shanghai the interesting and unique city it is today. The classic image of Shanghai shows a low-rise group of lilong houses in the foreground with a wallpaper of modern high rise behind. The combination of new and old makes Shanghai exciting and vibrant.

Anne’s website can be found here.

You may not know it, but Mark Twain and Matt Damon have something in common: a belief that travel can bridge divisions between cultures and broaden our horizons. Twain once said that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, ” and Matt Damon echoed this idea in his opening statement for the recent Condé Nast World Savers Congress.

Dedicated to honoring organizations and individuals that use the $8 trillion dollar tourism industry as an avenue for positive change in the world, the World Savers Congress brings travel professionals, philanthropists, activists, and changemakers together to honor those who are exemplary examples of the power that the travel industry can have for good.

WildChina’s CEO Albert Ng was invited to be on a panel to discuss the future of travel in China. Also on the panel was the distinguished Orville Schell, Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, Barbara Finamore, the Beijing-based Director of the National Resource Defense Council’s China Program, and a representative from the Marriott International Hotel Group.

Albert Ng at the Condé Nast World Savers Congress: China Panel

Photo courtesy of Elliott Ng. (his excellent post on the panel can be found here)

The panel attempted to answer the question of how to reconcile the rapid growth of tourism in China with concerns about social and environmental responsibility.  The WTO predicts that China will become the number one tourist destination and the fourth tourist generating country by the year 2020. This poses an exciting window of opportunity to shape the still-young travel industry in China for the better.

Albert shared insights about on-the-ground travel operation in China, and the current gap between the strong will to do responsible business and the skills needed for implementation. The solution to this problem lies in productive and meaningful partnerships between organizations like the NRDC and the World Wildlife Fund, corporations like Marriott, and tourist sites like Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan. Orville Schell also talked about the pressing need for cooperation between the US and China in order to develop market solutions to unrestrained development.

One way WildChina is trying to aid the sustainable development of tourism in China is through the immersion training of World Wildlife Fund employees. So far we’ve hosted four WWF guides on month-long stints in the WildChina Beijing office to learn about responsible travel best-practices, marketing and service standards. The goal of this project is to expose local leaders to different ways of operating, and to equip them with the skills to reinvent the way they think about tourism in China. While WildChina believes that this work is vital to the transformation of tourism in China, we’re just one small company, and it will take the work of much larger and more influential organizations to really affect widespread transformation of the industry.

Good times go fast, and my vacation is about to finish. During my time away from the office, I spent some lovely days in Hangzhou. There are ten famous sites surrounding the West Lake, all of which are standard and well-known. Instead of talking about those, let me tell you about some of Hangzhou’s hidden gems.

Guo Garden 郭庄

Guo Zhuang is said to be the best existing traditional private garden in Hangzhou. It was built in 1851 and opened to the public in 1991. Being one of the garden masterpieces of Jiangnan (the lower region of the Yangtze River), it has incomparable surroundings and a smartly managed garden space.

Guo Garden

Rooms can be rented for private banquets.

You may also sit on the villa’s lakeside pavilions for a relaxing afternoon tea while avoiding the tourists.

Hu Qing Yu Tang Chinese Medicine Museum 胡庆余堂

Most Chinese people may know Tong Ren Tang Herbal Shop in Beijing. While Tong Ren Tang is famous in the North, Hu Herbal Shop is famous in the South. There’s a saying: in North China there’s Tong Ren Tang, and in South China there’s Hu Qing Yu Tang. It is located on He Fang Street, an ancient Qing-style street.

Here, you get a chance to learn stories of Chinese herbal gurus in history, such as Li Shizhen and Hua Tuo. You can also sample Chinese herbs, pharmacy methods, and tools.

At the exit of the museum there’s a real herbal shop where many locals come to buy traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

Dragon Well Village 龙井村

From the name, you can tell it’s the origin of one of Chinese favourite tea – Long Jing (Dragon Well) Tea. Yes, that’s right. One best type of longjing tea is from this village, called “Lion Hill Peak Longjing”. The village is located on the east of Lion Hill. In ancient time, tea picked in this village could only be sent to the emperor.

April is the harvest period, and when the best tea is collected. Visitors to Longjing may also learn some tea making techniques from local tea farmers.

Nearby the village, there’s a valley named “Nine Creeks & Eighteen Gullies” (九溪十八涧), which is surroundedby the tea terraces. It is very pleasant for hiking and sightseeing.

Baoshi Mountain & Baoshu Pagoda （宝石山和保俶塔）

Baoshi Mountain was just behind my hotel, so I went for a hike in the early morning. After rain, the air smells clean and fresh. Though the mountain and pagoda is not that attractive as other Hangzhou attractions, if you climb up the hill, you’ll find the view is awesome.

On the way down the mountain, I was kind of lost. Luckily, I met a local old man there for morning exercise. He walked me down the mountain. It was really nice of him, and also intersting talking with local people as you gain a lot of insights into the city.

Longjing Restaurant 龙井草堂

More like a garden than restaurant,  the total size of Longjing restaurant is 27 亩。There are only 8 tables in this restaurant and guests have to book a week ahead. The place is suitable to truly high-end guests.

This luxury restaurant doesn’t have a menu. The chef will customize dishes based on number of guests, and are all Hangzhou style dishes. The drink menu is also well-done, and looks like an ancient Chinese bamboo book.

In the evening, if the weather is good, there will be some girls playing the Chinese zither.

Thanks  to our local partner Jackson for showing me his hospitality. I hope we can show our guests these highlights of Hangzhou soon!

(Fan Na @ Hangzhou, Aug 2008)

You may have heard about some people having difficulties getting visas to travel to China.  If you look on the Web, it’s very easy to find a host of rumors about China’s harsh visa policies.  If you’re planning on traveling to China, it may seem like a reason to get worried.

The best cure for such worries is to approach the problem step by step.  While it is true that some people have had difficulties in getting visas, it is primarily those who are trying to live or spend an extended period of time in China that have had trouble.  Chances are, if you are planning on spending a few weeks in China traveling on one of WildChina’s tours, you will have no trouble as long as you know what to do.

The first step is to find a reliable source of information about changes in visa policy.  There are several companies in the United States whose staff is always up-to-date on the latest visa policies.  One such company is Travel Documents Express.  They are based in Washington DC, are very easy to get in touch with, and charge a very reasonable fee for processing.

They can be reached on the Web at http://www.traveldocument.com/ or contacted over the phone in the US at: 202.785.3250

Another company that offers great services is Zierer Visa Service.  It is a company with decades of experiences in the travel documents business and they have offices in many cities throughout the US.  Zierer can be reached on the web at http://www.zvs.com/ and contacted by phone at: 866.788.1100

Finally, one excellent website with up-to-date information about current Chinese visa policies and how they are being applied is available at: http://fxzl.blogspot.com/

Good luck everyone and happy travels.

On my train ride into Beijing yesterday, I had my first opportunity to taste a mooncake. Sitting on the lower level of beds, which during the daylight are the shared seats of everyone in the train’s cabin, I spotted a man in a neighboring cabin enjoying a small pastry. He noticed my curiosity and graciously offered me a taste.

Mooncakes, or yuè bǐng as they are known in Mandarin, are small cakes eaten to celebrate the Mid Autumn festival. Although there can be many variations, they are usually filled with a thick filling made from lotus paste or dried fruit. Sometimes, mooncakes are prepared with a duck egg yolk as part of the filling as well. This is thought by some to represent the full moon during harvest time.

There are many varieties of mooncakes to be found, so it is difficult to prescribe a standard. Today in our office we were treated to at least three different varieties in a single sitting. Each person has their own favorite. Personally, I am a fan of some of the less traditional fillings, such as dried pineapple or coconut.

However you like them, it’s good to keep their symbolism in mind. As mentioned before, mooncakes are eaten to mark the passage of the Mid Autumn festival, one of the most important holidays in China. This year is the first year that the Chinese government has made the Mid Autumn festival an official holiday and given people time off work. The origins of the holiday are shrouded in a complex mixture of legend and historical fact, but it is almost certainly meant to celebrate a successful harvest at the end of summer.

As it is a lunar holiday, the date of the Mid Autumn festival changes every year, but if you make it to China during the month of September, you have a good chance of being able to celebrate a successful harvest with us.

When I arrived on the train in Yangzhou,  Shandong Province this past Friday morning, I really didn’t know what to expect. WildChina sent a colleague, Cara, and myself to survey a few sites that we are planning on taking a school group to later this fall. It was important that we spend some time there to figure out logistics, test activities, and get a good feel for how the trip would run; all generally wise things to do before you descend on a site with a few busloads of middle schoolers.

We met our friendly driver Mr. Hu outside of the train station, and hopped into his car for the short ride to Qufu. As the legendary birthplace of Confucius and the location of his descendants’ ancestral home, Qufu has an almost mind-bogglingly long history. Two years after Confucius’ death in 479 BC his home was already designated as a temple, and Emperor Gao of the Han Dynasty was the first to offer sacrifices there in 205 BC. For those of us used to thinking in terms of the timelines of Western history, this longevity is absolutely incredible; yet to my Chinese friends, it is just another example of the depth and breadth of Chinese culture and history.

Confucius Temple is a beautiful and expansive historic site, and at 16,000 square meters, in China it is second in size only to the Forbidden City.  We visited early in the morning when the crowds were at a minimum, and found the tall pines and numerous courtyards serenely beautiful. I was also impressed by the 9 Carved Dragon Columns (see below), which, according to legend, were covered when the Emperor visited so as not to arouse his envy.

As in the Forbidden City, my favorite part of the Confucius Temple were the smaller side courtyards and buildings - while not as impressive as the main north-south axis of structures, I find them more charming and extremely pleasant for wandering through on a sunny morning.  Of course, I also love the attention to detail exhibited in many of China’s historic sites, including the way garbage cans tend to mimic their surroundings.

After a leisurely stroll through the Confucius Temple, we visited Confucius’ ancestral home, the Kong family mansion, formerly the largest private estate in China. The Kong family mansion is supposed to house “The 5 Stranges”  - the strange couplet, strange monument, strange tree, strange picture, and strange beast, and so it was fun for us to try and figure out which item was the strange one.  As we were a bit unclear, I decided that Cara must be the “strange beast” of the Confucius Mansion - something she didn’t exactly appreciate at the site, and has come to like even less as I have continued this trend back in the office. Sorry Strange Beast, you know what they say - if the name fits…

The Actual “Strange Beast”

After a tasty Confucian banquet at the Queli Hotel, we traveled to Zhujiayu, a rural village about 2 hours by car from Qufu. When we bring our school trip here in a few weeks, we plan on doing activities like traditional tofu making, weaving, paper cutting, pancake making, and perhaps even scorpion tasting. Yum!

Zhujiayu Schoolhouse

Zhujiayu is a so-called “longevity village”, where many residents have been known to live well into their 90s, and even past 100 years of age. While the village today only has about 20% of the residents it did in its prime, the people we met here were overwhelmingly friendly and accomodating.  We helped the owners of our guesthouse harvest fresh peanuts, and woke up on Saturday morning to roosters crowing in our courtyard. After a hearty breakfast of tomato and egg noodles, we discussed logistics with the village tofu expert, and she showed us how to turn soybeans into tofu paste using her stone grinder.

It really is nice to get out of the city sometimes.