Tradition and modernity are colliding throughout villages in China

Last September we told you about Chinese questioning the value of World Heritage Site status. And in December, we noted that local officials around China were starting to grasp the importance of heritage to their cities and towns.

China has taken another step toward increasing protection of links to its own history and identity. Last Friday, China’s top lawmakers passed the first national law aimed at protecting the country’s intangible cultural heritage, according to Xinhua reports.

Specific areas covered by the new law include “traditional oral literature, performing arts, craftsmanship, medicine and folk customs. The law also recognizes material objects and the sites for performing practices.”

We applaud the gesture toward preserving surviving cultural heritage of all kinds in China. We also look forward to the new law being applied in a way that supports authentic local traditions, performers and artisans rather than idealized or commercialized versions of a China that no longer exists.

Mulberry paper drying in Xishuangbanna

Emphasis will reportedly be given to applying the new law to regions that are remote, impoverished and/or heavily populated by ethnic minorities.

Hopefully, this means that when our grandchildren travel in China, they will still have the chance  to eat tea with the Bulang people, watch the Dai make mulberry paper, sit in a Shaxi courtyard and listen to tales from the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road or experience the nuanced depth and beauty of Tibetan thangka painting in Shangri-la.

WildChina Expert Spotlight is a new program for the Year of the Rabbit. WildChina will invite one of our experts to join us for dumpling lunch in the office every other Wednesday and give a short talk. The visit provides our entire staff with an inside scoop on the latest trends in local architecture, journalism, history, art, and countless other fields of interest. And not only do we get to hear some great stories and find out what our experts have been up to with their work, we also get to pass the information on to you.

For the inaugural event, we welcomed Kat Don, our Beijing expert on contemporary art in China. She deftly summed up the comings-and-goings of the Beijing art scene for the staff, taking question after question from a curious crowd. We’d also be remiss not to mention that Kat was just married this past summer, and WildChina had the honor of planning her stylish Beijing nuptials. Congrats from all of us here at WildChina, Kat!

WildChina Travel: What are some starting points for someone interested in visiting the art galleries here in Beijing?

Katherine Don: The 798 Art District is the most well-known art district in Beijing that is great for a self-guided walking tour. The galleries and shops are usually open as of 10am or 11am to 5pm or 6pm everyday, although some may be closed on Mondays. As exhibitions change often, sometimes every few weeks, and finding an exact location may be difficult, it is always best to call ahead. For most people, two hours is ample time for a visit, plus time for lunch or a coffee break; a more intense tour for the serious art lover might consume half a day (3-4 hours).

WCT: What are some of your favorite galleries in the most well-known art district, 798?

KD: The 798 art district encompasses a range of art venues, from warehouse-sized art centers and galleries, fashion design outlets and the occasional artist studio to souvenier shops, design stores and cafes. At the heart of the district is UCCA (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art) which is a must and a great place to start one’s tour (or end as it has a café and a design shop inside). Other art venues with consistent art programs are Long March, Pace, Faurschou, Continua, Tang, Boers Li, Hadrien de Monteferrand, BTAP, Chang Art, Beijing Commune, and Cheng Xin Dong. The 798 Space is worth a peek to see the original Bauhaus architecture and original factory slogans. Also, the Yi House boutique hotel located in the fashion design area of the district has contemporary art in its lobby and restaurant. Lastly, Timezone 8 Books and Café is also great for a break to have lunch and browse its stash of art books.

WCT: What do you recommend for art lovers who want to get a bit more off the beaten path?

KD: Caochangdi, just a five minute drive from 798 is Beijing’s other major art district, which has a greater concentration of galleries presenting contemporary art and has much to offer but isn’t as accessible to tourists– you’ll need a Chinese guide or Chinese language skills to get around.

The must-see gallery there is Three Shadows Photography (which also has a cafe) and I’d also recommend Platform, F2, White Space, ShanghART, Art Mia, Pekin Fine Art, Mizuma and Chambers.

WCT: Are there any other spots you like, perhaps outside of the established districts?

KD: Outside of 798 and Caochangdi, I frequently visit the Red Gate Gallery, located in the Dongbianmen Watchtower;  Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA), which is in the Qianmen 23 compound near Maison Boulud; and C5 Art in Sanlitun, which often features some really fun young artists. What’s nice about these three is that while they may be more spread out than galleries within the art districts, choosing one is still close enough to see together in one half-day tour of an art district.

WCT: What’s one of the questions you hear most often?

KD: People seem to view art as a way to interpret the events and life around them. With contemporary art in China, people most often ask about the role of censorship for Chinese artists. Most artists are saavy enough to self-censor their public works, and some do more or less than others, depending on their objectives. Ai Weiwei is an example of an artist whose blithe attitude towards the arts and controversy makes him seem less concerned with the consequences, especially since he has been somewhat idolized by the media.

WCT: What are some basic trends you see in Chinese contemporary art?

KD: Many people just getting to know modern China through its art are interested to know what is on the cutting edge, in other words, how has a society emerged from a decade of drastic historic changes and evolved into the global economic power it is today.  This societal change is often described by the generation born in the 1970′s, after the Cultural Revolution and on the cusp of the modern era. Once referred to as the “Me Generation”, common themes in works of such artists living in China reflect a journey of self-discovery. Instead of growing up, living and working with an almost mandated sense of duty to the government and the public, this generation is encouraged to explore the freedom to build a life around their own wishes and needs. Their art reflects this, as well as an awareness of the independent artistic practice established beyond China. A wave of very personal art, such as documents of daily life and experience of the mundane, art focused on the “me” and the “I” began to appear. This is in stark contrast to, say, the social propaganda posters of the Red Army or the political outcries of artists from a previous generation. Also during this era, modernization meant a more free market economy. Thus, art began to reflect more the pop culture of a consumerist society. We still see remnants and practitioners of the “me generation” in art today but the somewhat trivial nature is being countered by a movement to incorporate and celebrate elements of traditional art in order to veritably connect with Chinese history, culture and values.

WCT: Kat, leave us with an interesting fact about the current Beijing art scene.

KD: Well, I think one distinguishing characteristic of the art scene in China is its association with education. It is considered the highest honor to be a professor or scholar, which distinguishes one’s resume in addition to exhibitions at well-recognized institutions both in China and abroad. Many established Chinese artists are current professors at the elite art academies, a tradition that encourages students to be well-trained and theoretical.

———-

You can read more about Kat in our Experts section.

Image: Kat Don, PSFK

As the Christchurch Earthquake death toll rises—and the search for hundreds of missing people continues—we at WildChina want to take a moment to offer our condolences to all the victims of this tragedy.

The world watches anxiously, having just turned the page on a year that saw one of history’s deadliest earthquakes (in Haiti) and one of its strongest (in Chile). Earthquake disasters recall painful memories in China, where powerful earthquakes in Sichuan in 2008 and Qinghai last year together claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people.

Our heartfelt thoughts and hopes are with all the deceased, wounded and surviving residents of Christchurch as they confront the aftermath of the earthquake and begin the rebuilding process.

After a national moment of silence for the Sichuan Earthquake victims in 2008, mourners in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square chanted, “Jiayou Zhongguo! Jiayou Sichuan!” (Go China! Go Sichuan!), urging on the battered psyches of the Chinese people.

From all of us in Beijing: Jiayou New Zealand! Jiayou Christchurch!

Image: Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald, via Associated Press

Chris Taylor knows China travel. He first came to the country three decades ago and spent years as a contributor to and editor of Lonely Planet’s China guidebook.

Taylor’s debut novel Harvest Season was published last year by Earnshaw Books and has created a buzz with its description of what happens when an idyllic mountain town called Shuangshan strains to adapt to a backpacker invasion.

WildChina is proud to sponsor this year’s Bookworm International Literary Festival, which will take place March 4-18 at Bookworm locations in Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou. Taylor will be one of dozens of authors participating in the festival. He will be the featured author in Chengdu at 7:30pm on March 5 and in Beijing at 3pm on March 10.

We sat down with Taylor to learn more about the changes he’s seen in China over the years and what he sees happening in the future.

WildChina: How did you first end up coming to China?

Chris Taylor: In 1982 when I was in Kashmir I met a Canadian guy who had just come out of China, which was incredible for me because China had been closed for so long. He told me that I could get an individual travel visa in Hong Kong. I was young at the time and it took three years, one of them teaching English in Tokyo before I made it to China.

WildChina: What was different about traveling in China back then compared to today?

Taylor: (Laughs.) It was almost impossible. You could do it – but it was tough.

Few hotels accepted foreigners, so the hardest thing was often just trying to find a place to stay. There was no infrastructure for foreign tourists… in those days there was just CITS, but their only function was to try to get people to join their tours. They didn’t understand that individual travelers coming into China either were opposed to this kind of tourism or couldn’t afford it.

There was no coffee. It was hard to get where you wanted to go or to find a restaurant open after seven or eight at night. And bear in mind there was no internet and it was very difficult to call home. It was a totally different China from what we know now. Once you entered, there was no news of the outside world.

WildChina: So what was it that hooked you on China?

Taylor: The one thing that was clear back then was that everyone had been enough of political movements and mass collectivization. There was a saying back then: “wang qian kan” (往前看, “look forward), but the word for money is also qian, so people made the joke “look to money”.

China was going to change unlike anywhere else on the planet had, and that was what struck me. Japan was the big Asian country at the time and everyone was studying Japanese but it was obvious that China wanted to catch up. I thought it was a fascinating story and decided to start studying Chinese. That’s how I ended up staying. It’s one of the biggest stories of human history and I’m still enthralled by it.

WildChina: As a Lonely Planet writer did you “discover” a new place that nobody knew about?

Taylor: I almost never went anywhere that I didn’t have to visit, so I didn’t discover much that wasn’t already on the radar.But there was one time in 1991.

I was in parts of southeast Guizhou and boarded the wrong bus purely by accident. I traveled through areas around Kaili and Longsheng in Guangxi before they appeared in any guidebooks, places that hadn’t seen foreigners since before the founding of the People’s Republic.

I didn’t write about it extensively because none of those places were on the trail at the time and they would have been near impossible to travel through without Chinese, which very few backpackers spoke in those days.

WildChina: What was it that made you decide to write a novel?

Taylor: I was writing fiction when I first came to Asia twentysomething years ago but I didn’t think it was any good. I did my time at Lonely Planet and then got caught up in journalism and making money. But fiction was already the plan.

I took a sabbatical in Dali in 2005 and became increasingly annoyed with myself for not writing a novel. I took a two-year break and out of that came Harvest Season. The whole point for me with fiction is that you can write about things that you can’t touch upon in day-to-day journalism. You can address issues on a scale that you can’t even in magazines. It’s a very liberating format, if somewhat intimidating.

WildChina: Why did you pick a small mountain town as the setting for Harvest Season?

Taylor: Even though I didn’t mention specifically where Harvest Season is set, it is set in Yunnan.

A couple of years ago, Yunnan was in a specific development stage. It had been “discovered” but not in the ways that other places in the backpacker trail like Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, even Cambodia had been discovered. The numbers of people who came here tended to be smaller and they were more adventurous – that kind of reminded me of my early days of traveling in China.

I first came to Yunnan in 1991 when I was a Lonely Planet researcher. I didn’t return until 2005. The reason for that was that a lot of the places that I had gone back to had changed so much that I became afraid of returning to places that had had an impact on me. It surprised me that a place as beautiful as Yunnan had survived the years.

WildChina: What lies at the core of the conflict in Harvest Season?

Taylor: One of the themes is that you can be an agent of destruction of something that you covet when you travel. This isn’t about Yunnan, it could have been set anywhere. It is about what happens when a place reaches a critical mass in terms of tourism and commercial interests change things.

I imagined a place like Dali or Shaxi being invaded by the same people who invaded the beaches of southern Thailand in The Beach. But it is a work of fiction, and that is not about to happen to Yunnan. That is what makes Yunnan a special place.

WildChina: What is the current state of English-language writing about China?

Taylor: One of things you hear is: China is hot! I don’t think it is. Generally stuff written about China is confirming the preconceptions of people back home. If you don’t do that, you run the risk of putting yourself in very niche territory in which the only readers you’ll have are China insiders.

There are two prevailing themes now: “the coming China century” and “the coming collapse of China”. It’s rather difficult to write about China as it is lived, which is a far more complex story. I wish that more foreigners based in China were writing fiction, because when you look back on last century, much of the best fiction was written by nomads in voluntary exile, Greene, Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, Paul Bowles, Hemingway, the list goes on.

We’re living in very interesting times in which more people than ever are living in voluntary exile… I’d like to see more fiction that takes this on.

WildChina: How do you see travel in China changing in the coming five years?

Taylor: I see a combination of two things. A lot of people haven’t been to China yet, and they will want to come see the Terracotta Warriors, Great Wall, etcetera. But there will also be a proliferation of niche markets… more trekking, kayaking, adventure travel. What happens in most undeveloped travel destinations is that backpackers find places, locals set things up, tour companies come in and develop and eventually: Club Med.

China won’t follow that path because of the explosion in Chinese tourism. Yangshuo was discovered by backpackers but the Chinese tourism boom has transformed the place to the point that it has little appeal as a backpacker destination. Given the size of domestic tourism in China, foreign travelers will be marginal. I think southwest China is primed to become a destination for niche travel and adventure travel.

Chris Taylor image: Yereth Jansen

Even for experienced China travelers, the vast region of Xinjiang in the country’s northwest is full of surprises. One of the bigger surprises is the mystery of the dried corpses known as the Tarim mummies, which are on display in museums throughout Xinjiang.

Two of the mummies have traveled to the US as part of an exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where their Caucasian features are making museumgoers look at China’s history from a different angle.

The mummies – a 3,800-year-old woman with auburn hair and a 2,800-year-old infant – have Caucasian characteristics that are considered by experts to be proof that western peoples migrated eastward along the ancient Silk Road that connected China and Europe via Central Asia and Middle East.

The woman, nicknamed “the Beauty of Xiaohe” (pictured above) is wearing a felt hat that resembles those traditionally found in alpine Europe. The baby is wrapped in a blanket reminiscent of ancient northern European burial shrouds.

Mummies preserved by Xinjiang’s extremely arid conditions first began to be discovered by explorers in the early 1900s. It is unclear exactly where these people came from, due to a lack of DNA testing.

Today Xinjiang is one of China’s most remote and least understood regions. It is believed that the Uighur ethnic group that now calls Xinjiang home migrated to the area after the arrival of the Caucasians who eventually became the Tarim mummies.

Nowadays Xinjiang is known by travelers for its stunning desert and mountain landscapes plus the fascinating culture – and delicious food – of the Uighurs. But, as the Tarim mummies illustrate, this is only part of the picture. Xinjiang is steeped in a forgotten history that the world is only beginning to wake up to.

The exhibition “Secrets of the Silk Road” runs at the University of Pennsylvania through March 15. For more information about WildChina journeys to Xinjiang, click here or contact us directly.

Lantern Festival, which falls on the fifteenth day of the new lunar year, marks the end of Chinese New Year and the last day to shoot fireworks.

Walking home from work, it seems as if everyone were saving it until the last minute:

When I asked a man on the street, “Why?? Why are there so many?” He grinned from ear to ear and said, “We start the year out with good luck and good fortune by celebrating our happiness!”

Another lady looked at me and said, “I was mad at my husband for spending so much money on these, but <sigh> I guess it only happens once a year, right?”

Given that THIS is what typically happens after the fireworks go off:

It doesn’t seem that that lady or light sleepers will be too sad to see the fireworks go.

Best wishes to all in the Year of the Rabbit!

———-

Videos courtesy of Devin, an associate of WildChina. Watch other WildChina videos here <http://www.youtube.com/wildchinatravel>.

The following piece is an excerpt from Templar Teas‘ reports around the world.  The author Jeff Fuchs is a writer, photographer, and expert of the Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road.

Beijing and its heaving dense world of sprawling space is losing much of what the previous generation calls the ‘culture of vital fluid’ – the culture of ‘tea’. Fewer and fewer tea shops – once abundant in the alleys and upon the great roads – are to be found which makes uncovering them something for me like discovering a gift. By a sad extension of this, the uncovering of good tea itself also becomes fleeting.

In the smallest recesses one can find the odd ‘cha dien’, tea stores that still cater to locals – less glitz but more substance, as the old saying goes. Barely lit at times, one enters an informal sanctum of tea in all of its desiccated forms. Apart from the huge tea market of Ma Lian Dao in the southwest of the city which is an entire urban landscape dedicated to selling tea, it is the small traditional tea houses that truly represent a passing moment in time.

One such shop in the massive Chaoyang district near the ever-expanding Liang Ma Qiao road in northeastern Beijing, needs luck or a friendly finger pointing the way to find it. Barely three meters wide and perhaps five deep the walls are lined with canisters, cakes, urns, bricks and errant tealeaves – a comfortable anarchy of tea resides here that warms the being with sips to come. There are no hints or aromas here – it is nothing less than being consumed with tea’s wafting fragrances. It is in these tiny temples of tea that one feels close to tea in its primal and very Asian form: it is something that occupies, fascinates and feeds. In its silence it reminds that tea is also treated as an almost honored friend. Unfortunately for most travelers in the unrelenting need for convenience, it is the tourist shops that trumpet teas that are little more than cosmetic masterpieces, with little substance that will get the attention.

———–

Photo by Tea Templar.  To read the full post, click here.

Named one of the “up-and-coming” places to visit, it seems that the word “Shangri-La” is everywhere. The term, which is said to “evoke imagery of exoticism of the Orient,” has initiated a circular series of inspired events:

James Hilton coined the term in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon and described Shangri-La as an earthly utopia nestled high in the Tibetan Himalayas. His story and legend describe it as “a lost paradise where the ravages of time and history have been held back, where human beings live in harmony with nature, and where the wisdom of the planet is saved for future generations” (Michael Wood, BBC).

Inspired by this exotic legend, world-renowned architect I.M. Pei designed the Miho Museum with Shangri-La in mind:

Located southeast of Kyoto, Japan, the museum was commissioned by Mihoko Koyama who founded Shinji Shumeikai, a new religious movement whose followers believe that by “building modernist architectural masterpieces in remote places they’re restoring the planet’s balance” (Jeff Sharlet, author).

This past year, the Paul Winter Consort collaborated with several different artists, including Yangjin Lamu, a “spiritual musician” from Tibet, to produce the song entitled “Miho: Journey to the Mountain,” which was inspired by and recorded in the Miho Museum.  At the beginning of the week, the song was named Best New Age Album of the Year at the 53rd Grammy Awards. According to Hexun.com, Yangjin Lamu is not only the Founder and Chairman of the China Overseas Tibetan Association, but she is first Chinese person – one with a Chinese passport – to win the prestigious award.

Lost Horizons started the hunt for Shangri-La, the utopian destination that was purportedly found in the town previously known as Zhongdian. This destination has gone on to inspire everything from architecture to award-winning music to people’s perception of China. Perhaps the power of Shangri-La isn’t so mythical after all…

Photo Sources: WildChina, The Sydney Morning Herald, Metro UK

昨天跟中国日报英文版的一个编辑作了一个访谈。讲旅游的新趋势，等等。在采访快结束的时候，记者问我什么时候到美国居住的。 “5年”我说；她又接着问，“那以前就没有到过美国吗？”我又加了两年，把以前念书的时间也算上了。 她再次仔细地确认，“那您一共在美国7年？”。

我还在奇怪她为什么对数字那么感兴趣，她就接着说，“那能不能说您作WILDCHINA的旅游观，是受了美国文化影响才形成的？”

这个问题让我非常不高兴。我第一次到中甸是1990年，那时候得从昆明坐两天的公共汽车才到。我住在藏族朋友的家里，自己打车去了纳帕海。那里唯一遇上两个外地人，其中一个是现在蛮有名气的野生动物摄影师奚志农。如果我问奚志农他排野生动物是不是有美国文化的影响，一定得把他也给气晕了。

我不明白，WILDCHINA的精神在于，深度旅游，强调回归自然，强调与当地村民的进距离交流。这不用到美国学习。她问我动力来自那里。 我告诉她，动力来自本身对自然和人文文化的好奇，强烈的求知欲，还有，就是中国传统文化的熏陶。

抬起头看见我办公室墙上挂着的毛笔字，是一首李白的诗

问余何事栖碧山

笑而不答心自闲

桃花流水杳然去

别有天地非人间

这样的修身养性的意境，跟WILDCHINA所追求的意境是非常相似的。追求的是接近自然，欣赏自然，借自然的力量来疗养身心，已达到自身意境的提高。从自然出发，我对旅游的偏好更倾向走访小山村，寻访当地的文化艺人，或者是徒步外人没听说过但当地很有名的寺庙；去这样的地方给我带来的愉悦远远超过到纽约这样的大都市。比如到大理南边的巍宝山，跑到山顶，跟那里的道士一起喝杯道家茶，聊聊天，我觉得那是最幸福不过的一件事。

可能在很大程度上，我对旅游的个人嗜好在WILDCHINA 的基因里。物以类聚，人以群分；自然而然，WILDCHINA吸引了一批对旅游有同样体会和嗜好的客户和员工。

让我困惑的是，为什么这样的旅游方式被诠释为美国进口文化？是从什么时候开始，中国人的旅游等同于旅游大巴，进店，团队自助餐，啤酒可乐瓶子满地，游客吵吵嚷嚷，大大咧咧，走马观花。而WILDCHINA追求的，跟古诗和山水画描述的旅游意境一致的旅游确被视为舶来品？

我想了半天，想出两个可能，但是，并没能最终解决我的困惑。

1。 我们目前的客户大多是讲英文的外国人。为什么没有中国客户呢？第一，我们的收费高。往往，我们的客人一天的最低收费都在2000人民币左右，而在中国人在国内旅行，自己觉得不用花那么多钱。我们服务的卖点，细致入微的量身定制，我们很环保的操作，带客人去他们自己去不到的地方，请当地知识最丰富的导游或专家作向导， 24小时的服务。 因为有这样的服务，我们的外国客户还真不少，好莱坞巨星罗伯特 德 尼罗， 前任联合国主席科菲 阿南； 还有最近美国脸书facebook 的CEO 马克 撒德波格。但是，在国内旅游提供类似的服务，好像没有什么市场。

为什么呢？首先,国人对高端旅游服务的认可程度尚在初级阶段，往往把旅游和简单的买机票，订酒店联系到一起。愈演愈烈的价格竞争让人忽略了对服务和旅游体验的关注。 一提及旅游，大家往往想到的是去携程网找折扣，那什么都可以预定。 其次，为了凸显个人人际网落，去旅游总是喜欢找关系， 再高端的酒店，或许一个电话找到它的投资人，打个5折，这才显得我的重要性。 第三，时常为了彰显身份，去旅游还不得办个政府接待？动用地方关系，专家，村民表演一应俱全，但往往劳民伤财。WILDCHINA几乎就没有存在的意义。

国内旅游还是处于初级阶段。初级阶段的旅游主要目的还是“某某到此一游” 的精神，图的是名——我去了多少多少地方，以此作为向亲朋好友炫耀的资本。这才导致了一周七国游类似的旅行线路。这个阶段旅游服务需求只是基本的吃饱喝足，最好有朋友一起热热闹闹的。跟徐霞客和李白主张的旅游境界是大相径庭的。

旅游的更高一阶段，就开始追求对旅游目的地的更多了解，放慢旅行的速度。可能出行前还有可能对目的地先研究研究。 最高阶段，才是李白诗里所描述的境界——自身意境的提高。旅行是为了探索心灵的更深处。这时候，往往愿意一个人去徒步环绕岗仁博齐神山，有时间思索。或者是去一个意大利骑自行车，晚上把车子一停，住在一个历史悠久的古堡里，仔细品味葡萄酒。或者，到东非的某个村子里，帮助那里的孩子修修学校。作所有的这一切，都不是作给别人看的， 是为了提高自身。用国内比较难听的话就是，提高自己的素质！

我期待着更多的中国游者能尽快走上旅游的最高境界。这样别人就不再说WILDCHINA的旅游精神是美国进口的了。