All of us at WildChina are excited about our upcoming Where the Wild Things Are speaker: William Lindesay.  Lindesay is a WildChina Expert and Great Wall historian whose first trip to the Wall in 1987 “was supposed to be a one-off trip [but] sparked a lifetime obsession.”

William Lindesay

The May issue of Time Out Beijing features Lindesay and his most recent contribution to Great Wall history: the rediscovery of a section of the Wall deep in the Mongolian Gobi Desert.

The discovery of this wall on the other side of the Chinese-Mongolian border is not new. Lindesay is not adding to history…he is rewriting it.  Long thought to be remains from Genghis Khan’s vast empire, Lindesay now thinks this 3ft -high wall is actually part of the Chinese Great Wall.  “My first reaction was, why would Genghis Khan build walls?  He’s the big conqueror, the man who went out and ruled Asia.  A wall is normally a form of defense”.

The Great Wall by William Lindesay

So, he set out to find it and examine it himself. His previous experiences in the desert–along part of the Han dynasty Great Wall in arid Gansu province–were close calls.  “Some of the crew collapsed from dehydration during a 30km trek in temperatures of 46 celcius, and Lindesay was forced to drink his own urine to ‘make it that last mile’.  Not wishing to repeat that experience, he made doubly sure enough water was brought. “Laden with enough water (40 litters per person to last over five days), tents, basic provisions, and the twin luxuries of HP sauce (for the Brits) and premium Genghis Khan vodka (for the Mongolian army officers they would meet near the wall), they set off in two old Land Cruisers.”

What he found, and the conclusions he’s drawn–that the wall was part of the Western Xia dynasty–have incited uproar among Mongolians who claim the wall as the “Genghis Khan Wall”.  However Lindesay “hopes, whether the wall was Genghis’ or not, that Mongolians can still feel proud.  ‘It should be a shared heritage.  As the president of Mongolia once said, “The Chinese people were hard-working and organized to build the Great Wall, but it takes a great people to have a great wall like this built for them”.’”

The Great Wall by William Lindesay

For someone who’s first trip to the Wall involved “being arrested nine times, deported once, overcoming sunstroke and having to out-run vicious guard dogs”, we can’t wait to hear more about Lindesay’s most recent Wall adventure.

Where the Wild Things Are: An evening with William Lindesay event details:

Thursday, May 31 at 6:30PM
Great Leap Brewing 大跃啤酒
6 Doujiao Hutong, off of Dianmenwai Dajie
东城区豆角胡同6号院

RSVP
Tickets are RMB 250 per guest and can be purchased on Yoopay
票价为250元一张, 请直接从 Yoopay 购买：
https://yoopay.cn/event/wildchina-20120531

Tickets are RMB 250, which includes entry, two beers from Great Leap and dinner provided by Mercante (vegetarian option is available). Soft drinks and sparking water will also be available.

Tickets are going fast–less than 10 tickets left, less than 10 days to book!  Come on out to the event that Time Out Beijing’s critics have named Number 1 Around Town.

To read the entire article on Lindesay’s “Wonder Wall”, pick up a copy of this month’s Time Out Beijing.

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For questions or RSVPs please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at wherethewildthingsare@wildchina.com

Photos by William Lindesay.

Relaxing on a balmy summer night, surrounded by interesting people, fantastic food, and locally-brewed beer… If this sounds like the perfect setting, check out WildChina’s next Where the Wild Things Are series. On Thursday, May 31st, join us at Great Leap Brewery to hear William Lindesay, one of China’s foremost experts of the Great Wall, discuss his recent discovery of a new portion of the Wall in Mongolia.  A delicious pasta dinner will be provided by the newly opened Mercante – we promise it will be delicious.

William Lindesay has lived in China for 14 years during which he has spent “more than 800 days on the Great Wall.” In 1987, he made what China’s Xinhua News Agency described as “the most successful foreign exploration of the Great Wall”, and he recounted his 2,470 km solo adventure in “Alone on the Great Wall” published in the UK, USA and Germany.

Since 1995 he has primarily been engaged in systematic research of the Great Wall in the Beijing region and two books for Oxford University Press – “Images of Asia: The Great Wall” and “Beijing’s Great Wall: Researches and Impressions” are the result of his efforts.

Thursday, May 31 at 6:30PM

Great Leap Brewing 大跃啤酒

6 Duojiao Hutong, off of Dianmenwai Dajie

东城区豆角胡同6号院

RSVP

Tickets are RMB 250 per guest and can be purchased on Yoopay

票价为250元一张, 请直接从 Yoopay 购买：

https://yoopay.cn/event/wildchina-20120531

Tickets are RMB 250, which includes entry, two beers from Great Leap and dinner provided by Mercante (vegetarian option is available). Soft drinks and sparking water will also be available.

———-

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch at wherethewildthingsare@wildchina.com.

Photos by David Fundingsland of WildChina and William Lindesay

WildChina Expert Steven Schwankert was recently profiled in The Wall Street Journal in “The Most Important British Vessel Sunk Off the Chinese Coast You’ve Never Heard Of.” Steven Schwankert is founder of SinoScuba, Beijing’s first professional scuba diving operator. Along with training hundreds of students how to scuba dive, he is the East Asia Chapter Chair of The Explorers Club, an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore, founded in 1904and headquartered in New York.

His book The Real Poseidon Adventure:China’s Secret Salvage of Britain’s Lost Submarine and its companion documentary, both covering his discovery of a Royal Navy submarine off the Chinese coast, will be released later this year. His interest in this subject caught the attention of WSJ writer James Areddy, who describes the “The Poseidon Project” as “no James Cameron-style ghost-swim through a shipwreck.” Areddy writes, “Instead, it explores the Poseidon drama through the story of Steven Schwankert, an American living in Beijing who becomes obsessed with the submarine. He is a scuba diver and his initial goal is to dive the Poseidon site.”

When WildChina asked Mr. Schwankert if he had really dived the Poseidon site and he was very coy! He replied, “That’s a very long story, one that’s taken me almost seven years to write. Both the film and the book versions of the Poseidon story, which are due out late this year, will answer that question. It wasn’t the answer I expected and I don’t think anyone else did either.” I guess we will have to read the book to find out!

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Interested in learning more about the WildChina expert network or a scuba adventure in China? Get in touch at info@wildchina.com.

Last night WildChina hosted the inaugural Where the Wild Things Are: A WildChina Series at In & Out Yunnan Restaurant in Beijing.  An exclusive and intimate dinner capped at 40 people, WildChina invited friend Janet Yang, renowned Hollywood producer to speak.

Janet, who has shot many times in Shanghai, contrasted and described in detail what it was like shooting in Shanghai in the mid-1980′s on EMPIRE OF THE SUN and her more recent experiences the last few years on the last two movies.

As she explained her motivation for producing films based in China, we Beijingers could not help but nod in total agreement about  how difficult it is to explain to people who are not based in China or who have not traveled to China that the images that they see in RAISE THE RED LANTERN and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON are of a China that no longer exists. As Janet joked, “China today isn’t just rickshaws and men with long pongtails.”  Janet said that she always wanted to create a film that shows what Shanghai looks like and feels like today. She has done exactly that with  SHANGHAI CALLING, which will be released later this year.  The audience was allowed sneak peeks into her movie and everyone was dying to see more!

Attendees last night were generously granted invitations to a private screening of SHANGHAI CALLING on Monday, March 19th which everyone was particularly excited about.

WildChina is looking forward to hosting future Where the Wild Things Are events to share with the Beijing community. Our next event– May 31st– will be highlighting WildChina expert William Lindesay and his recent discovery of a new sections of the Great Wall.

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Stay tuned for more Where the Wild Things Are: A WildChina Series here. For questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch at wherethewildthingsare@wildchina.com.

WildChina is thrilled to be a 2012 Capital M and M on the Bund Literary Festival sponsor. The famed restaurant group is holding their annual festival in Beijing from February 25th until March 7th and in Shanghai from March 2 to 18th. The festival will host talks close to WildChina’s heart, including writing, food and traveling.

In particular, WildChina is looking forward to seeing Jeff Fuchs speak tomorrow evening, March 1, at 6 PM in Beijing.  Jeff has just returned from a trek around Kawa Karpo, which WildChina, along with Mountain Hardwear, Revo, Canadian adventure travel magazine Outpost and others helped to sponsor.  If you can’t catch him in Beijing, he will also be at the Shanghai Literary Festival, speaking at 2PM on Sunday, March 11.

Jeff will no doubt be speaking about his book, The Ancient Tea Horse Road: Travels with the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers. For all those interested in adventure travel + pioneering trips in China, this is definitely a talk that you should not miss!

Hoping to see you there!

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To find out about how to attend Fuchs’s March 1 talk, please click here to learn more. 

Interested in traveling on a WildChina expert-led journey? Take a look at Tea and Horse Caravan, a is a 10-day expedition led by Fuchs, who shares his unparalleled expertise on the diverse teas, cultures and landscapes along the historic trail. The most daunting trade route in the world, the trail remained a virtual mystery to the West for over a millennium and are now at long last revealed in all of its stunning diversity.

Last weekend, WildChina expert Alison Klayman received a Sundance Film Festival Award for her film, Ai Weiwei Never Sorry.

The film documents Ai Weiwei from 2008 toJune 2011, during which Klayman had unparalleled access the artist’s personal life. When Chinese authorities detained Ai Weiwei for three months in Spring 2011, Klayman made many media appearances to speak about Ai and her work, including on CNN International and The Colbert Report. That same year, she was named a Sundance Documentary Fellow and listed in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual list of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”

WildChina spoke with Klayman earlier today to discuss her experience at Sundance. “The real reward has definitely been the overall response to the film at Sundance, from the audiences and also the filmmaking community. To have the whole festival and town buzzing about Ai Weiwei’s charisma, humor and courage, to overhear conversations around town about China and social media and change, and to see that the overwhelming takeaway message for audiences was to be inspired to go speak out in their own life…that was the real reward.”

From everyone at WildChina, congratulations!
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Interested in learning more about WildChina’s expert network? Take a look here to learn more about experts including leading Great Wall historians, the most sought after Contemporary Chinese Art advisors and tea experts who can take you to far away plantations.

Photos by: LA Times

Always envisioned what is would be like to cruise down the Li River and see Guangxi’s karst mountains? Look no further. Stewart Shen, expert WildChina guide, photography guru and fourth generation Guangxi resident, transports you to Guilin, Yangshuo and the Longsheng rice terraces and how to experience these areas differently…

WildChina Guides – Stewart in Guilin from WildChina Travel on Vimeo.
A native of Guangxi, Stewart began his adult life as a farmer during the Cultural Revolution. Stewart’s early life was colorful – in addition to farming, he was also his village’s designated storyteller and official cook. After the Cultural Revolution, Stewart was a member of one of the first groups of students to re-enter university, where he studied English. An avid and passionate traveler, his experiences in the countryside have exposed him to different ways of life of local people, and as a result, his ability to design Guangxi’s best off-the-beaten-path programs are unparalleled. He is best known in photography circles for his ability to identify scenic spots in Guangxi, and is widely considered to be the go-to guide by many of our European photography associations.
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Interested in learning more about traveling to Guangxi province? For family travel, we highly recommend A Classic China Family Vacation and Rustic Guilin. Questions? Get in touch at info@wildchina.com.

Interested in meeting one of WildChina’s top guides, Shirley Wang? Want to catch a glimpse of Beijing to see what it is really like?  Look no further than this two-minute video that follows Shirley throughout the city, including a visit to the Temple of Heaven…

Shirley is known for her patience, ability to work with children and families, attentiveness to clients’ needs, and passion for the guiding industry. She graduated from the Beijing Institute of Tourism with a degree in English. Yet, even before graduating from university, she began leading tours in the Beijing area.

Shirley traveling in Cambodia

Shirley constantly works to improve her guiding and loves to take on groups of all sizes. She has extensive experience with family and student groups, and likes to share her understanding of Beijing’s culture and architecture as well as her knowledge of local songs and games. She has a lengthy and diverse list of previous clients that includes the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Asia. When she’s not guiding, you will mostly likely find Shirley traveling around China (or beyond)!

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Want to read more about Shirley? Here are some rave reviews from past clients.

Keen to have Shirley as your guide when you travel to Beijing? We don’t blame you! Get in contact at info@wildchina.com

If based in China, you can see the link on Youku here. 

Last sunny Saturday, I got a call from my friend in Leishan who told me there would be a Miao New Year festival in the Leigong mountains, which includes rural Miao villages in Leishan and Taijiang. The official Miao New Year Celebration had already passed for 20 days, but the party was still going on in the villages.
 

Leishan Region

Yes, my guess was very right, this experience was absolutely a highlight. In the late afternoon, we arrived at a township via Leishan called Fangxiang, a very authentic Miao village built right on a steep mountain. I was received with open arms by the locals, and of course, they offered lots and of rice wine.

A group was dancing with a bronze drum, and there were huge Lusheng pipes. We were only outsiders at the villages, and people there dragged us to go dance with them and tried to teach us the steps.
 

We started to hike around 9am and OMG, today’s hiking is FANTASTIC, plus a beautiful sunny day. We hiked through fields, pine forests, villages, and a crystal stream where we had a kebab picnic, which was tons of fun. We hiked for almost an entire day and by the time we got to the next village, it was almost dark.

We had reached Baibang Short Skirt Miao village, where we were dragged by the locals for another evening of celebrations and a bit more rice wine. No matter whether they know you or not, they cherish every single guest. For dinner, we were invited over to the villager head’s house for dinner and had delicious fresh pork.  The dinner we had with the locals was over 15 people, including the villager leaders and their wives. While we ate, we were treated as VIP guests. After dinner, they sang to us and more and more neighbors kept coming to offer us, because they heard party leader’s home had guests.

After several hours eating, we went to see their dancing. The costume of the Baibang is very distinctive from other shortskirt Miao. The locals had been farming for a entire year, so it’s such a great time to rest and have some good food. I wished badly that you everyone at WildChina could be here witnessing. Such a great great great time. In Guizhou, they have a warm heart, heavy heritage, beautiful costumes and wonderful smiling…

Now, it’s back to Guiyang where my lovely daughter awaits… But I found my mind is not back yet, all the images in my brains are villagers, laughter, rice wine and singing,…

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An account from a recent trip in Guizhou from WildChina expert guide, Xiao. To learn more about Xiao and see a quick clip from Guizhou, please see here. 

If you are interested to see Guizhou’s festivals for yourself,  we would strongly suggest looking at Sisters’ Meals Festival which takes this year from April 5-7, 2012.  More questions? Please contact info@wildchina.com.

WildChina is thrilled to announce the 2012 WildChina Explorer Grant awardees are… Zhang Shanghua AND team Bill Bleisch & Yan Lu! A split tie!

Mt. Gongga

Shanghua, a scientist based in Chengdu, Sichuan province,  will explore the natural beauty and local cultures of Baiyu County in the Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Along his journey, he will spend time in The Chaqingsongduo Nature Reserve which houses two-thirds of the world’s population of white-lipped deer or Thorold’s deer, the second largest glacier in the prefecture, and the sources of numerous streams and rivers, and the peak of the mighty Mount Gongga.

Yaqing Monastery in winter

Bill Bleisch, Program Director of China Exploration & Research Society and Yan Lu of Fauna & Flora International will scout a route along the backbone of the Ailao Mountains through the Ailaoshan Nature Reserve.  They are excited about their expedition as it could be the start of a trekking trail along the Ailao Shan ridge and beyond, continuing north to Dali where it would connect with existing trekking routes, creating a long “through-trail.”

Ailao Shan

After receiving  fantastic applications from all over the world, the WildChina Expert Panel, including WildChina founder Zhang Mei had a tough job of selecting three finalists.  From everyone at WildChina, we thank everyone who submitted fantastic applications and we look forward to keeping you posted on our 2012 WildChina Explorers exciting adventures…

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For more questions about the WildChina Explorer Grant, please click here or send a question to explorer@wildchina.com

Pictures by Shanghua Zhang and Art Fund