November 19, 2004: Headlines: COS - China: International Herald Tribune: Craig Simmons says: Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."

Peace Corps Online: Directory: China: Peace Corps China : The Peace Corps in China: November 19, 2004: Headlines: COS - China: International Herald Tribune: Craig Simmons says: Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-36-89.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.36.89) on Monday, November 29, 2004 - 4:09 am: Edit Post

Craig Simmons says: Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."

Craig Simmons says: Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws and The Land of the Yellow Lama.

Craig Simmons says: Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."

A paradise blooms in China

By Craig Simons The New York Times

Friday, November 19, 2004

LIJIANG, China The English words carved in stone beside the road - "Following Joseph Rock's steps to Shangri-La" - seemed entirely appropriate. This place really did look like paradise.
.
I was in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, only a few kilometers from Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of China's loveliest cities. Its old town of cobblestone lanes was crisscrossed with canals of perfectly clean water and, in the distance, the 5,600-meter, or 18,360-foot, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towered over the green landscape of corn and young barley fields. The local people, a minority called the Naxi, have preserved some of their traditional matriarchal society and, from what I could see, all of their incredible tradition of hospitality to strangers.
.
I had arrived in Lijiang in April, at the tail end of a yearlong Chinese language training program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and I was looking for a chance to slip away from fighting traffic jams and memorizing hundreds of Chinese characters. My goal was to get somewhere natural and quiet, and a friend had suggested a community-run eco-lodge set up with support from the Nature Conservancy.
.
Nestled in a valley at more than 3,000 meters, the Wenhai EcoLodge was, said one of its fliers, inaccessible "except by foot or horse," and offered "an undiscovered trekking opportunity." A cooperative of 56 families runs the lodge, which began operations in 2002, and the business gives them a reason to keep the natural landscape pristine. At $12 a day for a room and three meals, the price was unbeatable.
.
When I called the Nature Conservancy office in Lijiang to plan my trip, the lodge coordinator, Jing Chen, an American woman, added an unexpected bonus: I could start my hike in Yuhu, 13 kilometers, or eight miles, from the lodge, the town where Joseph Rock lived in the 1930s and '40s. He was an Austrian-born American famous for classifying hundreds of plant species in Hawaii and later as National Geographic's "man in China," lived in the 1930s and '40s. Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."
.
That is how I ended up at the sign saying I was following in Rock's footsteps. Just up the road I met Cun Xuerong, 30, the manager of the eco-lodge, who had agreed to introduce me to some of the older Yuhu villagers who remembered Rock. He led me into a large courtyard home in the center of town, where I joined Li Jiyue, 74, whose uncle had worked as Rock's assistant, for a hearty lunch of fresh corn and cucumbers and pork that was boiled and then fried with tangy black beans.
.
Rock lived in Yuhu until 1949, when Mao seized power from the Nationalist government, and Li's uncle had become one of Rock's closest friends. He accompanied Rock on his sometimes months' long trips into the surrounding mountains and was also responsible for an important job: assembling and taking apart the giant camera that Rock used for his National Geographic photos.
.
Also at lunch was Zhao Fujin, a feisty woman in her 80s whose father was Rock's cook. Rock had sent about 80,000 plant specimens from China to the United States but Zhao remembered one tree in particular. "He and my father found a tree that would shiver whenever anyone touched it," she said. But when Rock left, she said, "he told my father to keep secret where the tree was, and now no one can find it."
.
After a quick tour of a museum dedicated to Rock (where visitors can see some of the tools he used and large prints of photographs he took), I was ready to look for the lost "shaking tree." Cun and I said goodbye to Li and Zhao and made our way north along a trail into the mountains. The hike from Yuhu, a steep uphill climb followed by a traverse through a shallow bowl and a sharp descent to the lodge, takes a few hours.
.
That gives hikers time to enjoy the scenery. The forests surrounding Wenhai Village are home to many species of plants and animals, including musk deer and Lady Amherst's pheasants. I didn't see any animals - they usually hide higher in pine forests -but the area is also impressive for having an exceptional variety of rhododendrons. More than 20 of the world's 850 or more species bloom on the mountains in the late spring, and the hills were speckled with brilliant patches of purple, pink and white.
.
Even more gratifying was the view of Wenhai Village. The Naxi people build homes of wood and roof them with gray tiles, and the village was only recently connected to Lijiang by a dirt road (now making it possible to drive in). There are none of the uninspired concrete buildings that so often mar Chinese landscapes here. Instead, there are intricately carved gates and huge wooden racks used to hang barley to dry in the autumn.
.
The rustic charm of Wenhai Village is enhanced by a seasonal lake, also named Wenhai. During the summer rainy season, the lake fills and endangered black storks and black-necked cranes, as well as many other migratory birds, fly in for the winter. In early spring, the waters drain into underground limestone caves, leaving a luxuriant bed of thick grass on which horses and cattle graze. Since it was mid-April, the waters were already a winding stream that meandered east before dropping out of sight, and I made a mental note to track it to where it disappeared into the earth before I left.
.
But first I wanted to see the eco-lodge. Slipping through the wood and stone gate, past a flock of skittish goats, I immediately identified my favorite chair in the courtyard. It faced the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's 13 peaks, which rose in icy majesty.
.
.
After I chose my bedroom from the 12 comfortable double rooms, I arranged my gear. Like the lodge itself, the rooms are simple, built of golden pine and set with giant windows in delicately carved frames. What the lodge lacks in amenities, it makes up for in eco-science. The Nature Conservancy fitted the buildings with a bio-gas pit that converts manure into methane gas, which is piped to a kitchen stove to reduce the need for firewood. Solar panels on the roof, as well as a small hydroelectric generator in a nearby stream, provide electricity.
.
Over glasses of a potent fruit liquor that a villager had brewed, Cun explained that the Lijiang area had been heavily affected by a recent tourism boom. Until the mid-1990s, the 280,000 Naxi living in the area were isolated from the rest of China except for a trickle of scraggly backpackers who made a three-day bus trip from Yunnan's capital, Kunming. But in 1995, Lijiang opened an airport with direct flights from several Chinese cities, and the trickle grew to a flood. Last year, the city had more than three million visitors.
.
The rapid influx has affected local customs. For example, some farmers, earning only a few hundred dollars a year, are willing to risk fines to log local forests to meet demand for lumber and build new and bigger homes. "Naxi culture taught us that we must protect small trees and only cut big trees," Cun said. "Now, everything is cut."
.
By giving local residents a chance to buy shares in the lodge for a few dollars a family, which earns them dividends, the village has an interest in protecting the forests and in keeping the tourists coming back. The lodge has also created jobs. For a few dollars a day, young English-speaking villagers work as trail guides leading guests to nearby sites.
.
For the more adventurous, Wenhai can be the starting point of a three-day trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which tracks an upper stretch of the Yangtze River through one of the world's deepest ravines. (Environmentalists are fighting plans to dam the gorge for a hydropower project that would flood much of the area, but not Wenhai, which is at a higher elevation.) Other activities include horseback riding, visiting local schools and, from November to March, bird-watching.
.
For me, relaxing with a cup of tea and a book seemed a better idea. But I had happened to book my trip to Wenhai over the weekend of the Grave Sweeping Festival, when Chinese pay tribute to their ancestors with offerings of food and wine, and the He clan, who have a stake in the lodge, invited me to join them. After lunch, the oldest member of the He family, a 74-year-old woman, lighted a fire and burned paper money for her relatives. Smoke from similar fires around the valley drifted into a blue sky and the sun broke through scattered clouds, lighting the peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
.
The next morning, I would hike back to Lijiang, pausing during the three-hour trip to see the limestone crags that Wenhai Lake drains into. But first, I had a few more hours to sit with the He family and be awed by the view. I had followed in Rock's steps and, far from China's frenetic cities, I had found a rare paradise.
.


See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article
LIJIANG, China The English words carved in stone beside the road - "Following Joseph Rock's steps to Shangri-La" - seemed entirely appropriate. This place really did look like paradise.
.
I was in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, only a few kilometers from Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of China's loveliest cities. Its old town of cobblestone lanes was crisscrossed with canals of perfectly clean water and, in the distance, the 5,600-meter, or 18,360-foot, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towered over the green landscape of corn and young barley fields. The local people, a minority called the Naxi, have preserved some of their traditional matriarchal society and, from what I could see, all of their incredible tradition of hospitality to strangers.
.
I had arrived in Lijiang in April, at the tail end of a yearlong Chinese language training program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and I was looking for a chance to slip away from fighting traffic jams and memorizing hundreds of Chinese characters. My goal was to get somewhere natural and quiet, and a friend had suggested a community-run eco-lodge set up with support from the Nature Conservancy.
.
Nestled in a valley at more than 3,000 meters, the Wenhai EcoLodge was, said one of its fliers, inaccessible "except by foot or horse," and offered "an undiscovered trekking opportunity." A cooperative of 56 families runs the lodge, which began operations in 2002, and the business gives them a reason to keep the natural landscape pristine. At $12 a day for a room and three meals, the price was unbeatable.
.
When I called the Nature Conservancy office in Lijiang to plan my trip, the lodge coordinator, Jing Chen, an American woman, added an unexpected bonus: I could start my hike in Yuhu, 13 kilometers, or eight miles, from the lodge, the town where Joseph Rock lived in the 1930s and '40s. He was an Austrian-born American famous for classifying hundreds of plant species in Hawaii and later as National Geographic's "man in China," lived in the 1930s and '40s. Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."
.
That is how I ended up at the sign saying I was following in Rock's footsteps. Just up the road I met Cun Xuerong, 30, the manager of the eco-lodge, who had agreed to introduce me to some of the older Yuhu villagers who remembered Rock. He led me into a large courtyard home in the center of town, where I joined Li Jiyue, 74, whose uncle had worked as Rock's assistant, for a hearty lunch of fresh corn and cucumbers and pork that was boiled and then fried with tangy black beans.
.
Rock lived in Yuhu until 1949, when Mao seized power from the Nationalist government, and Li's uncle had become one of Rock's closest friends. He accompanied Rock on his sometimes months' long trips into the surrounding mountains and was also responsible for an important job: assembling and taking apart the giant camera that Rock used for his National Geographic photos.
.
Also at lunch was Zhao Fujin, a feisty woman in her 80s whose father was Rock's cook. Rock had sent about 80,000 plant specimens from China to the United States but Zhao remembered one tree in particular. "He and my father found a tree that would shiver whenever anyone touched it," she said. But when Rock left, she said, "he told my father to keep secret where the tree was, and now no one can find it."
.
After a quick tour of a museum dedicated to Rock (where visitors can see some of the tools he used and large prints of photographs he took), I was ready to look for the lost "shaking tree." Cun and I said goodbye to Li and Zhao and made our way north along a trail into the mountains. The hike from Yuhu, a steep uphill climb followed by a traverse through a shallow bowl and a sharp descent to the lodge, takes a few hours.
.
That gives hikers time to enjoy the scenery. The forests surrounding Wenhai Village are home to many species of plants and animals, including musk deer and Lady Amherst's pheasants. I didn't see any animals - they usually hide higher in pine forests -but the area is also impressive for having an exceptional variety of rhododendrons. More than 20 of the world's 850 or more species bloom on the mountains in the late spring, and the hills were speckled with brilliant patches of purple, pink and white.
.
Even more gratifying was the view of Wenhai Village. The Naxi people build homes of wood and roof them with gray tiles, and the village was only recently connected to Lijiang by a dirt road (now making it possible to drive in). There are none of the uninspired concrete buildings that so often mar Chinese landscapes here. Instead, there are intricately carved gates and huge wooden racks used to hang barley to dry in the autumn.
.
The rustic charm of Wenhai Village is enhanced by a seasonal lake, also named Wenhai. During the summer rainy season, the lake fills and endangered black storks and black-necked cranes, as well as many other migratory birds, fly in for the winter. In early spring, the waters drain into underground limestone caves, leaving a luxuriant bed of thick grass on which horses and cattle graze. Since it was mid-April, the waters were already a winding stream that meandered east before dropping out of sight, and I made a mental note to track it to where it disappeared into the earth before I left.
.
But first I wanted to see the eco-lodge. Slipping through the wood and stone gate, past a flock of skittish goats, I immediately identified my favorite chair in the courtyard. It faced the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's 13 peaks, which rose in icy majesty.
.
.
After I chose my bedroom from the 12 comfortable double rooms, I arranged my gear. Like the lodge itself, the rooms are simple, built of golden pine and set with giant windows in delicately carved frames. What the lodge lacks in amenities, it makes up for in eco-science. The Nature Conservancy fitted the buildings with a bio-gas pit that converts manure into methane gas, which is piped to a kitchen stove to reduce the need for firewood. Solar panels on the roof, as well as a small hydroelectric generator in a nearby stream, provide electricity.
.
Over glasses of a potent fruit liquor that a villager had brewed, Cun explained that the Lijiang area had been heavily affected by a recent tourism boom. Until the mid-1990s, the 280,000 Naxi living in the area were isolated from the rest of China except for a trickle of scraggly backpackers who made a three-day bus trip from Yunnan's capital, Kunming. But in 1995, Lijiang opened an airport with direct flights from several Chinese cities, and the trickle grew to a flood. Last year, the city had more than three million visitors.
.
The rapid influx has affected local customs. For example, some farmers, earning only a few hundred dollars a year, are willing to risk fines to log local forests to meet demand for lumber and build new and bigger homes. "Naxi culture taught us that we must protect small trees and only cut big trees," Cun said. "Now, everything is cut."
.
By giving local residents a chance to buy shares in the lodge for a few dollars a family, which earns them dividends, the village has an interest in protecting the forests and in keeping the tourists coming back. The lodge has also created jobs. For a few dollars a day, young English-speaking villagers work as trail guides leading guests to nearby sites.
.
For the more adventurous, Wenhai can be the starting point of a three-day trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which tracks an upper stretch of the Yangtze River through one of the world's deepest ravines. (Environmentalists are fighting plans to dam the gorge for a hydropower project that would flood much of the area, but not Wenhai, which is at a higher elevation.) Other activities include horseback riding, visiting local schools and, from November to March, bird-watching.
.
For me, relaxing with a cup of tea and a book seemed a better idea. But I had happened to book my trip to Wenhai over the weekend of the Grave Sweeping Festival, when Chinese pay tribute to their ancestors with offerings of food and wine, and the He clan, who have a stake in the lodge, invited me to join them. After lunch, the oldest member of the He family, a 74-year-old woman, lighted a fire and burned paper money for her relatives. Smoke from similar fires around the valley drifted into a blue sky and the sun broke through scattered clouds, lighting the peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
.
The next morning, I would hike back to Lijiang, pausing during the three-hour trip to see the limestone crags that Wenhai Lake drains into. But first, I had a few more hours to sit with the He family and be awed by the view. I had followed in Rock's steps and, far from China's frenetic cities, I had found a rare paradise.
.
LIJIANG, China The English words carved in stone beside the road - "Following Joseph Rock's steps to Shangri-La" - seemed entirely appropriate. This place really did look like paradise.
.
I was in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, only a few kilometers from Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of China's loveliest cities. Its old town of cobblestone lanes was crisscrossed with canals of perfectly clean water and, in the distance, the 5,600-meter, or 18,360-foot, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towered over the green landscape of corn and young barley fields. The local people, a minority called the Naxi, have preserved some of their traditional matriarchal society and, from what I could see, all of their incredible tradition of hospitality to strangers.
.
I had arrived in Lijiang in April, at the tail end of a yearlong Chinese language training program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and I was looking for a chance to slip away from fighting traffic jams and memorizing hundreds of Chinese characters. My goal was to get somewhere natural and quiet, and a friend had suggested a community-run eco-lodge set up with support from the Nature Conservancy.
.
Nestled in a valley at more than 3,000 meters, the Wenhai EcoLodge was, said one of its fliers, inaccessible "except by foot or horse," and offered "an undiscovered trekking opportunity." A cooperative of 56 families runs the lodge, which began operations in 2002, and the business gives them a reason to keep the natural landscape pristine. At $12 a day for a room and three meals, the price was unbeatable.
.
When I called the Nature Conservancy office in Lijiang to plan my trip, the lodge coordinator, Jing Chen, an American woman, added an unexpected bonus: I could start my hike in Yuhu, 13 kilometers, or eight miles, from the lodge, the town where Joseph Rock lived in the 1930s and '40s. He was an Austrian-born American famous for classifying hundreds of plant species in Hawaii and later as National Geographic's "man in China," lived in the 1930s and '40s. Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."
.
That is how I ended up at the sign saying I was following in Rock's footsteps. Just up the road I met Cun Xuerong, 30, the manager of the eco-lodge, who had agreed to introduce me to some of the older Yuhu villagers who remembered Rock. He led me into a large courtyard home in the center of town, where I joined Li Jiyue, 74, whose uncle had worked as Rock's assistant, for a hearty lunch of fresh corn and cucumbers and pork that was boiled and then fried with tangy black beans.
.
Rock lived in Yuhu until 1949, when Mao seized power from the Nationalist government, and Li's uncle had become one of Rock's closest friends. He accompanied Rock on his sometimes months' long trips into the surrounding mountains and was also responsible for an important job: assembling and taking apart the giant camera that Rock used for his National Geographic photos.
.
Also at lunch was Zhao Fujin, a feisty woman in her 80s whose father was Rock's cook. Rock had sent about 80,000 plant specimens from China to the United States but Zhao remembered one tree in particular. "He and my father found a tree that would shiver whenever anyone touched it," she said. But when Rock left, she said, "he told my father to keep secret where the tree was, and now no one can find it."
.
After a quick tour of a museum dedicated to Rock (where visitors can see some of the tools he used and large prints of photographs he took), I was ready to look for the lost "shaking tree." Cun and I said goodbye to Li and Zhao and made our way north along a trail into the mountains. The hike from Yuhu, a steep uphill climb followed by a traverse through a shallow bowl and a sharp descent to the lodge, takes a few hours.
.
That gives hikers time to enjoy the scenery. The forests surrounding Wenhai Village are home to many species of plants and animals, including musk deer and Lady Amherst's pheasants. I didn't see any animals - they usually hide higher in pine forests -but the area is also impressive for having an exceptional variety of rhododendrons. More than 20 of the world's 850 or more species bloom on the mountains in the late spring, and the hills were speckled with brilliant patches of purple, pink and white.
.
Even more gratifying was the view of Wenhai Village. The Naxi people build homes of wood and roof them with gray tiles, and the village was only recently connected to Lijiang by a dirt road (now making it possible to drive in). There are none of the uninspired concrete buildings that so often mar Chinese landscapes here. Instead, there are intricately carved gates and huge wooden racks used to hang barley to dry in the autumn.
.
The rustic charm of Wenhai Village is enhanced by a seasonal lake, also named Wenhai. During the summer rainy season, the lake fills and endangered black storks and black-necked cranes, as well as many other migratory birds, fly in for the winter. In early spring, the waters drain into underground limestone caves, leaving a luxuriant bed of thick grass on which horses and cattle graze. Since it was mid-April, the waters were already a winding stream that meandered east before dropping out of sight, and I made a mental note to track it to where it disappeared into the earth before I left.
.
But first I wanted to see the eco-lodge. Slipping through the wood and stone gate, past a flock of skittish goats, I immediately identified my favorite chair in the courtyard. It faced the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's 13 peaks, which rose in icy majesty.
.
.
After I chose my bedroom from the 12 comfortable double rooms, I arranged my gear. Like the lodge itself, the rooms are simple, built of golden pine and set with giant windows in delicately carved frames. What the lodge lacks in amenities, it makes up for in eco-science. The Nature Conservancy fitted the buildings with a bio-gas pit that converts manure into methane gas, which is piped to a kitchen stove to reduce the need for firewood. Solar panels on the roof, as well as a small hydroelectric generator in a nearby stream, provide electricity.
.
Over glasses of a potent fruit liquor that a villager had brewed, Cun explained that the Lijiang area had been heavily affected by a recent tourism boom. Until the mid-1990s, the 280,000 Naxi living in the area were isolated from the rest of China except for a trickle of scraggly backpackers who made a three-day bus trip from Yunnan's capital, Kunming. But in 1995, Lijiang opened an airport with direct flights from several Chinese cities, and the trickle grew to a flood. Last year, the city had more than three million visitors.
.
The rapid influx has affected local customs. For example, some farmers, earning only a few hundred dollars a year, are willing to risk fines to log local forests to meet demand for lumber and build new and bigger homes. "Naxi culture taught us that we must protect small trees and only cut big trees," Cun said. "Now, everything is cut."
.
By giving local residents a chance to buy shares in the lodge for a few dollars a family, which earns them dividends, the village has an interest in protecting the forests and in keeping the tourists coming back. The lodge has also created jobs. For a few dollars a day, young English-speaking villagers work as trail guides leading guests to nearby sites.
.
For the more adventurous, Wenhai can be the starting point of a three-day trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which tracks an upper stretch of the Yangtze River through one of the world's deepest ravines. (Environmentalists are fighting plans to dam the gorge for a hydropower project that would flood much of the area, but not Wenhai, which is at a higher elevation.) Other activities include horseback riding, visiting local schools and, from November to March, bird-watching.
.
For me, relaxing with a cup of tea and a book seemed a better idea. But I had happened to book my trip to Wenhai over the weekend of the Grave Sweeping Festival, when Chinese pay tribute to their ancestors with offerings of food and wine, and the He clan, who have a stake in the lodge, invited me to join them. After lunch, the oldest member of the He family, a 74-year-old woman, lighted a fire and burned paper money for her relatives. Smoke from similar fires around the valley drifted into a blue sky and the sun broke through scattered clouds, lighting the peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
.
The next morning, I would hike back to Lijiang, pausing during the three-hour trip to see the limestone crags that Wenhai Lake drains into. But first, I had a few more hours to sit with the He family and be awed by the view. I had followed in Rock's steps and, far from China's frenetic cities, I had found a rare paradise.
.
LIJIANG, China The English words carved in stone beside the road - "Following Joseph Rock's steps to Shangri-La" - seemed entirely appropriate. This place really did look like paradise.
.
I was in Yunnan Province in southwestern China, only a few kilometers from Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of China's loveliest cities. Its old town of cobblestone lanes was crisscrossed with canals of perfectly clean water and, in the distance, the 5,600-meter, or 18,360-foot, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towered over the green landscape of corn and young barley fields. The local people, a minority called the Naxi, have preserved some of their traditional matriarchal society and, from what I could see, all of their incredible tradition of hospitality to strangers.
.
I had arrived in Lijiang in April, at the tail end of a yearlong Chinese language training program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and I was looking for a chance to slip away from fighting traffic jams and memorizing hundreds of Chinese characters. My goal was to get somewhere natural and quiet, and a friend had suggested a community-run eco-lodge set up with support from the Nature Conservancy.
.
Nestled in a valley at more than 3,000 meters, the Wenhai EcoLodge was, said one of its fliers, inaccessible "except by foot or horse," and offered "an undiscovered trekking opportunity." A cooperative of 56 families runs the lodge, which began operations in 2002, and the business gives them a reason to keep the natural landscape pristine. At $12 a day for a room and three meals, the price was unbeatable.
.
When I called the Nature Conservancy office in Lijiang to plan my trip, the lodge coordinator, Jing Chen, an American woman, added an unexpected bonus: I could start my hike in Yuhu, 13 kilometers, or eight miles, from the lodge, the town where Joseph Rock lived in the 1930s and '40s. He was an Austrian-born American famous for classifying hundreds of plant species in Hawaii and later as National Geographic's "man in China," lived in the 1930s and '40s. Having taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in China in the mid-1990s, I was fascinated by Rock, who wrote articles with titles like "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" and "The Land of the Yellow Lama."
.
That is how I ended up at the sign saying I was following in Rock's footsteps. Just up the road I met Cun Xuerong, 30, the manager of the eco-lodge, who had agreed to introduce me to some of the older Yuhu villagers who remembered Rock. He led me into a large courtyard home in the center of town, where I joined Li Jiyue, 74, whose uncle had worked as Rock's assistant, for a hearty lunch of fresh corn and cucumbers and pork that was boiled and then fried with tangy black beans.
.
Rock lived in Yuhu until 1949, when Mao seized power from the Nationalist government, and Li's uncle had become one of Rock's closest friends. He accompanied Rock on his sometimes months' long trips into the surrounding mountains and was also responsible for an important job: assembling and taking apart the giant camera that Rock used for his National Geographic photos.
.
Also at lunch was Zhao Fujin, a feisty woman in her 80s whose father was Rock's cook. Rock had sent about 80,000 plant specimens from China to the United States but Zhao remembered one tree in particular. "He and my father found a tree that would shiver whenever anyone touched it," she said. But when Rock left, she said, "he told my father to keep secret where the tree was, and now no one can find it."
.
After a quick tour of a museum dedicated to Rock (where visitors can see some of the tools he used and large prints of photographs he took), I was ready to look for the lost "shaking tree." Cun and I said goodbye to Li and Zhao and made our way north along a trail into the mountains. The hike from Yuhu, a steep uphill climb followed by a traverse through a shallow bowl and a sharp descent to the lodge, takes a few hours.
.
That gives hikers time to enjoy the scenery. The forests surrounding Wenhai Village are home to many species of plants and animals, including musk deer and Lady Amherst's pheasants. I didn't see any animals - they usually hide higher in pine forests -but the area is also impressive for having an exceptional variety of rhododendrons. More than 20 of the world's 850 or more species bloom on the mountains in the late spring, and the hills were speckled with brilliant patches of purple, pink and white.
.
Even more gratifying was the view of Wenhai Village. The Naxi people build homes of wood and roof them with gray tiles, and the village was only recently connected to Lijiang by a dirt road (now making it possible to drive in). There are none of the uninspired concrete buildings that so often mar Chinese landscapes here. Instead, there are intricately carved gates and huge wooden racks used to hang barley to dry in the autumn.
.
The rustic charm of Wenhai Village is enhanced by a seasonal lake, also named Wenhai. During the summer rainy season, the lake fills and endangered black storks and black-necked cranes, as well as many other migratory birds, fly in for the winter. In early spring, the waters drain into underground limestone caves, leaving a luxuriant bed of thick grass on which horses and cattle graze. Since it was mid-April, the waters were already a winding stream that meandered east before dropping out of sight, and I made a mental note to track it to where it disappeared into the earth before I left.
.
But first I wanted to see the eco-lodge. Slipping through the wood and stone gate, past a flock of skittish goats, I immediately identified my favorite chair in the courtyard. It faced the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's 13 peaks, which rose in icy majesty.
.
.
After I chose my bedroom from the 12 comfortable double rooms, I arranged my gear. Like the lodge itself, the rooms are simple, built of golden pine and set with giant windows in delicately carved frames. What the lodge lacks in amenities, it makes up for in eco-science. The Nature Conservancy fitted the buildings with a bio-gas pit that converts manure into methane gas, which is piped to a kitchen stove to reduce the need for firewood. Solar panels on the roof, as well as a small hydroelectric generator in a nearby stream, provide electricity.
.
Over glasses of a potent fruit liquor that a villager had brewed, Cun explained that the Lijiang area had been heavily affected by a recent tourism boom. Until the mid-1990s, the 280,000 Naxi living in the area were isolated from the rest of China except for a trickle of scraggly backpackers who made a three-day bus trip from Yunnan's capital, Kunming. But in 1995, Lijiang opened an airport with direct flights from several Chinese cities, and the trickle grew to a flood. Last year, the city had more than three million visitors.
.
The rapid influx has affected local customs. For example, some farmers, earning only a few hundred dollars a year, are willing to risk fines to log local forests to meet demand for lumber and build new and bigger homes. "Naxi culture taught us that we must protect small trees and only cut big trees," Cun said. "Now, everything is cut."
.
By giving local residents a chance to buy shares in the lodge for a few dollars a family, which earns them dividends, the village has an interest in protecting the forests and in keeping the tourists coming back. The lodge has also created jobs. For a few dollars a day, young English-speaking villagers work as trail guides leading guests to nearby sites.
.
For the more adventurous, Wenhai can be the starting point of a three-day trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which tracks an upper stretch of the Yangtze River through one of the world's deepest ravines. (Environmentalists are fighting plans to dam the gorge for a hydropower project that would flood much of the area, but not Wenhai, which is at a higher elevation.) Other activities include horseback riding, visiting local schools and, from November to March, bird-watching.
.
For me, relaxing with a cup of tea and a book seemed a better idea. But I had happened to book my trip to Wenhai over the weekend of the Grave Sweeping Festival, when Chinese pay tribute to their ancestors with offerings of food and wine, and the He clan, who have a stake in the lodge, invited me to join them. After lunch, the oldest member of the He family, a 74-year-old woman, lighted a fire and burned paper money for her relatives. Smoke from similar fires around the valley drifted into a blue sky and the sun broke through scattered clouds, lighting the peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
.
The next morning, I would hike back to Lijiang, pausing during the three-hour trip to see the limestone crags that Wenhai Lake drains into. But first, I had a few more hours to sit with the He family and be awed by the view. I had followed in Rock's steps and, far from China's frenetic cities, I had found a rare paradise.
.





When this story was posted in November 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

The Birth of the Peace Corps The Birth of the Peace Corps
UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn.

Vote "Yes" on NPCA's bylaw changes Vote "Yes" on NPCA's bylaw changes
Take our new poll. NPCA members begin voting this week on bylaw changes to streamline NPCA's Board of Directors. NPCA Chair Ken Hill, the President's Forum and other RPCVs endorse the changes. Mail in your ballot or vote online (after Dec 1), then see on how RPCVs are voting.

November 27, 2004: This Week's Top Stories November 27, 2004: This Week's Top Stories
RPCV reaches out after Soccer attack 27 Nov
Tony Hall serves cold rice to embassy guests 27 Nov
Hope calms injured volunteer's family 26 Nov
Journalist Russell Carollo plans book on Peace Corps 25 Nov
Moyers says next 4 years will be golden age for reporters 24 Nov
RPCV is new president of the Hawaii bar association 23 Nov
Mark Gearan confirmed by Senate for CNS Board 23 Nov
Chris Shays fits in the other Republican Party 22 Nov
DC job a possibility for McPherson 22 Nov
Sentence reduced for man who raped PCV in Vanuatu 21 Nov
Frist criticizes provision in Omnibus Spending Bill 21 Nov
Peace Corps to be funded at $320 million 19 Nov
more top stories...

Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying
Congressman Norm Dicks has asked the U.S. attorney in Seattle to consider pursuing charges against Dennis Priven, the man accused of killing Peace Corps Volunteer Deborah Gardner on the South Pacific island of Tonga 28 years ago. Background on this story here and here.
Your vote makes a difference Your vote makes a difference
Make a difference on November 2 - Vote. Then take our RPCV exit poll. See how RPCV's are voting and take a look at the RPCV voter demographic. Finally leave a message on why you voted for John Kerry or for George Bush. Previous poll results here.
Kerry reaches out to Returned Volunteers Kerry reaches out to Returned Volunteers
The Kerry campaign wants the RPCV vote. Read our interview with Dave Magnani, Massachusetts State Senator and Founder of "RPCVs for Kerry," and his answers to our questions about Kerry's plan to triple the size of the Peace Corps, should the next PC Director be an RPCV, and Safety and Security issues. Then read the "RPCVs for Kerry" statement of support and statements by Dr. Robert Pastor, Ambassador Parker Borg, and Paul Oostburg Sanz made at the "RPCVs for Kerry" Press Conference.

RPCV Carl Pope says the key to winning this election is not swaying undecided voters, but persuading those already willing to vote for your candidate to actually go to the polls.

Take our poll and tell us what you are doing to support your candidate.

Finally read our wrap-up of the eight RPCVs in Senate and House races around the country and where the candidates are in their races.
Director Gaddi Vasquez:  The PCOL Interview Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview
PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before.

Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security.

Read the stories and leave your comments.






Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: International Herald Tribune

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - China

PCOL14883
88

.


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: