Shanghai is home to 23 million people – imagine the entire population of Australia (plus a few more) crammed onto a tiny corner of the Yangtze River Delta. It will come as no surprise that this population density brings with it enormous environmental challenges such as those we have become used to reading about in the media.
Fewer people are aware of the city’s growing sense of environmental awareness and conscience,
Shanghai is home to 23 million people – imagine the entire population of Australia (plus a few more) crammed onto a tiny corner of the Yangtze River Delta. It will come as no surprise that this population density brings with it enormous environmental challenges such as those we have become used to reading about in the media.
Fewer people are aware of the city’s growing sense of environmental awareness and conscience, as was exhibited by the recent Eco Design Fair hosted at the Cool Docks on the banks of the Huangpu River, where numerous companies promoted their eco friendly products and services to curious attendees.
What started as a small event held in the eco-friendly Urbn hotel back in 2008 has now grown into one of the most anticipated fairs of the year. Showcasing alternatives for a new sustainable lifestyle from bamboo sunglasses to beauty creams made with organic Chinese herbs the main attraction this year was bio-farming. Through skyfarming workshops Good to China was encouraging city dwellers to grow their own rooftop garden. Meanwhile Mahota Biodynamic Farm and Fields were promoting traceability and quality – two keys elements that have been challenged more than once recently. Many of the organic farms that have emerged in the suburbs offer weekly deliveries of vegetable boxes to those living in the city center, so they can be sure the food they are consuming is chemical free.
Although there will be more challenges before Shanghai can claim to be a true eco-friendly city these kind of events put into light innovative solutions for a better future.
If you want to learn more about this annual event, go to http://www.ecodesignfair.cn/
Meet 14 year old Gugu – since three human years equals one panda year, when we met a week or so ago at the Beijing Zoo, we were the same age. One of the graces of human aging is that next year I will be only 43 whereas Gugu here will be 45. Bad luck Gugu! This is not a point I would have pressed with Gugu except from outside the panda pen. Gugu seemed affable and gentle when I fed her a mixture of carrots and apple, but at the same time she is a bear and so an unbelievably strong and powerful wild animal. Most recently, I have fed horses and so I was taken aback when Gugu reached for the carrot with her paw to insert it into her mouth. Playing in the background was her three year old cub. After a while, nerves quieted, I reached out and stroked Gugu’s paw. What a moment – words don’t do justice to the thrill.
Beijing Zoo harks to the European conception of previous centuries whereby exotic animals from distant lands are housed in small cages. Many modern zoos, for example those in Singapore or San Diego, and indeed the Panda Breeding Center in Chengdu, have furthered this concept usually for scientific purposes and in the process have developed more natural and larger environments to accommodate their animals. That said, within the old-fashioned Beijing Zoo, thanks to its unique status, the panda enclosure is the most elaborate. Visitors who are not able to make the trip to Chengdu can get special access to the pandas here and feed an adult panda, like Gugu, round the back of the enclosure. This lasts fifteen minutes with children over the age of 6 able to hand food to the pandas themselves. This is such a unique and special experience that we make it available to clients, but conditional on the understanding of its full circumstances, namely that the back of the panda enclosure is a narrow and gloomy caged environment. It was not built for public access and so a visit here may be affected by these circumstances. Please note we are not at all implying the pandas are not well looked after – our impression is that they are well cared for, but we do wish to be candid about all aspects of the experience so as to avoid any disappointment.
TRAVEL EDITOR'S NOTE: Sue Naessens (a former guest of Imperial Tours) is on the staff at Redeemer Lutheran Church. Her husband, Jim, works in health care policy and research at the Mayo Clinic
China boasts many treasures with its long history and rich cultural heritage. The Great Wall, theTerracotta Warriors and Forbidden City readily come to mind. Museums overflow with art of every genre. Silk embroidery is nationally famous. Classical gardens, spectacular scenery, delicious food…. what more could one wish for?
Pandas!
Pandas are truly a national treasure of China, especially as they are an endangered species. My husband Jim and I love animals, so when we began planning our trip, seeing pandas was a high priority. Discovering however that most package tours rarely include even a visit to a zoo, we began investigating independent travel.
Margot Kong of Imperial Tours ( www.imperialtours.net ) helped us put together the trip of a lifetime by tailoring an itinerary to our interests. We enjoyed a cruise on the Yangtze and visited seven cities, one of which was Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, home to the giantpanda.
Just north of Chengdu, we visited the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. It covers 600 acres and supports a team of 48 scientists and technicians who conduct research on reproduction, genetics and endocrinology, disease control, behavior and nutrition. They maintain a captive population of about 40 pandas and release their offspring into the wild at an appropriate time. They also educate the public on conservation issues and provide leadership to facilitate scientific conferences. Researchers from Britain, the United States and Japan have conducted studies there.
What a wonderful facility. In a beautiful, park-like setting we observed pandas at play, climbing trees and eating bamboo. We visited the nursery and saw three infants less than a month old kept in incubators. A newborn cub is roughly the size of a gopher with delicate white fuzzz covering pink skin. By three weeks, it will have grown to the size of a small guinea pig and will have begun acquiring the black and white markings so distinctive to the species.
During a video presentation, we watched a panda giving birth at the research base. It happened very quickly; the baby simply popped out and it had about as much effect on the mother as if she were blowing her nose! (I was envious!) A first time mother, the female didn't fully grasp what had happened. We held our breath as she began batting her newborn around the cell as if it were a plaything. The infant was quickly rescued by research staff and gradually re-introduced to its mother. Once she caught on, the female was very nurturing. A new mother will usually hold her baby continually for several weeks. Sometimes she may play with the cub by rolling it around or tossing it back and forth between her paws.
Typically, pandas live about 20 years, subsisting on a diet primarily of bamboo. Cubs will stay with their mothers for 18 months. They mature at 5 years and may begin to mate. Pandas have an extremely limited breeding season, approximately one to three days per year. This contributes to the endangering of the species along with poaching and destruction of natural habitats. Sometimes pandas get tangled in traps intended for other animals, causing injury and making them more vulnerable to natural predators.
Red pandas, or "lesser pandas", are also studied at the base. Much smaller than the giant panda, they resemble raccoons. They live about 17 years in captivitiy and eat, not only bamboo, but also grasses, roots and berries, and sometimes even young birds or small rodents.
Our visit culminated with the opportunity to hold and play with Yaxing (pronounced "ya-shing"), a 1-year-old, 40-pound female cub! We had to put on a special gown and gloves, not for our benefit, but to protect the bear.
Yaxing was very friendly and playful. She acted like a puppy, batting and nipping at our hands. Of all the highlights we experienced on the tour, this was certainly the most endearing.
Although our time in Chengdu represents only a small segment of our trip, the memories incurred there are anything but small. Pandas indeed are to be counted among the treasures of China.
The Three Gorges were so named from the late Han dynastic period (23 – 220 AD). This nomenclature groups into a set of three the numerous shoals and gorges of the Yangzi river between Wanxian and Yichang. The Three Gorges are the Qutang Gorge (8km long), the Wuxia Gorge (45km long) and the Xilong (66km long) Gorge.
The gorges are as fabled today as they have been throughout the past two millennia. Countless poets have written of the gorges’ beauty and treachery, while historians, captivated by the narration of the fictive Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other historical yarns, have designated exact positions of celebrity along its steep cliffs. Despite events tumultuous as the demise of the great General Liu Bei at Baidicheng, or as devastating to deep trenches as the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, the waters of the mighty Yangzi continue to flow indifferent to the affairs of mortals while local memory lapses into the canons of legend.
Legend applies significance to stone features that might have otherwise served as signposts for travelers punctuating the journey and renouncing the timeless water, while the linear nature of passage through the gorges provides today’s travelers a window into the country’s obsession with its own mystic heritage. “Hanging Monk Rock,” “Drinking Phoenix Spring,” “Wise Grandmother’s Spring,” “Rhinoceros Looking at the Moon,” “Beheading Dragon Platform,” and “Binding Dragon Pillar” are but a few of the monuments along the Three Gorges. Do not despair if you can’t distinguish the dragon from the cliff, instead, think of the multitude of rock formations named of grandeur as bookmarks in a narrative that defines the creation and oral history of the region.
Sailing through the Three Gorges generally requires a commitment of three days and nights, and most leisure ships departing from Chongqing will include occasional side trips along the way.
Visitors are first introduced to Baidicheng, or White Emperor City, and its current namesake owes to a Sichuan province official, Gong Sunshu. In 25AD, Gong spotted a white mist in the shape of a dragon emanating from a local well, and, in an un-rare move, proclaimed himself the White Emperor while correspondingly naming the town in his glory. Locals constructed a temple at Baidicheng to commemorate Shu, but nearly 1,500 years later it was replaced by a Ming Dynasty governor and renamed the “Three Merits Temple,” only to be replaced again by statutes of Three Kingdoms protagonists Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei and renamed “Righteous Shrine.” In another 1,500 years, it is unclear who might reside in the Righteous Shrine, if indeed it will still be called such…
Qutang Gorge
Lu You, a scholar of the Southern Song dynasty (1120 – 1279), goes into greater detail as he describes his descent:
"Entering the Qutang Gorge, I saw two rocky walls rising into the clouds and facing each other across the river. They were as smooth as if they had been cut with an axe. I raised my head and looked up. The sky was like a narrow waterfall. But there was no water falling down. The river in the gorge was as smooth as shining oil."
From "Record on Going into Sichuan" by Lu You (1170)
For thousands of years, the Qutang Gorge proved too unruly for travelers to pass without caution: at the narrowest stretches, peaks up to 4,000 feet were whittled by a river that passed only 500 feet wide. Locals during the Tang and Song dynasties constructed systems of suspended iron chains to control transit through the raging waters. Although the Qutang Gorge no longer provides such a menacing passage after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, one can still infer the magnitude of the risk involved to traverse this gauntlet in days past.
The most celebrated feature at Qutang Gorge is known as “Meng Liang’s Staircase,” a series of deep holes evenly spaced and oddly quarried into the sheer cliff without connection at either top or bottom. Legend holds that a general in the historical novel Yang Family Generals, sought to recover the remains of General Yang Jiye located at the top of the mountain by secretly chiseling a pathway up the sheer cliff to Yang’s grave. Versions of the myth diverge, but a local monk, by chance or by duplicity, crowed like a rooster signaling the coming morning and caused Meng Liang to resign his endeavor. Infuriated by his failure, Meng Liang later gratified his ego by seizing and hanging the monk from a nearby cliff. Romance aside, archaeologists have instead identified Meng Liang’s Staircase near the site of an ancient town, and residents used it in conjunction with a series of rope-ladders to scale the cliff.
Wuxia Gorge
The character "Wu" refers to a shaman. This gorge was so called after an imperial physician called Wu Xian who lived during the time of King Yao. Wushan begins the second set of gorges, Wuxia; 45km of fantastic precipices. Don’t be alarmed if you find yourself in a sea of local tourists pursuing Wuxia’s glory: the area’s reputation has attracted countless masses for millennia.
A side trip up Danning Stream takes you through the picturesqe Lesser Three Gorges (see the photo above). Towards the end, high up on cliff are hanging coffins . A burial custom of the Ba people, dating back over 2,000 years, they resemble other cliffside coffins found in Gongxian near Yibin. These hanging coffins are said to date back to the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644). No one is sure how or why this custom came about, however the Ba people – no longer surviving – were known for other perverse behavior, such as that of protesting heaven. One such protest, for example, took the form of wearing too many clothes in summer and too few in winter.
Xiling Gorge
On the approach to Xiling, the longest and traditionally most treacherous of the Three Gorges, visitors will pass the birthplace of the 3rd century BC poet, scholar, and official Qu Yuan. Loved by many during his time, Qu was dejected from office by an imbecile king of the Chu culture. Upon learning that the Chu culture was conquered by king Ying of the Qin (who later united all of China as the country’s first emperor), poet-statesman Qu drowned himself in a tributary of the Yangzi. To commemorate Qu Yuan, his subjects fed his spirit by dumping sticky rice wrapped and cooked in leaves. For over 2,000 years have proudly commemorated Qu Yuan with an annual dragon boat festival, even if they no longer dump zongzi into rivers across the country and rather chose to ingest the delectable morsels themselves.
"The Xintan Shoal" by Su Shi (Song dynasty)
"Our flat boat skirts the winding mountains;
Astonished we are by the approaching scenery.
The white waves surge across the river,
Rising and falling like snow descending from the sky.
Each wave being higher than the preceding one,
All fall onto the depressed riverbed.
Small fish disperse and then assemble,
Appearing and disappearing as if in boiling water.
The cormorants dare not dive into the river,
They one fly across it, flapping their light wings.
The egrets wade in the shallows, slim and agile,
But sometimes they cannot stand steady.
As for people aboard the small boat,
No one dares display poor oarsmanship.
To the temple shore they go to pray for safety."
Fortunately, with the completion of the Three Gorges Dam downstream, Xiling Gorge today bears little resemblance to the words of Su Shi and one no longer must worry about his life crashing abruptly in the turbulent waters. Passage through the Xiling Gorge heralds the end of the journey before the river widens and waters become paralyzed by the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang.
The Geological Formation Of The Three Gorges
During the Triassic period, some 200 million years ago the Mediterranean Sea flowed as far east as the Yangzi River valley. When the Indochina orogenic (mountain forming) movement occurred, the western land mass fell and the Mediterranean Sea receded. Simultaneously, as the Qingling Mountains rose in central China, a system of lakes and rivers developed in the Yangzi River valley, flowing westwards to the Mediterranean. 130 million years later, the Yangshan movement took place, by which the limestone-based Sichuan Basin and Three Gorges area rose to their current location. As a result of this occurrence, it is possible in the area to find at 1000 meters altitude, pebbles and rocks belonging to lake bottoms of this past geological period.
The Himalayan orogenic movement, which followed 30 million years later (and which continue to raise the Three Gorges by 2-4 millimeters per year), gave rise to dramatic changes west of the Three Gorges: vertiginous mountains, high plateaux and deep valleys formed. At this time, two rivers flowed from a large lake in the Three Gorges area; one to the west and another to the east. Because the altitude drop in the eastern river was much greater than the one in the west, and hence its rate of erosion faster, when the two rivers eventually met to cut a precarious path through the Three Gorges, the resultant river flowed eastwards.
Effect Of The Three Gorges Dam
Since The Three Gorges are much taller than the total planned water level increase of 80 meters, they will never be submerged by the reservoir. They will however, appear to be 80 meters lower and therefore not as dramatic as they are now. Indeed, visitors should bear in mind that after the Gezhouba Dam project, completed in 1988, the water level in The Three Gorges rose by 10 meters.
In 1897, Isabella Bird asked her acquaintance Mr. Endecott how she might occupy herself during the voyage up the Yangzi. "You'll have enough to do looking after your life," he enjoined.
*
The Yangzi was such a major trade and communication route that as soon as the Communist government came to power in 1949, one of its priorities was to improve the Upper Yangzi's navigability. By dynamiting its many small gorges and submarine perils, the Communists revolutionized its safety.
Nowadays, though still a dramatic cataract, sided by precipitous, limestone cliffs, a cruise through the 3 gorges gives little impression of the risk and terror that this same journey provoked a century ago. The following passage taken, like the story and photograph above, from "The Yangtze Valley And Beyond" by Isabella Bird (Virago Books) provides a keyhole through which we can peer at the history of navigation along this serpentine waterway. The year is 1898.
"The river at low water is thoroughly vicious above Fengjie, and the pilot's task is a severe one. The hill of furious breakers with a smooth, narrow channel in the center and a fierce whirlpool at the foot looked awful enough. A great bank covered with frightful boulders projects from the north shore, narrowing the river to a width of 150 yards. Mr AJ Little estimates the rush of the current round the point of that bank at from eight to ten knots an hour.
Forty big cargo junks lay below it waiting their turn to ascend; and a thousand trackers were filling the air with their yells, while signal drums and gongs added to the din.
My attention was occupied by a big junk dragged by 300 men, which in two hours made hardly perceptible progress, slipping back constantly, though the drums were frantically beaten and the gangers rushed madly along the lines of struggling trackers, bringing their bamboo whips down on them with more sound than force. Suddenly the junk shivered, both tow-ropes snapped, the lines of trackers went down on their faces, and in a moment the big craft was spinning down the rapid; and before she could be recovered by the bow-sweep she flew up into the air as if she had exploded, a mass of spars and planks with heads bobbing about in the breakers. Quick as thought the red lifeboats were on the spot; and if the drowning wretches as they scrambled over the gunwales did not bless this most efficient of the charities of China, I did most heartily, for of the fourteen or fifteen souls on board all were saved but three. This was one of two fatal disasters that I saw on the Yangtze, but, to judge from the enormous quantity of cotton drying at the Yeh-tan and the timbers wedged among the rocks, many a junk must have had a hole knocked in her bottom."
The Chinese consider gardens a serious art form and as with painting, sculpture and poetry aim to attain in their design the balance, harmony, proportion and variety that are considered essential to life. In fact there is a saying which goes, 'the garden is an artistic recreation of nature; a landscape painting in three dimensions" . Through a combination of such natural elements as rock, water, trees and flowers and such artificial elements as architecture, painting and poetry, the designer sought to attain an effect which adhered to the Daoist principles of balance and harmony, man and nature.
The Chinese garden is divided into three categories: the imperial garden, the private garden and the natural scenic site. The earliest imperial garden dates back to the late Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1027 BC) with the construction of an imperial hunting ground, followed by the Shanglin garden built by the Emperor Qinshihuangdi in his capital at Xianyang. The latter was completed by the Han Emperor Wudi (r. 140-87 BC) and is thought to have been the basis upon which the Summer Palace was designed. The first private garden, known also as a literati garden, appeared during the Northern and Southern dynasties (420-589). Natural scenic sites, which were large scale gardens built against the backdrop of naturally existing mountains, valleys, lakes, etc., were used as the pleasure grounds of the imperial house and nobility.
Of the three types of Chinese gardens, it is the private garden which is of most interest when visiting the 'Garden City' of Suzhou. They are the most intimate of the group and were created as a place of retreat for the gentleman-scholar to escape the chaos of the city. It was during the Tang dynasty (618-907) that the literati garden reached its height, a treatise on garden design being written in 634 by the painter-gardener Ji Cheng. One of the key elements of this treatise was the necessity for the garden to "look natural, though man-made". Also stressed was the harmonious combination of opposites, that is of the small and large, of the revealing and concealing, of the real and unreal, and of the vertical and horizontal.
A common feature of Chinese garden architecture is the waterside pavilion – a derivation of an ancient wooden house supported on stilts. It later became the fashion to build waterside pavilions upon the lake or pond of a garden so that half the structure was built on land, while the other half was raised on stilts above a body of water. So as to allow viewing of the garden from all sides of the building, decorative windows were placed along the periphery of the wall. Such a waterside pavilion can be seen in the Humble Administrator's Garden .
Another key element of Chinese gardens is their covered corridors, built to allow the owners to enjoy the garden in the rain and snow. These covered walkways fall into two categories, those which connect buildings and those which are built by the shore of a small pond or lake. As with waterside pavilions, corridors often have windows or "scenic openings", which act as picture frames directing the eye to particular views of the garden. Such scenic openings were designed simply as circles, squares or ovals or in more imaginative shapes like those of a lotus petal, garland or bay leaf.
Often the most exquisite elements of a Chinese garden can be found in its details. Such is the case with the footpaths, imaginatively patterned with coloured pebbles into a variety of designs along the ground. A common motif is that of the square within a circle, signifying the ancient belief that the "heaven is round and the earth square". Good luck omens may also often be found. Whilst the bat and crane symbolize good fortune and longevity, the fishing net portends affluence. There are, in addition, often depictions of scenes from well-known traditional paintings and legends.
The Garden of the Master of the Nets is one of the smallest gardens in Suzhou, but is also consider one of its finest. Constructed in the twelfth century and then, after a period of abandonment, restored during the eighteenth century, it was the residence of a retired official. The eastern part of the grounds served as the residential area, the central section was the main garden and the western portion the inner garden. The Humble Administrator's Garden was so-named after a Jin dynasty (1115-1234) poem which read, 'Watering the garden and selling vegetables constitute a humble administrator's business.' Originally the home of the Tang Poet, Lu Guimou, the garden took on its present form during the Ming dynasty and is perhaps one of the most representative of Ming dynasty garden designs.
"Of the thirty-six West Lakes east or west, the West Lake in Hangzhou is the best."
As this dictum reveals, China has thirty-six West Lakes – in Beijing, Fuzhou, Guilin, etc. – but none are reputed to be as magnificent as the one in Hangzhou. Originally no more than a shallow inlet, this section of the Qiantong River was dredged and dammed in the eighth century to form the lake that exists today. It was also at this time that the lake's design was enriched with the picturesque north-south Su causeway and the east-west Bai Di causeway.
Fairy Islet, an island at the lake's center, is a wonderful spot to savor its scenic expanse. Amidst this island's intricately designed gardens, ponds and pavilions are the famed "Three Towers Mirroring the Moon". Erected some seven hundred years ago, these so-called towers are actually three small pagoda-like structures placed in the water at a slight distance from the island. Rumoured to control the evil spirits lurking in the water's depths, in mid-August they contain within their hollow structures a reflection of the full moon.
The east-west Bai Di causeway links the Solitary Island to terra firma. This idyllic retreat has for centuries been a magnet to the rich and famous. It is said that the famous Chinese writer Lin Bu (967-1028) lived in seclusion here for twenty years. Shunning the corrupt life of officialdom, he dedicated himself to the cultivation of the 365 plum blossoms which he planted here. Mundane court life followed in his wake however, when the Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), charmed by the island's scenery, established an Imperial Palace on it. But in 1911, in honour of the president of the new republic, the site was opened to the public and renamed Zhongshan Park. (President Sun Yatsen's political name was Sun Zhongshan.) Now the Imperial Palace, incorporated within the Zhejiang Provincial Musuem, is used to display one of China's best ceramic collections.
From a botanical perspective, the best location to enjoy the West Lake is the Quyuan Garden on its western shore. First landscaped during the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), it was enlarged into a twenty-eight hectare park in 1978. Within it are over two hundred species of lotus – a view of these unusual flowers blooming (July to September) against the serene background of the West Lake may be one of the most stunning floral spectacles you will ever behold. At other times of the year the garden is still marvelous to visit since tea tables, placed in courtyards and pavilions along the lake shore, create an ideal atmosphere to survey one of the most delightfully picturesuque spots in China.
As you stroll through the caves in Guangxi province, you might ponder on their formation and try to spot some of their intriguing features.
Formation
The life-span of a solution cave can be split into three phases:
(i) Initiation phase: groundwater seeps slowly through cracks and fractures in the limestone bedding planes. Over 3,000 to 10,000 years are needed to turn one such fracture to a pencil-sized opening of 5 to 10 mm wide.
(ii) Enlargement phase: with a pencil-sized opening the water dynamics change. Instead of slowly percolating, water travels turbulently through the small conduit; its flow pattern equivalent to that of a pipe. With increased velocities at work, a cave may be enlarged from pencil-sized to a three metre diameter in 10,000 to 100,000 years.
(iii) Stagnation and Decay phases: after abandonment by the lowering water table, caves can remain abandoned for millions of years. Surface erosion dissects the landscape, lowering hilltops and plateaus, until denudation of the land surface destroys the last vestiges of the cave.
Cave Features
Cross-sectional shape
If the cave was completely filled with water during its formation, it will be elliptical in shape; the floor, walls and ceiling having been eroded to the same degree. However, should the water level have dropped during the formation of the cave, the roof – out of reach of the water erosion – will be shallower in form. The resulting shape, known as a canyon, produces a thin and tall chamber, with elliptical floor and walls. Other cave passages may be irregular resulting from the competition between the hydraulics of flowing water that work to create smooth stream-lined forms and the structural arrangement of joints, fractures and bedding-planes that initiated the passageway.
Scuplturings
· Ax-blade shapes: these form where water seeping through the cave wall is mixed with water already in the passage. If the two sets of water have the right chemistry they can form a corosive acid which will dissolve the joint-controlled wall and ceiling pockets.
· Floor channels: small secondary channels carved into the floors provide evidence of small later-stage streams that occupied the cave passage after it had been drained of the original flow.
· Scallops: small scooplike depressions, which vary in size from several centimetres to more than one metre. They have a steep wall on the upstream side and a gentler slops on the downstream side. Thus they can indicate the original flow of water through the cave passage. In addition the size of a scallop indicates the speed of the water flow – the smaller the scallop, the faster the water flow.
· Cave mineral deposits or speleothems : the shapes of speleothems depend on whether they were formed by dripping or flowing water. Dripping water produces stalactites and stalagmites, the former growing from the ceiling and the latter from the floor. Stalactites can become so large that they break, and sometimes fragments of a stalactite may be seen on a cave floor. Water flowing along ledges and down walls leaves behind sheets of calcite, which build up a deposit known as flowstone. These are densely packed and coloured various shades of tan, orange and brown.
· Crystals: some speleothems have shapes controlled by crystal growth rather than by the constraints of dripping and flowing water. Helictites are like stalactites in that they have a central canal down which solution flows to the tips. However, they twist and turn in all directions and are not guided by the gravitational pull of water drops.
"They were the oddest hills in the world, and the most Chinese, because these are the hills that are depicted in every Chinese scroll. It is almost a sacred landscape – it is certainly an emblematic one."
Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster, 1988
When looking at a Chinese painting, most visitors will remark upon the enormous differences from Western painting tradition. Foremost among the differences are the use of ink and silk paper as opposed to oil and canvas, the use of a silk scroll rather than a wood or metal frame as well as the general lack of verisimilitude to the original subject. Unlike most Western painting traditions, Chinese painting did not place great importance on depicting an exact likeness or replica of that which exists in reality, but instead emphasized the need to capture the spiritual essence of the subject. Whether it be a portrait in which the eyes were thought to reveal the true character of the sitter or a landscape in which the fluttering of leaves were thought to capture the hidden truths of nature, it was the rendering of the life force of the painting that was the ultimate goal of the painter
Such ideas are revealed in the first theory on painting which was written in the fifth century by Hsieh Ho. Entitled the "Six Elements of Painting" they advocate that the painting:
1) Have a life of its own, be vibrant and resonant
2) Have good brushwork that gives it a sound structure
3) Bear some likeness to the nature of the subject
4) Have hues that answer the need of the situation
5) Have a well thought out composition
6) Inherit the best of tradition though learning from it
While very few paintings from this early period exist, from the Sui (589-618 AD) and Tang (618-907 AD) dynasties onwards, painting came to assume its predominant position in China's artistic tradition. Especially popular were portraits and scenes of the Emperor's life with envoys or court ladies, as well as scenes of nobles' lives found on tomb frescoes or Buddhist imagery found on grotto walls. Some of the greatest treasures of Chinese painting are the frescoes found on the walls of the 468 Buddhist grottoes in Dunhuang in Gansu province. For more than ten centuries, artists painted scenes from Buddhist sutras as well as portraits and scenes of the lives of the numerous people who traveled along the Silk Road.
During the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), a painting academy under imperial patronage was established, with two main styles of painting coming into emergence. The first style, known as academic painting, favoured bird and flower paintings depicted in minute detail. The second style, known as scholarly painting, favoured grandiose landscapes. Unlike Western landscapes which emphasized perspective and shading elements, Chinese landscapes stressed the brush stroke which could be variegated in thickness and tone. Also diverging from Western styles was the unimportance of man as figures were kept to a minimum and always depicted much smaller than the background landscape.
In the succeeding Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), a literati school comprised of scholar-painters, came into emergence. Painting was always considered the domain of the educated elite and at no other time was this ideal more apparent. The most widely painted subjects were the so-called four virtues of bamboo (a symbol of uprightness, humility and unbending loyalty), plum (a symbol of purity and endurance), chrysanthemum (a symbol of vitality) and orchid (a symbol of purity) as well as bird and flower paintings.
The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) favoured a return to tradition as artists copied the masterpieces of early times. In fact, painting manuals were written which contained prototypes of a certain leaf, rock or flower which the artist could then copy and combine to create a new work. Unlike the West which always emphasized individuality and creativity, both in painting and literature, the Chinese greatly appreciated the need to master tradition before undertaking the new.
While traditional styles continued to dominate the work of painters of the subsequent Qing dynasty (1644-1911), increasing contact with the West brought about the inevitable influence of Western styles. The Italian painter, Guiseppe Castiglione once even worked under imperial patronage, thus introducing to his Chinese contemporaries such Western techniques as shading and perspective.
Day One
Arrive at the Hotel of Modern Art and enjoy a relaxing meal or a stroll through the tiny, pedestrian streets of Yangshuo village. (Hotel of Modern Art – Deluxe Room) (D)
Day Two
In the morning we will take a relaxing boat-ride along a rarely visited stretch of the Li River: fishermen use cormorants to fish, clumbs of bamboo trees line the shores, buffalo wallow in the shallow water, children play beside their father, who rake the river bed for reeds. After lunch, you will have the opportunity to explore traditional village life – visit a local school, take part in preparing soy milk, or just wander through the rice fields. (B, L, D)
Day Three
What you do this morning is entirely up to you. You might wish to rent a bike, explore the local market, visit a nearby park or simply sit at a café and watch the world go by. (B)
Please note that B, L, D denotes Breakfast, Lunch Dinner.
The above Guilin tour itinerary is arranged on a private basis only. Visitors interested in a group tour of China, should view our monthly Imperial Tour itinerary.
