Your blog to China
2016 Beijing To Xian: This summer we travelled with a friend who had never been to China before. So to give him a good introduction we made a route from Beijing to Xian passing through the province of Shanxi. Its a route that took in some magnificent Buddhist cave art, wonderful old towns and castles, the Great Wall and included some of the most beautiful temples in China. Finally finishing up with the Terracotta Army in Xian.
Here are just a few of the beautiful wood cuts we were able to enjoy when we visited the rambling and extraordinary Wang Family Home in Shanxi Province a few hours from Pingyao.
We had no idea that there was a Li Qun exhibition on when we visited. It was a fantastic surprise. Some of his wood cuts are really stunning works of art.
For more on Li Qun Click here: I hope you enjoy the photos we took. I am afraid there is some reflective glare on one or two of the photos due to the wood cuts being protected by glass.
“Li strongly believes that art should serve the interests of the masses–the workers, peasants and soldiers. The masses should be the only subjects of art. According to Mao, the lives of the masses must be the sole source of the raw material of art, and the artist’s work is to process the raw material made from observations of the masses into a more typical and idealized form.
Continue reading “Li Qun Wood Cuts”
Getting train tickets in China has always been a hit and miss operation, especially if you want sleeper berths for long distance trains. At Chinese New Year, getting a ticket becomes something akin to winning the lottery.
This BBC clip sums the situation up quite well, and shows the growing divide between the haves and have nots in modern China, where just having access to a computer is an advantage。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25911127
Shangri-La goes up in Flames: Reports from the Chinese Press and Western News agencies talk of the Tibetan town of Dukezong (previouly Zhongdian) being destroyed by fire. It appears that the fire started in a backpacker hostel though this still has to be confirmed.
Our first attempt to visit the town in 1991 was thwarted when the police pulled us of the bus just after Tiger Leap Gorge and sent us back to Lijiang. Zhongdian/ Dukezong was still apparently closed to Foreigners then. Eventually, we got there in 2007 on our way to Tibet.
When we visited in 2007 we found an old wooden town (surrounded by a drab new town) that had been well-restored with a low key and laid back feel. There were some wonderful old Tibetan mansions around town as well as some nice bars and cafes in the old buildings. We especially remember the wild mushroom hot-pot and the Tibetan run wine bar that sold locally produced wine and Yak Cheese.
Continue reading “Shangri-La goes up in Flames”Guangdong Province is our destination this year and a much shorter visit than normal. We plan to base ourselves for almost a week in Guangzhou taking time to enjoy the Dim Sum and making various excursions. High on our list are the Diaolou near Kaiping; the river side temples near Qingyuan and the Bagua Villages near Zhaoqing. If there is time we would like to pop into the little known Hakka area of southern Jiangxi province and visit the Tulou (Hakka earth buildings) near Longnan.
Finally, we’ll finish our trip visiting friends in Beijing after taking the bullet train from Guangzhou.
Anyone who has read our Chinese book review section will know that I’m a great fan of the Chinese author Mo Yan. So I would just like so say how happy I am that he has been recognized for his great works. Hopefully, I’ll now be able to find a copy of his ‘Republic of Wine’ a little more easily.
Below are the reviews of two of Mo Yan’s books that are on our blog:
Zhangye Danxia Landforms Geology Park (张掖丹霞地貌) Is now firmly on the must see list in Gansu province. When we visited back in 2001 it was still under contruction and not a single tourist was there. I must admit that when I see recent photos of the Danxia Rocks it looks as if a coat of paint has been added. Yes they were colourful but not that colourful. Or is it photoshop?
On our last day (in Zhangye), we decided to visit this newly developed geo-park, a scenic area of multi-coloured rocks, which has been put on the map by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 who shot (part of) his film San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi 三枪拍案惊奇 here. This film, which is known by the titles A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop 三枪拍案惊奇, as well as A Simple Noodle Story, is Zhang’s personal take on the Coen brothers debut film Blood Simple.
The geology park is about 40 kms, or an hour’s drive from Zhangye, in the opposite direction from Mati Si.
We are told to get on a bus, and after a short drive we are let off at a viewing platform, from where we gaze at the amazing scenery.
The landscape is positively lunar, or something out of a sci-fi pic: we are surrounded by row after row of reddish rock formations, streaked with pink, white, yellow, grey and green.
Continue reading “Zhangye Danxia Landforms Geology Park”
Yunlong 云龙 and Taijitu 太极图: Having arrived safely in Yunlong after a long and somewhat eventful journey from Xiaguan (Dali City), we set about visiting the sights and exploring the town, which to be honest doesn’t take very long, as there is precious little to see or do.
It’s not an unpleasant place, but definitely a little dull. There’s a nice area by the river for strolling and people watching, but entertainment options and restaurants are conspicuous by their absence.
Continue reading “Yunlong 云龙 and Taijitu 太极图”A Great Photo: This photo was published in the China Daily this summer and shows Chinese security personal under-going training before the Asian Games in Guangzhou.
At first I thought it was a photo of another mudslide until on inspection it turned out to be a training exercise.
Tomorrow we take off for yet another trip to China. We plan to combine it with a visit to Myanmar. We hope to go overland but this is increasingly looking impossible.
Our plan is to visit Beijing and then take the train to Kunming.
From Kunming we’ll try to get to a number of places in Yunnan, including: Heijing,Yunlong & Nuodeng, The Nujiang Valley,Tongcheng and around, Ruili (if it is possible to cross into Myanmar).
We still have a lot of material pending to put up on the blog, which we’ll do in October. I am not sure how much we can put up while we are on the road.
