Archive for the 'Travel' Category

a ticket to Shangri La

Published
by
Kathrine Hoersted
on June 19, 2006
in Commerce, Government, Politics, Religion, Travel and Virtual China
. 5 Comments

We’ve got a wonderful new contributor at Virtual China — Kathrine Hoersted, Danish social anthropologist. Kathrine is going to be exploring non-Han (something like 90% of mainland China identifies as belonging to the Han group) Chinese virtual places and spaces.  Think Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur, Naxi, and more.  We’re trying to map out where non-Han online activity and expression shows up, and how much of it is created by non-Han Chinese themselves. Kathrine starts by trying to find Shangri La –Lyn 

It used to be an imagined place, but now it has been rediscovered as a physical location on earth, and is even promoted in the virtual world.

To the Tibetans "Shamba La" is a mythical imagined place where people are said to live peacefully for all eternity. "Shangri La" entered the Western imagination via James Hilton’s bestselling 1933 novel Lost Horizon.  In the fictional book he described a physical place in Tibet which he called Shangri La, where people of all religions and ethnicities coexist in happy harmony and live to be hundreds of years old.

In today’s cash-driven Chinese tourist market, competitive discussions have arisen between counties in Sichuan and Yunnan about where Shangri La was really situated. Many arguments and intents to prove the exact location have been based on descriptions from Hilton’s fictional novel. Recently, the local government in Zhongdian town was given official permission by the Chinese authorities to rename their town and County Shangri La. So the modern Shangri La now exists in The Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Dechen (Diqing in Chinese) located in the northern part of China’s Yunnan Province.

Zhongdian itself is the subject of many an English-language travel site and blog, 6,550 images via Google, over 1000 images at Flickr. Shangri La can be taken in on a number of Chinese-operated tours. Local Tibetans, however, continue to refer to this location as Gyalthang.

Shangri_la_3

 

Featured Art Space: Lijiang Studio

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 9, 2006
in Art, Design, Translation and Travel
. 0 Comments

Lijiang_studio2

Get a sense of the thriving art scene in Lijiang, Yunnan Province (like Dali, Lijiang is a home-away-from-home for China’s elite artists, from film-makers and painters to sculptors and writers). 

Lijiang Studio provides living space, working space, and facilitation
for international, Chinese, and local artists in two locations: one
rural location, Lashihai, and one urban location, Kunming, both in
Yunnan Province, China.

Lijiang Studio’s base is at Lashihai, a
rural farming community 20 kilometers from the city of Lijiang, a
UNESCO World Heritage site. The main residency facility is a
traditional Naxi courtyard house, lightly renovated. Lashihai is a
lake, situated at the base of 5596 meter Jade Dragon Snow Mountain,
inside a nature reserve.

The Lijiang Studio aims are:

1) To benefit local people
with cultural intervention that is sensitive to their communities and
traditions, providing a means for them to adapt to the massive influx
of Western, global culture and forces of modernization in ways that
enhance, rather than deplete, their culture.

2) To complement
and foster growth in China’s thriving arts communities, which presently
exist in the outskirts of cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and
Guangzhou. To connect Chinese artists with a community rooted in
China’s rural culture, as an alternative to the urban Chinese
experience.

3) To provide international artists with the
opportunity to experience rural Chinese village life, as an alternative
to the intense pressure and marginalized status of the international
"white box" art circuit.

a sea of consumers

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 8, 2006
in BBS, Commerce, Photos and Travel
. 2 Comments

Renhai

The May Day vacation has apparently succeeded in spurring Chinese consumers onward and upward. This Sichuan water park has 20,000 revelers.  As one Netease commentator asks:  is it vacation or is it misery?

Link for more photos of May Day vacation crowds.

for the love of railroad station architecture

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 5, 2006
in BBS, Design, Photos and Travel
. 0 Comments

Kunming_station

In the spirit of May Day travels, a dedicated Netease poster has a treasure trove for railroad architecture enthusiasts: dozens of Chinese stations.  The one above is from Kunming, the capital of southwestern Yunnan province.  One of my favorites.

The post has been viewed over 670,000 times since May 1, and has over 1600 comments. 

link

May Day in Virtual China

Published
by
Lyn Jeffery
on May 1, 2006
in BBS, News, Photos, Travel and Virtual China
. 1 Comment

Old_town

China is in an uproar for the next week as millions take off for vacations or visits home during the national weeklong May Day holiday.  Online, vacationers are:

  • giving tips on where to travel: the photo above is from a long, detailed Tianya post about where to go to see ancient architecture in Zhejiang province, and how to get there.  There are some beautiful photos on the post, much better than the usual shots of rebuilt tourist spots.

Baidu, the choice of most of China’s younger users, taps into the huge desire for getting away from urban settings with the following special feature on its PostBar Forum today:
Baidu_may_1

Fashionable life/Relax for 7 days of May Day holiday