PORTRAITS OF CHINA

 

 

A group of 8 Reinhardt faculty and 7 faculty from other schools in north Georgia spent the Summer of 2005 in China participating in a research seminar on ethnic minority policy in China sponsored by the Fulbright-Hays program. My photos from this trip are in the galleries below. You may also be interested in the Fulbright-Hays China Seminar's web site and in following my weblog through China. 

Copyright @2005 Pamela Wilson. Please do not use or download these photos without permission.

Note from PW 12-16-2005: The Reinhardt web server seems to have eaten my original web page and I'm in the process of rebuilding it, so please bear with me as I work to reconstruct it.

For more information, please contact me: Dr. Pamela Wilson, Reinhardt College, psw@reinhardt.edu or wilsonpam@mindspring.com. 

For more about the Fulbright-Hays Seminar and a bibliography about China's ethnic minorities, see http://faculty.reinhardt.edu/rcchina. 

I also maintained a weblog of my China experiences at http://culturequest.blogphotography.com.

PAGES OF PHOTO ALBUMS:

Faces of China
These portraits capture the diversity of faces and peoples we met as we journeyed across China in June 2005 as a part of our Fulbright-Hays China Seminar. They are Han (the majority ethnicity) as well as a number of minority ethnic groups, most notably the Uyghurs of Xinjiang Province, a Muslim Turkic-speaking people, the Naxi of Northwest Yunnan Province (Lijiang and Nanyao), and the Tibetans of Northwest Yunnan (Zhongdian, aka Shangri-La). The latter speak dialects of the Tibeto-Burman language family. The Tibetans practice Yellow Sect Buddhism, and the Naxi practice a combination of Buddhism and their traditional Dongba shamanistic religion, if at all. 

Impressions of China: Black and White
These monochromatic images capture the essence and the diversity of the peoples and places I encountered as I journeyed across China in June 2005 as a part of a Fulbright-Hays China Seminar sponsored by Reinhardt College and the U.S. Department of Education. 

Fulbright Hays group members in China

Doors, arches and windows of China

BEIJING

Beijing Hutongs, Beijing, China
The hutongs of Beijing are the traditional neighborhoods of narrow, winding alleys with entryways that lead into courtyard housing cultures. These neighborhoods are fast disappearing due to urban development. Apparently the city has decided to preserve some of these neighborhoods, generally north of the Forbidden City, and they have become regular tourist destinations in recent years. Tour buses drop off busloads of tourists, who are met by dozens of bicycle rickshaw drivers who line the streets waiting for the buses and who then wheel people around, singly or in pairs. through the winding streets. I was with a small group, including several local university students, who walked around the hutong neighborhoods on foot. These neighborhoods are some of the few places left in Beijing where one can get a glimpse of what urban life in China must have been like prior to the twentieth century.

XINJIANG (the Westernmost province of China)

Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China
Xinjiang is China's westernmost province, covering one-sixth of China's total territory. Its residents have traditionally been Uyghur, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik and other ethnic minority groups, until a government-sponsored in-migration of Han Chinese from eastern China has shifted the demographic balance considerably in the past two decades. The Uyghur are the most prevalent ethnic minority group; they are a Muslim, Turkic-speaking cultural group whose heritage is closer to their Central Asian neighbors than to their Han Chinese fellow citizens. The area today is one of the hotbeds of tension and control by the Chinese government, which fears a separatist movement and thus polices the region very strictly.

The Road to Turpan, Xinjiang Province, China
Turpan, several hours east of Urumqi, is an oasis city on the edge of the Taklimakan desert and is in a basin below seas level that is the second lowest spot on earth. It is also the hottest place in China, with temperatures in the summer regularly reaching 45-50 degrees centigrade. We were there on a "cool" day (in the low 40s). The area is renowned for its vineyards, producing grapes, raisins and wines, as well as other fruits. For 2000 years, the city of Turpan and other surrounding areas have been irrigated by a system called the karez, which channels melting glacier water from the nearby high mountains through a series of thousands of underground canals. The population of Turpan is almost exclusively Uyghur, a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic group whose culture is closely related to that of Central Asia.

Gaochang, Bezeklik Grottoes and the Flaming Mountains, East of Turpan in Xinjiang Province, China

Kashgar, Gateway to China's Silk Road (Xinjiang Province, China)

Kashgar International Bazaar and Livestock Market (Xinjiang Province, China, 2005)

Village of Pahtaklik near Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China
This village was just outside the city of Kashgar, in the farthest western corner of China. Its residents were almost exclusively of the Uyghur ethnic nationality, a Turkic-speaking Muslim cultural group. This is a farming village, and on this Sunday afternoon when we visited, we found families out working in the rice paddies. As we walked through the village with our local guide, several families invited us into their homes to see what they looked like, proud to be able to offer hospitality to the visiting foreigners. We later found out that we were the first foreigners they had ever had contact with.

SICHUAN PROVINCE (Southwest China)

Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

YUNNAN PROVINCE (Southwest China)

Views from the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, and Kunming City, China

Dali and the Road to Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China

Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China

Market Day, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China

Nanyao Village, a Naxi village in Lashihai, near Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China
Nanyao is a Naxi village about 40 minutes west of Lijiang in the Lashi Lake (Lashihai) region. The photos in this gallery reflect the day our group spent in Nanyao as a guest of our guide Lily Zhang and her parents, Mr. Zhang and Ms. Li. Their hospitality was much appreciated, as they welcomed us as guests into their home, fed us dinner, and hosted many of us with overnight accommodations. Lily is a staff member with the Lashihai Xintuo Ecotourism Company, a community-owned initiative to provide ecologically-friendly and locally-controlled tourism experiences. Members of the village become shareholders in the company, and The Nature Conservancy has been involved in training local staff members (see http://www.ecotourism.com.cn for more information).

The road to Shigu, Yunnan Province, China
The road to Shigu from Lijiang goes west over the hills, past Lashi Lake, and into the Yangtze River valley. Shigu is an historic Naxi village at the First Bend of the Yangtze River, where the river takes a 180 degree turn to the north and changes course. Shigu's history is marked by two monuments. The first is a stone drum (which the town's name comes from), which marks a victory by Naxi forces over an invading Tibetan army in 1548 in which 3000 enemies were killed. Almost 400 years later, in April 1936, 18,000 Red Army soldiers crossed the Yangtze at Shigu as part of the monumental Long March. The prominent mountain behind the town is called Cloud Mountain. Shigu is a very unpretentious and ordinary village, a bit gray and drab as it works its way up the hill to the town square on top of the hill.

Shudi on the Yangtze, Yunnan Province, China
Our group was heading toward Yongning and Lugu Lake on a rainy June morning. About an hour northeast of Lijiang, the road begins a very vertical descent into the Yangtze River valley along a series of switchbacks. The road itself is cobblestone, and there are few guardrails. Once we descended this treacherous mountainside, we approached a nondescript village called Shudi, and our bus driver was hailed by a passing bus and told that the road on the other side of the river had washed out in a mudslide and was impassable. Our bus stopped in Shudi, which was having Market Day. Apparently the local ethnic groups were all trading that day--the blend of cultures was very interesting, with Naxi, Yi, Moso/Mosuo and others. This was definitely not a tourist-oriented town or market. We got a taste of local market life. Then we had no choice but to turn around and head back up the mountain and return to Lijiang, since there was but one road to Lugu Lake.

Road from Lijiang to Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China
Most of the route between Lijiang and Zhongdian in Northwest Yunnan Province follows the Yangtze River (to Tiger Leaping Gorge) and then the Xao Zhongdian River up through its gorges and valleys until the road climbs up onto the Zhongdian Plateau. The town of Zhongdian was recently renamed "Shangri-La" to gain more tourists. Along this corridor live peoples of the Naxi, Yi and Tibetan minority nationalities. Several large dam projects are either in the planning or construction phases along these rivers, and the road from Lijiang to Shangri-La is being re-routed and rebuilt to accommodate the changes the dams will cause. Tiger Leaping Gorge itself is slated to be inundated by a dam, according to Connie Rogers of The New York Times, who wrote on April 24, 2005:

"A dam is under development in the Tiger Leaping Gorge area - one of dozens of hydroelectric projects planned in the power-starved region. Construction may start as early as 2007. According to the Chinese government, 100,000 Naxi and other minority peoples will be displaced from their farms in the valley behind the dam if it is built."

This is all part of the Great Western Development Project (or Opening the West), a program initiated by the Peoples Republic in 2000 to bring economic development to the "western" region of China.

Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]