South West China In Depth #2: In Search Of Shangri-La

Yunnan Province, China

When the bus made a sudden jerk, I woke up. What I saw outside the window was more than a dream from the night before.

Towering mountains on both sides of the canyon left only a tiny crack of the sky above. Terraced fields mixed with a cloud-shrouded forest covered the steep hills. Once in a while cooking smoke came out of tiny dark-roofed houses way up the mountain. I slid open the bus window. Straight down from the one-lane road, the Nu River roared down the canyon. Moisture rose up high in the air and met with the clouds above. No more pollution. Kunming, the tourist mecca in southwestern China’s Yunnan province where I boarded the overnight bus, was a thing of the past.

Unlike many other rivers in China that originated from the Tibetan Plateau, instead of flowing east toward the Pacific Ocean, Nu (meaning angry) River, rushes south and becomes Salween River in Myanmar before it reaches the Indian Ocean. Its altitude, latitude and temperature change all at once. This makes areas around the Nu River one of the most unique regions in terms of both ecosystem and cultural diversity. Ethnic groups such as Tibetan, Nu, Lisu, Dulong reside along the Nu River Canyon. And this is also the area where the fabled Shangri-La as described in James Hilton’s novel, The lost Horizon, was said to exist. I came here to find it.

After another bend on the river, our bus stopped. In front of us were lorries loaded with chicken cages. The words slowly came: a block of road ahead was washed out by mudslide. Even though the wet season was over, rain from the past several days had forced our bus to cross streams way beyond what it was designed to do. A couple of hours later, workers cleared the road and the bus was able to continue. After changing two more buses, one smaller than the other one, I came to a small town by the name of Bingzhongluo. “Welcome to Shangri-La!”, a sign posted by the road read. The pavement ended.

A giant cell phone tower stuck in the air along the unattractive main street where several three-story hotels held up the town center. Shops of similar size in concrete buildings displayed various cheap-looking household supplies. So this is Shangri-La? I couldn’t be more disappointed.

The next day was a market day. By noon, people from near-by villages filled the streets with freshly butchered pork, herbs, tobacco, nuts, western clothing, shoulder bags, plastic toys and other trinkets from the city. I had lunch at a small restaurant by the market. The owner came from another province when tourists started to come around eight years ago. Much of the town had changed since then.

I wanted to see the Shangri-La before the paved road, before the plastic toys.

Early afternoon, beaten-up trucks began to patrol up and down the main street looking for passengers going back home. I joined a full truckload of villagers who spoke very little Mandarin. Bags of rice, fertilizers, small engine parts, hollow bricks and several baskets full of baby chickens accompanied us on a roller coaster ride deep into the mountains. Shear cliffs hundreds of feet down the road made the open-air ride almost a religious experience.

A couple of donkeys stood waiting for renters at the last bus stop. But I chose to walk the six kilometers of mountain track to the tiny village of Qiunatong. Dogs barked and children followed their parents working in the cornfield. People walked on the mountain trails balancing baskets filled with heavy loads on their head. Similar looking wooden houses with shingles made from shale rock flakes were scattered on the slope. Songs, both traditional and modern, played out of loud speakers hanging outside one or two houses. I walked up the stone and mud stairs to the village center, the only concrete covered, flat surface with a basketball hoop on each end.

I sat on a rock step until a small white dog became friendly enough for me to pet it. Then a slim man in his thirties guided me to the house of a relative where there was a spare room for guests. There were no fancy greetings. I sat by the open-pit fire with the whole family. The wood shack was tiny considering there were three generations living there, plus frequent visits by relatives—almost everyone in the village is a relative of another family in some way.

Thick cooking smoke blackened the room. From a tiny opening on one side of the wall, once in a while, sceneries containing waterfalls, mountains and forests broke through. The grandmother, of Tibetan origin, dressed in a colorful traditional robe, liked to laugh out loud at any joke. Her laughter was contagious. Everyone liked to joke a lot.

The young mother spoke very little Mandarin, yet it was easy to feel her hospitality. As skinny as she was, she handled an amazing amount of chores both at home and in the field, from cooking to feeding livestock, from corn grinding to wheat planting. Her 14-year old boy just dropped out of school. He was extremely shy and spoke only to his parents in their native Nu language. He quietly helped with housework, including serving my meal.

Outsider visits were infrequent to Qiunatong. My host family, on my first night of arrival, killed a chicken to prepare a sumptuous dinner for me. This chicken had shared a place with piglets – quite an honor.

“So why do people play music outside the house?” I asked my thirty-something host.

“So everyone in the village can enjoy it. And it’s nice to have music while working with the crops.”

Corn wine or “water wine”, as the villagers called their home brew made from fermented corn, is an all-day drink. No matter when, no matter who walks in the door, a cup of corn wine will be offered and your cup filledl until you fight to stop the owner from refilling.

When night fell on the tiny village, I held a candle going to my window-less room. My pillow was a bundle of dried cornhusks placed under a handmade bed sheet. Images of twinkling stars above deep canyons accompanied me. I was happy about my decision to come here.

The next morning, I woke up by pigeon coos, rooster croons, dog barks, and the older son chopping firewood in the yard. My host had another big plan for my breakfast—stone baked bread, roasted corn and yak butter tea, a staple in Tibetan diet.

Time passed unnoticeably in the village. Later in the morning, packed with a lunch, wild pear, and, of course, corn wine, my host took me for a walk to the rainforest up the valley. We passed the school where his eight-year old son studied, a school with two tiny mud houses, three teachers, one ping-pong table, and thirty or more bright-eyed boys and girls.

When there were no villages anymore, we entered the primary rainforest. Plants I had never seen before popped into my eyes. In a strange combination, moss resembled those from the tropic draped down conifer trees. While the snow-capped mountains were never too far out of sight, it was hot and humid. Wild hen squealed in the distance. Meanwhile, my guide picked out a giant green bean looking fruit for me to try. Inside the thick pod, the milky white, gluey fruit sent me jumping in the air screaming: “Worm!”

Through waterfalls, mountain streams, a swallow’s nest on the cliff and monkey- raided wild berry trees, we returned to our village. Another dinner was in the making. Every year around New Year’s, people here celebrate by stuffing a whole pig with spices. After several meals people hang the spiced pork to dry—that becomes their whole year’s provision. And I was lucky enough to try some. People from the village began to come into my host’s tiny kitchen/living room. After several rounds of corn wine, it was obvious a full-blown party was on the way.

The grandmother was the first one to sing. Her voice overpowered that of an opera soprano and her face radiated with happiness. No dress code, a musical instrument, people joined in the rhythm. Hand in hand forming a big circle around the fire pit, everyone danced to the songs. The songs were mostly cheerful and inspiring, occasionally a competitive undertone between men and women, and once in a while flirtatious.

More corn wine was passed among the dancers and skipping was not an option. As more alcohol was consumed, the songs became louder and the dance steps faster and heavier. Laughter filled the air now permeated with smoke and dust. Nobody could escape the joy; people sang and danced like there was no tomorrow. In fact, for villagers of Qiunatong, there might not be a tomorrow. Nu River, the only free flowing river in southwest China, was about to be dammed to produce a series of thirteen power stations. Like many others, Qiunatong would be washed away.

My search for Shangri-La did bring me to a place of otherworldly beauty. But the Shangri-La in my mind was not there. The fast train of modernization had reached more remote parts of China. If Shangri-La ever existed, for me it would exist as an image of that tiny village nestled in the canyon surrounded by snow-capped mountains. And, for those who were lucky enough to have lived there, perhaps Shangri-La would remain in stories told by grandmothers of a time long ago.