China in Transition, Part 5

China has turned into a tourist destination—for the Chinese.

Before President Nixon visited China, the country was surrounded by an invisible bamboo curtain. It’s citizens were not allowed to travel far and had to ask permission when they did. Even in 1999, the first time I visited China, Western tourists were more noticeable than Chinese tourists.

In September and October 2008, there were so many Chinese tourists everywhere we went, that we were the minority. The loudest evidence that China is changing is the number of people toting cameras and traveling across China to visit history or nature.  And China has both in abundance.

The Dragon’s Back is one example. The construction of the Longi Rice Terraces started during the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368). Even today, many Zhuan and Yao ethnic people live a simple life that honors the laws of nature. China’s central government encourages them to live that way.

The Dragon’s Back is in Southeast China near Vietnam. Only a few villages are open for tourists. After our bus climbed a narrow, winding mountain road, we reached a parking lot that reminded me of lots in the United States that served national parks. 

For a few yuan, we gained entry. Inside, past the ticket booths, were men willing to carry us to the top in sedan chairs. Considering how steep the climb was, the two men that it took to carry each chair must have had legs of iron.

A hundred feet further, vendor’s stalls lined both sides of the road. It was China’s market economy in action reminding me of Disneyland and the shops there that sold trinkets no one needs.

We walked halfway to the top before reaching a village built on stilts clinging to the mountain.  The steep slopes around the village were heavily terraced to grow rice. Since it was mid afternoon, we stopped to eat. We enjoyed local rice cooked in sections of bamboo on a hot bed of coals.

That night in our hotel, we were kept awake by an overactive air conditioner turning the room into a freezer and the loud voices of someone singing in a nearby karaoke bar. Morning, by contrast, was quiet. There was a river flowing through the center of the city, and  I watched from our hotel room as men on bamboo rafts fished with small throw nets.

Climbing the Dragon’s Back was a rewarding experience. One that would be impossible to duplicate in the United States. During America’s expansion west in the 19th century, the native populations were decimated by European diseases, defeated in battles they did not want to fight and driven from the land they had lived on for ten thousand years.

Yet, we saw a place where life hasn’t changed much except for the tourists. Mao is gone. The Cultural Revolution ended decades in the past, and China is moving on while time seems to stand still on the Dragon’s Back.