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Outside Looking In: The Search for Shangri-La
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Outside Looking In: The Search for Shangri-La |
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30 August to 2 September 2002
Trip Diary by Winnie So
Lijiang has been in the international travel limelight of late thanks to all the recent fuss over who gets to claim to be the fabled Shangri-La of James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon, the utopia uncorrupted by civilisation because no roads lead there. Its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site has no doubt helped as well. Lijiang used to be a stomping ground for European backpackers on their way through China or to Tibet. Now, with recent coverage in international magazines such as Travel+Leisure and Time, the non-backpack crowd is heading to this small town in China's Yunnan province, including many middle-class Chinese tourists as well as Japanese groups.
I first learnt of Lijiang over a dinner when a friend brought up the idea of planning a trip to Lijiang, a small town less than an hour's flight from Kunming. I must admit that I'm very far from being knowledgeable about China travel. In fact, as part of my research, a Frenchman living in Shanghai seemed to have more of an inside scoop. The prospect of travelling to Lijiang immediately piqued my interest, not because I knew what it had to offer in terms of Venice-like
charm or its contention for Shangri-La status. I was interested because Lijiang was a mystery to me. When I started making my calls and doing my research, I got the impression that Lijiang is no big deal, "just another Zhou Zhuang", as one seasoned traveller put it. And all the commercial fuss between Dali, Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian), Sichuan et. al. did not make Lijiang any more appealing. But again, what kept me going was the urge to see for myself, to explore what seemed to be more of the "real" China. It was the anticipation of exploring and getting to know the China that was not Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen. Well, this was not to be. After the 4-day, 3 night trip, I am no wiser about China or the Chinese. Rather, the trip was akin to what Alice saw through the looking glass.
Because of my fear of flying Chinese airlines, we opted for the indirect route of flying Dragonair to Kunming and then China Southern to Lijiang. This proved a waste of time; as it required us to spend night in Kunming, which did not have much to offer. I would recommend flying directly to Lijiang from Shenzhen. The next morning we caught the 11:50am flight to Lijiang. The airport is very small; our plane was the only one
on the ground at the airport. The ride into town, through beautiful countryside, cost 80 yuan (including toll). The weather was gorgeous - crisp country fresh air combined with a bright shining sun.
The arrival into Lijiang was very disappointing. You reach the new part of town first and it is no more attractive than American suburban strip malls. Turn right off the main road and you arrive at the entrance of Lijiang old town consisting of two water mills, a wall with an inscription by Jiang Zemin and another wall introducing you to Lijiang Ancient City - UNESCO World Heritage Site, again not very promising. It was as if we were about to enter Lijiang Theme Park. As soon as we got out of the taxi, a porter approached us to wheel our luggage to our hotel for 5 yuan (we were 4 people). We walked through (because cars are not allowed within the old part of town) the main street lined with shops filled with tourists. There were mainly shops selling tea, silver trinkets, fabric, wood carving and other Naxi (the minority ethnic group indigenous to the area) crafts. We arrived at our hotel, nothing like I had imagined. I was expecting a quaint, courtyard style inn. What I got was a courtyard style, 4-star hotel.
Over the days, as I
walked around town and into smaller, quainter inns in the old city, I realised that this was a destination used to tourists. Sure, there are still common rooms with no private bathrooms, but as one Fujianese innkeeper berated his staff, "How can you show someone from Hong Kong a room without a bathroom!", I saw that tourism of the commercial sort had arrived Lijiang. All the rooms that I saw were very comfortable, all with televisions and phones. Those with private bathrooms ranged from 120-200 yuan/night, while those without private conveniences were under 80 yuan. If you shop around after your arrival, you might even be able to select an inn offering rooms with a shuttered veranda overlooking the flowing crystal clear canal water with a picturesque stone bridge and weeping willows not far off.
Likewise, with restaurants, you have the choice of local Naxi fare, which is simple, or restaurants serving up a hodgepodge of Chinese, Western, Japanese and even Korean. Pizza is very popular. Several restaurants along the Lan Kwai Fong-like strip by the canal on Xinhua Street served up pizza on their menus, which were bilingual (Chinese and English). This is a town used to outsiders.
Walking along the main
streets, you feel as though
these people serving you, selling their wares are
Disney employees in ethnic costumes acting out their
character (in this case, Naxi people). But if you
head further into town, onto the narrow, seemingly
quiet, alleyways, you will find quite another world.
This is the world that you can peer into, even step
into, but you won't feel any closer to understanding
this world. This is less of a cultural gap and more
of a lifestyle gap, the gap between city folk and
country folk.
On the less-travelled alleyways, there is a sense
of quietude and calm that is missing from the more
commercial part of the old town. Here, you feel
like time doesn't matter. The people are extremely
friendly and you get a sense of community and neighbourliness.
Living room doors open out to the streets. We passed
by one where an old lady was sitting alone. As soon
as she saw us peering in, she motioned for us to
step inside. "Come in," she said. "Sit and have
some tea." We wandered in, but being shy city folk,
we felt we were intruding into this little Naxi
popo's home, so we thanked her and moved along.
This was not the only house where we were invited
in for a drink. All were genuinely friendly, with
no other motive than to be hospitable. This is where
the townsfolk seemed most “real”, yet we were too
shy to take advantage of their genuine “niceness”.
Somehow, we were more comfortable with the tourist
side, where products, services and smiles come with
price tags, no matter how subtle.
That is not to say that everyone working in the
tourist trade in Lijiang were after tourist dollars.
I was sitting canal side for breakfast one morning
when my sunglasses fell into the canal. We asked
one of the waiters to help fish it out (the water
is so clear and shallow enough that we could see
the sunglasses lying at the bottom). The waiter
tried many different poles, and after 15 minutes,
managed to fish out my sunglasses. I offered him
5 yuan. He had a look of embarrassment and shook
his hand declining my offer.
And so our trip turned out to be less enlightening
than I had hoped, but it offered me a glimpse --
a peek -- into the lives of these non-city folk
of China. It also made me aware of the contradictions
of tourism. On the one hand, tourism brings tremendous
potential for economic growth to the remotest of
places. Oftentimes, money from tourism helps to
preserve valuable artefacts and encourage research
into cultures. But then, the money only gets allocated
to what they think tourists will like, therefore
making it seem more artificial. Tourists, especially
seasoned tourists, constantly demand new destinations
that take them out of their known environments (usually
big cities) and offer them new, authentic, different
experiences. In the pursuit for the exceptional,
we are conspirators in the commercialisation of
these Shangri-La's. In the end, Shangri-La will
remain just that, a fable, a myth, an ideal, living
only in our imagination |
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