Bàn tú ér fèi,半途而废.

It means to leave something unfinished.

This Chinese idiom somewhat sums up my recent work on the blog. I’ve written a lot of new texts and I’ve selected a lot of photos to go with them. However, I haven’t been able to put them together. Hopefully in the next few weeks they all will be finished.

In the meantime enjoy this very apt idiom (成语 Chengyŭ): Bàn tú ér fèi半途而废

Coming up (when finished):

Yushu town (Qinghai Province)

The Yangtse River 1991 & 2009 compared. A day to day account of how it was sailing from Shanghai to Chongqing in 1991. And our more recent adventure last year from Chongqing to Yichang.

Chongqing : The City

Book review: Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

Zhaozhou Bridge, Hebei Province,  old text re-done.

Yushu to Manigango via Serxu

Jiuhuashan 2001

and more ………..

Tags: Curiosities of Chinese // 2 Comments »

CHANGSHA, China — With a few quick keystrokes, a computer hacker who goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest victims.“Here’s a list of the people who’ve been infected with my Trojan horse,” he says, working from a dingy apartment on the outskirts of this city in central China. “They don’t even know what’s happened.”

Read the rest of this article of David Barboza for The New York Times

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Big Breasts and Wide Hips

丰乳肥臀

Author: Pen name: Mo Yan 莫言.  Real name:  Guǎn Móyè 管谟业

(First published in 1996 in Chinese; 2005 in English)

Big Breasts and Wide Hips 丰乳肥臀 is the second novel I’ve read by Mo Yan, the first being The Garlic Ballads天堂蒜薹之歌”. Both novels are set in Mo Yan’s native Shandong Province, in the village of Gaomi, but any similarities end there. The Garlic Ballads is a depiction of corruption in rural China in the early 1980s, a period when the old certainties of communism fade and unbridled market forces are unleashed. Big Breasts and Wide Hips is a long journey through the tumultuous history of 20th century China: it’s a saga of endless wars, revolutions and violent political persecutions; a desperate time when bayoneting Japanese soldiers, marauding Communist and Nationalist troops, famine, starvation, murderous family infighting, corruption and a whole cast of vile characters all play their part in wreaking havoc on Gaomi village.

The heroine is Shanguan Lű. From her birth, [Read more →]

Tags: Book Reviews, Culture // 1 Comment »

成语

Welcome to our new Curiosities of Chinese section. This is where we look at Chinese idioms, sayings and expressions and try to explain their meaning and composition. This is not an attempt to teach Chinese but just a fun look at some of the fascinating parts of this rich language.
The first in the series is one of my favourite idioms.

对牛弹琴

Have you ever wondered that sometimes you are talking to, or explaining things to, people who just aren’t on the same intellectual level as you? Or ever wondered why the person you are talking to is so stubborn that whatever you say to them will never change their minds, no matter how right you might be?

The Chinese have a perfect idiom to describe such a situation. 对牛弹琴 duì niú tán qín.
This literally means “playing the lute to a cow”. I really can’t sum up that frustration any better than  this expression.

对Duì

means to or towards.

牛Niú

is a cow.

弹Tán

means to play a stringed instrument

琴Qín

is a general name for a stringed instrument but often refers to a traditional Chinese harp like instrument or lute.

Tags: Curiosities of Chinese // Add Comment »

The World’s Longest Mani Wall/嘛尼石城

 

The Seng-ze Gyanak Mani Wall is truly enormous; a sign by its side proudly proclaims that it is 283 metres long, 74 metres wide, 2,5 metres high and consists of 2 billion stones! What’s more, the Wall is still growing, as we witnessed with our own eyes: devout pilgrims contribute new stones everyday, which are hoisted up on to the pile carefully. The billions of beautifully carved stones carry the Buddhist prayers “Om Mani Padme Hum” or, “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus”, and other orations.

Tibetan pilgrims from all over the Kham region and further afield descend on this huge Mani Wall from dusk to dawn. Dressed in their finest, they [Read more →]

Tags: Qinghai Province, Travel // 2 Comments »

We had planned to visit Beijing, the Nujiang Valley in Yunnan,and the Ice festival in Harbin over the Christmas break. The dates for the Christmas and New year holiday at the university in Madrid would have been perfect. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances we had to cancel the trip.

However, our friend Fu Dawei has sent some fantastic photos of the coldest winter in Beijing for many years. We hope you enjoy them!

The pictures remind us of when we first visited Beijing in the winter of 1990.  However, in that year the temperature was around -6 to -8 degrees. This year it is hovering around -15 to-17. As you can see from the next photo you have to wrap up to keep warm.

Tags: fu dawei (our man in Beijing) // Add Comment »

We found out too late that the one and only daily bus (at least in late September) from Shijiazhuang to Cangyan Shan leaves at 8.00h.  As we had already missed it, it was a case of either not going, or hiring a taxi.

We spoke to a driver waiting outside a hotel and agreed on 300 Yuan for the whole day. It took us about 2′5 hours to reach the mountain, along a nightmarish motorway, full of overtaking lorries.

In spite of his protestations to the contrary, our driver had never been to Cangyan Shan before and kept stopping at other mountain temples on the way, hoping they were what we were looking for. As it turned out, this was a bit of an unexpected bonus, as one Buddhist nunnery we stopped at was very attractive. After giving us an exhaustive tour around, the friendly nuns were able to orientate the driver on how to get to the real Cangyang Shan, a mere 5 kilometres away.

The highlight on the holy mountain of Cangyan Shan is the Hanging Palace, a double roofed hall, originally built during the [Read more →]

Tags: Hebei Province, Travel // 1 Comment »

See the photos on holachina views

All photos by Alvaro Paredes Palacios

It’s coming to that time of year again, when thousands of budding photographers descend on the southern Yunnan town of Yuanyang to capture the amazing rice terraces at their best.

Cultivated over hundreds of years by the Hani minority, the rice terraces near Yuanyang form a stunning sight at any time of year, but it is in January and February when they are at their most magnificent. We visited the terraces in the summer of 2006, and while in summer the terraces are a spectacular blanket of verdant green, they are still no match for their winter spectacle.

In 2008 we met two Spanish boys, Alvaro and German, on the bus between Luang Nam Tha and Nong Kiauw in Laos. This year Alvaro and German were fortunate enough to visit Yuanyang at the right time (middle of February) and have given us permission to put up some of the fantastic photos Alvaro took. I hope you enjoy them.

Yuanyang Update
When we visited Yuanyang in 2006 there were hardly any tourists, foreign or Chinese. The situation has changed radically in recent years. Yuanyang has now been included in the latest editions of Lonely Planet and Chinese photographers and tourists have also become more abundant. Some of the best scenic spots have become rather over crowded at peak times e.g. Sunrise and sunset. However, just walk away from the crowds and dive in and amongst the paddies and in a few minutes it will just be you, the views and the local Hani farmers.

Accommodation options have also widened recently. However, if the Chen Jian hotel (mobile: 1376 9492816) is still in good order, I can’t think of a better place to stay.

Tags: Uncategorized // 1 Comment »

Detian Waterfall

First with an expression of horror, then a polite nod of the head, and finally a beaming smile was how the young lady in the travel agency attended us when we asked about taking the Chinese tour to the Detian Waterfall.

The Horror: Enter two foreigners in a Chinese travel agency, asking about joining a Chinese tour. “I don’t speak English, do they speak Chinese? What am I going to do?”, was written all over the poor girl’s face, as we sat down in front of her.

The Polite Nod: “I think the foreigner is speaking something that resembles Chinese and I think I can just about make out what he is saying”.

The Beaming Smile: “The foreigners want to join a tour to the Detian waterfall tomorrow and wish to pay now!”

“We don’t usually take foreigners on our tours, due to the language barriers”, the young lady said apologetically.  I replied that we didn’t normally take tours either, but we were short of time and needed to be able to visit the falls in one day and return to Nanning the same day. Language, I said, wouldn’t be a problem. “Miss Chen will meet you in the lobby at 7.00 am tomorrow”, she answered.

The Detian Waterfalls, situated in China’s Southern Guangxi Province (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region), are among of the most spectacular in China, if not Asia. Their location alone, a remote area populated by diverse ethnic minorities, interspersed by winding rivers, karst peaks and [Read more →]

Tags: From Our Diary, Guangxi Province // Add Comment »

Hua Shan Rock Paintings

Rock Painting Hua Shan

The Zhuang are China’s largest ethnic minority with about 15 million of them living in Guangxi province alone. In fact, the Zhuang are so numerous in Guangxi that the province is officially known as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The provincial capital Nanning, or ‘the Green City’, as it tries to promote itself, is a good place to base yourself for forays into the Zhuang heartlands. Already on ‘holachina.com’ we have articles on three prominent Zhuang areas in Guangxi: Yangmei village, Detian waterfall, and the ‘Dragon’s Backbone’ Rice Terraces or ‘Longji Titian’ at Ping’an.

In appearance, the Zhuang are almost indistinguishable from the Han Chinese, though some Zhuang sub-groups, such as the black Zhuang, continue to wear their distinctive ethnic clothing. The Zhuang do, however, have their own language, which has been transcribed in a curious Romanised script.

Zuo Jiang (Zuo River)

The rock paintings at Hua Shan are not only situated in the Zhuang heartlands, but they also mark the cradle of their civilization, as they are reputed to be at least 2000 years old. Thus, these paintings and other nearby archaeological sites provide evidence that the origins of the Zhuang can be traced back to [Read more →]

Tags: Culture, From Our Diary, Guangxi Province, Travel // 1 Comment »