I hadn’t anticipated, though, the incredible beauty of the karst peaks shrouded in mists and low-hanging clouds. I’ve only been here two days so far, and my camera has yet to venture outside my apartment, but very very soon I’ll make a stab at capturing the beauty of Yangshuo in the winter. The scenery was certainly nice in the summer and the fall, but now, IMHO, the scenery is truly outstanding. I’m not sure I can do it justice, but will give it a shot.

Hong Kong in January is quite pleasant with mid-day highs in the low 60s. You wouldn’t know it to look at the locals, though, who are bundled up in woolen sweaters and down jackets. It’s not raining today so that is a plus as well. My mission today is to track down an ink cartridge for my laser-jet printer, and I went to several stores this morning but had no luck. I’ll try again this afternoon, but if I can’t find one I’ll have my wife mail me one from the US. I suppose that my printer is now considered an “old” model, at least by Asian standards, as I bought it last summer. It’s probably been superseded by at least one if not two newer models.

I have a few minutes yet before checkout, and am recharging both my laptop and the iPad. On the flight over, I watched a TV series on the iPad — twelve hour-long episodes, though after cutting out the commercials, an hour-long program works out to about 43 minutes. Far more interesting watching these shows without the pain of sitting through endless commercials. Long-haul flights are endurance contests, not that you have much choice in the matter once the plane is in the air. Mindless entertainment seems the best way to make the time pass at least somewhat more enjoyably.

Or, I suppose, buy up to a business class seat, though I am far too parsimonious to think that is worthwhile unless you somehow qualify for a free upgrade. I fly fairly frequently, but not quite enough to qualify for a free upgrade, and I’m not about to spring for the extra tariff a business class seat commands. I do notice, though, that economy coach passengers are required to walk through the business class section when getting on and off the aircraft, which I’m sure is a not so subtle hint that we really would be much better off if we upgraded to a premium seat.

In the course of the conversation, I described our business plan as follows:

The Tours Abroad team is willing to put together what we hope are compelling itineraries for Guest Artists who are willing to share their expertise (left & right brain) with participants who are willing to explore new places and ideas.

I.e., a coalition of the willing.

I hadn’t really thought this through before jotting it down, but it seems to me a pretty decent description of what we are trying to do. Yes, we are selling a product. But at my stage in life, which might be described as ‘baby boomer looking for meaningful post-retirement fulfillment,’ one hopes for a bit more than just selling a product.

For me, I’ve always had two loves — China and photography. I have a great fascination with all things Chinese, having studied the language in college, plus a couple of years living in China, and even catering Chinese dinners for friends and colleagues over the years. And photography, the ability to capture images of the world around me, has always been a very rewarding hobby.

But to make a living, I became an attorney, and that’s about all I want to say about my years as an attorney. I took early retirement, but after five years or so, realized I really needed to be doing something besides ‘enjoying’ my retirement years. And that realization has led to Tours Abroad, and photo workshops to China.

I can say with assurance that I love what I do, and the workshops are not only enjoyable but also great learning events. The Guest Artists each make their living from fine art or commercial photography, which is no mean achievement in and of itself. It is their willingness to share their experiences that make the workshops so successful and fun.

And the third leg of the business is comprised of the participants who come along to learn from the Guest Artists. If there is one thing I could change in my business plan, it would be the fee I have to charge participants to come to China and participate in a workshop. These are not inexpensive offerings, and I realize that our workshop prices can be a challenge to a lot of aspiring photographers. Those that are able to come along, though, realize the value of spending up to two weeks with a very accomplished Guest Artist who knows his or her craft inside out, and who is motivated to help others improve their photo skills. The testimonials we receive from satisfied customers are gratifying indeed.

My New Year’s resolution is to be more faithful in posting blogs. Organizing and running fine art photo workshops means a lot of distractions, but that is no reason not to make the time to post a blog entry every now and again. So I will try to do better.

Yangshuo is located in the south of China, and does not have the winters that northern China experiences. Yangshuo may get a dusting of snow once a decade or so, but that’s about it for snow. Daytime temperatures during the winter typically range from the mid 40s to the mid 60s, and nighttime temperatures from the low 30s to the mid 40s. That doesn’t sound too bad.

But houses and apartments are not insulated and lack central heating. Plus the air is fairly damp, so it can feel colder than drier air might. Houses and apartments are typically constructed out of reinforced cement with stone or tile floors, and once the walls and floors cool down to outside temperatures they tend to stay at those temperatures. Let’s just say it has a chilling effect on the people inside. Even though you might heat the air inside with a wall or space heater, it’s not at all unusual to wear a heavy wool sweater or a jacket inside, often with a stocking cap and gloves on. Long underwear is also welcome.

Years ago I spent three years in Taiwan and the winters there were miserably uncomfortable even though the temperatures outside never got all that cold, especially as compared to Minnesota where I grew up and still reside when we are in the States.

I’m very much looking forward to our 2012 calendar of photo workshops, led by a group of very accomplished professional photographers. We have a full slate of workshops, stretching from March through November, visiting all parts of China, and even venturing up into Mongolia. More on these workshops in future blog posts.

In these next two months prior to the start of the 2012 workshop calendar, however, Ian and I will be planning our 2013 slate of photo workshops. This has us really excited because China has so much to offer photographers, that in any one year we can only see a small part of what is available.

A lot of visitors to Yangshuo will say that Yangshuo isn’t a “real” Chinese city, because it caters to so many foreign backpackers, and you can always get a foreign meal if you want to. But for Westerners who live here, we don’t live in the part of town that caters to tourists — it’s much too expensive. And for that matter, not very interesting. We live in a Chinese part of town, where, not surprisingly, it very much does feel like a real Chinese city. Tourist Yangshuo has a McDonalds and a KFC; our part of town has Gan’s dumpling restaurant where none of the staff speaks any English at all. And where, by the way, the food is both far better and far less expensive.

Although expats who have lived here for many years complain about the inflation of the last couple of years, and say that prices on staples such as groceries and petrol have really shot up. However, for us newcomers, it still feels like we are getting bargains most every time we buy something. We are able to live quite well here on about a thousand US dollars a month. Our modern 2-bedroom apartment in a secure building costs us $190 per month.

To put it in perspective, Kathy and I can live comfortably on my Social Security check. That’s hot something I could say if we were living in the States. So relatively speaking, China is an easy place to live.

We feel fortunate that the last two years we’ve been granted 12-month tourist visas to China. Under the terms of our visas, we can stay in China for only 90 days at a time, but that just means heading down to Hong Kong every three months for some rest and relaxation. These trips usually end up being buying trips, too, because Hong Kong has so much more in the way of creature comforts and practical goods than can be readily found in China. So on our last trip to Hong Kong, we bought a fair amount of chocolate, plus I hauled back a laser printer, which I really appreciate having.

Many of the expats who live here do so with visas that expire after 30, 60, or 90 days. If you are here on a 30-day visa, the trip to Hong Kong becomes very much a hassle. It’s not that traveling to Hong Kong is all that expensive — a berth on a sleeper bus costs just over $50 for a round-trip ticket — but just the hassle of going back and forth every month gets old very fast.

All in all it is quite enjoyable living here. The locals are friendly, and many of them speak a little bit of English. Even if they don’t, they try their best to communicate with us. And the setting of our little town (by Chinese standards) is outstandingly beautiful. The karst hills rise up all around us, a proliferation of shapes and geometry.

I arrived in Taiwan on my 23^rd birthday, with a degree in East Asian Studies and three years of Chinese language study under my belt. I remember my first day of Chinese language study at the University of Minnesota. There were 60 students that had signed up for 1^st year Chinese. It was grueling, though, and by the time Year 2 rolled around, there was just myself and one other person left from that initial group of 60. I wasn’t all that great at the language, but I was stubborn. And persistent. Sisyphus had nothing on me.

You might wonder why I chose Taiwan over Mainland China? Back then, China was a closed country. We didn’t know it at the time, but the Cultural Revolution had been going on in China for three years at that point, and would continue for another seven years. China was in turmoil, though the truth of the Cultural Revolution would not be known to the world for another 8-10 years.

Upon arriving in Taiwan, the first thing I discovered was that I couldn’t speak Chinese, or at least not very well. All my persistence had not made me fluent in spoken Chinese. Today schools in the US emphasize spoken Chinese (in part because it is vastly easier to learn than written Chinese), but when I started studying the language in 1966, there was little emphasis on spoken Chinese because, as I say, you couldn’t go to China anyway. So the emphasis was on written Chinese, both the modern vernacular, and classical Chinese, two quite different languages. So when I showed up in Taiwan, what came out of my mouth was a mixture of modern and classical Chinese, which was very confusing to my students and fellow teachers. And amusing, I am sure, but because they didn’t want me to ‘lose face,’ they were careful not to laugh out loud at my pathetic attempts to speak Chinese.

Still, I adjusted, and for those three years I had a Chinese language tutor for 10-15 hours each week, and we did our best to scrub out all that classical Chinese vocabulary I had floating around in my brain.

At the girls school, it seemed like any time we ventured into subject areas where there was some disagreement over the facts or interpretation of events, that my students would throw back into my face the fact that Chinese culture and history had been around for 5,000 years, and how could the opinions of a mere American stack up against that? I mean, this 5,000 years of history crap just was rolled out over and over again to win arguments. I grew very tired of hearing about the wonders of the 5,000 years of Chinese history.

Shennong, the inventor of agriculture

Because, you know what? It’s a bogus claim. Written Chinese goes back to about 1200 BC, and if you do the math that works out to about 3,300 years of recorded history. Before that, stories tell of the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC to 1150 BC), and before the Shang, the Xia Dynasty (2100 BC to 1600 BC). Before the Xia Dynasty, was the time of the legendary Five Emperors, mythical heroes who supposedly ruled from 3500 BC until the Xia Dynasty. And that gives us 5,000+ years of Chinese history, but only if you believe the stories.

The stories, not unlike The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, may have some basis in truth, but absent a written record of these times are very hard to prove one way or the other. Suffice it to say, though, that the cultural concept of 5,000 years of continuous Chinese culture and civilization is alive and well in China. Amidst all the trials and tribulations of the last century in China, a time of incredible suffering, wrenching changes, wars, famines, natural disasters, dictatorial rule, and all the rest, the Chinese people could always find strength in their own historical and cultural lineage.

And what is happening today in China, the emergence of China as a legitimate global power, premised not on military might, but more so as an economic powerhouse and a revitalization of intellectual and creative energy, validates everything that the Chinese have always believed about themselves – that their culture and their very Chinese-ness is superior to other cultures and peoples. (Yes, the Chinese can be as culturally xenophobic as the rest of us.) The world may marvel at the rate of growth in China over the last two decades; the Chinese more than anything simply feel validation in their certainty of who they are culturally and historically. I mean, who else on the world stage today can claim to have 5,000 years of history backing them up?

Chiang & Mao

For people under the age of 50, Chiang Kai-shek may not be a big name, but for those of us who went to school in the 1950s and 60s, Chiang was well known as the leader of Free China on the island of Taiwan, where the Nationalists fled when Mao Tse-tung triumphed on the Chinese mainland in 1949. Granted Taiwan wasn’t quite free as we understand the term – the island was under military law for decades, and that was still the case when we lived there, 20 years after Chiang’s flight from the mainland. Chiang lived the rest of his life on Taiwan until his death at age 87 in 1975.

From1969 to 1972 my wife and I lived in Taiwan, teaching English as a foreign language at a girls high school. The principal of our school was a woman who had been one of Soong Mai-ling’s personal secretaries. Soong was Chiang’s wife. In 1972, Principal Chen invited us to attend Christmas Eve services at Chiang’s private chapel on the grounds of his residence – which was only about 2 miles from the girls school. Chiang was a Christian, a Methodist, and I suppose that’s why we were invited to attend the service (the girls school had been founded by the Methodist church).

I remember that the chapel was quite small, holding 50 people or so. In the front sat Chiang and his family, and I particularly remember the great grandchildren who were restless throughout the service. It was all in Chinese, of course, and I’ve never really learned the Chinese vocabulary of the Christian church, so my mind was free to roam during the service.

Though seemingly a footnote to history today, Chiang played a prominent role in China during the 1930s and 40s, and even on the world stage during World War II. In fact, during these years the primary enemy was not Mao Tse-tung but rather the Japanese. Even today there is no great love or respect for Japan within China. We think of the war with Japan starting in 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor. For China, the war started a full decade earlier in 1931 with the Mukden Incident, which resulted in Japan acquiring part of Manchuria as a puppet state.

Granted, the Nationalists led by Chiang and the Communists led by Mao did tussle over the hearts and minds of the Chinese people, but they also occasionally banded together to fight the Japanese invaders.

By the end of World War II, however, Chiang’s position had been considerably weakened from years of attrition as the result of more than 15 years of fighting the Japanese, plus military aid from the United States dried up once the Japanese were defeated. And finally in December of 1949 Chiang and his army, along with their families, were forced to re-locate to the island of Taiwan, where even today the Chinese on Taiwan resist overtures from Beijing to re-unite with China.

Chiang may not have been a great world leader, though for a couple of decades he was an important player in the most populous country on earth, and that is something. So for a farm kid from Minnesota to meet Chiang Kai-shek in 1972 was no small event in my life. At the end of the service, the Chiang family left the chapel first. Now I say I met Chiang…..what that amounted to was as he walked out of the chapel he turned to each row of guests, made eye contact, and nodded to us. We, of course, bowed much more deeply, as protocol required. Still, he was no more than 5 feet away from me, and in traditional China, exchanging bows is the equivalent of shaking hands here in the West.

So yeah, I did meet Chiang Kai-shek, and a few years later that exchange of bows with Chiang got me a cushy job at the University of Minnesota, which led to the President of the University pushing me to attend law school, and I guess the rest is history.

Some say it’s a spatial thing to do with writing characters, others say it’s just a recent fad started by bored tour guides; me – I blame the Opium Wars and heavy doses of substances that were never intended for human consumption. The fact is more rocks in China bear a name than anywhere else in the world – and sometimes those names are just plain crazy.

The subject first began to fascinate me after the umpteenth boat trip up a tributary of the Yangtse known as the Lesser Three Gorges. I rarely listened to the guides but one feature always baffled me: Horse Returning To Mountain. It barely made sense.

Enlightenment eventually came in the form of an enlightened passenger exclaiming, “I can see it”. In the absence of a bright light, UFO, god or other reason for such a declaration I had to deduce that he’d worked out the link between the bit of cliff and the title. Simple really – Two stalactites of about equal length were considered legs, with a shorter one between being the tail. It was a horse returning into the cliff. It perhaps begged other questions but satisfied that particular craving for knowledge … entirely.

Once you start looking (or more to the point, listening) these names begin to stand out:

Rhinoceros Looking at the Moon, another Yangtze special, with its own heavenly legend. Rhino god screws up message delivery and is denied entrance back to heaven (the moon). He can only gaze sadly up at paradise lost.

1,000 Year Old Ganoderma, in Shihlin Stone Forest (one of the densest clusters of named rocks, anywhere). To save time I’ll let you in on the secret. A Ganoderma is a kind of fungus. So why didn’t they call it Stone Mushroom?

The Painted Hill of Nine Horses, a scene from the Li River Cruise where you are doing well to spot one equine figure, and have no hope of agreeing on another eight with anyone sane. Perhaps a good test.

Photographers probably look for a little more sophistication in their compositions but, still, this aspect of Chinese culture could offer opportunities for those willing to deal with ridicule. I’m not suggesting that any one trip should be set up to capture a large number of these features but when a classic is within range then why not make it a test piece? Everyone should be able to produce their own interpretation.

Dog rock, Kuqa, Silk Road

Here is my own feeble shot of The Holy Dog Guarded Valley in Kuqa Grand Canyon, Xinjiang Province*.

The challenge, if you’re up for it, is to do better with this particular trick of the light or to work magic on your own discovery elsewhere in China.

At the time this was taken purely as a record with no intention of using it for a higher purpose.  I think it epitomises the genre:

- Something with only an approximate resemblance to a familiar shape;

- Discernable only from a very limited angle; and

- Given a title much too grand for such a fluke.

* Relevant Trip: Aug 29 – Sept 10 – Silk Road Today

Google Earth Co-ordinates: 42°06’24.06”N 83°03’25.43”E – (for anyone who wants to look at more Panoramio shots from this site)

Note: A big thanks to Ian Ford from Yangshuo, China, for this blog post. Ian is our lead agent in China who puts our China itineraries together.

The subject first began to fascinate me after the umpteenth boat trip up a tributary of the Yangtse known as the Lesser Three Gorges. I rarely listened to the guides but one feature always baffled me: Horse Returning To Mountain. It barely made sense.

Enlightenment eventually came in the form of an enlightened passenger exclaiming, “I can see it”. In the absence of a bright light, UFO, god or other reason for such a declaration I had to deduce that he’d worked out the link between the bit of cliff and the title. Simple really – Two stalactites of about equal length were considered legs, with a shorter one between being the tail. It was a horse returning into the cliff. It perhaps begged other questions but satisfied that particular craving for knowledge … entirely.

Once you start looking (or more to the point, listening) these names begin to stand out:

Rhinoceros Looking at the Moon, another Yangtze special, with its own heavenly legend. Rhino god screws up message delivery and is denied entrance back to heaven (the moon). He can only gaze sadly up at paradise lost.

1,000 Year Old Ganoderma, in Shihlin Stone Forest (one of the densest clusters of named rocks, anywhere). To save time I’ll let you in on the secret. A Ganoderma is a kind of fungus. So why didn’t they call it Stone Mushroom?

The Painted Hill of Nine Horses, a scene from the Li River Cruise where you are doing well to spot one equine figure, and have no hope of agreeing on another eight with anyone sane. Perhaps a good test.

Photographers probably look for a little more sophistication in their compositions but, still, this aspect of Chinese culture could offer opportunities for those willing to deal with ridicule. I’m not suggesting that any one trip should be set up to capture a large number of these features but when a classic is within range then why not make it a test piece? Everyone should be able to produce their own interpretation.

Dog rock, Kuqa, Silk Road

Here is my own feeble shot of The Holy Dog Guarded Valley in Kuqa Grand Canyon, Xinjiang Province*.

The challenge, if you’re up for it, is to do better with this particular trick of the light or to work magic on your own discovery elsewhere in China.

At the time this was taken purely as a record with no intention of using it for a higher purpose.  I think it epitomises the genre:

- Something with only an approximate resemblance to a familiar shape;

- Discernable only from a very limited angle; and

- Given a title much too grand for such a fluke.

* Relevant Trip: Aug 29 – Sept 10 – Silk Road Today

Google Earth Co-ordinates: 42°06’24.06”N 83°03’25.43”E – (for anyone who wants to look at more Panoramio shots from this site)

Note: A big thanks to Ian Ford from Yangshuo, China, for this blog post. Ian is our lead agent in China who puts our itineraries together.

Why offer these two parallel experiences? We realize that for many people, a visit to China may well be a once-in-a-lifetime trip. For a photographer to do that trip on his or her own and leaving a spouse or partner at home, seems a shame. We find we can price the companion’s trip at about half that of what we charge the photographer. There are two reasons for that price break — one is that each photographer is provided with his or her own room, so if a companion comes along, the room is already paid for. More significantly, only the photographers pay for the services of the Guest Artist, which adds significantly to their cost.

Another reason for providing a separate itinerary for a companions group is that while the photographers may well think that getting up before dawn and driving half an hour to be in place to catch the predawn light and sunrise, most companions would very likely much rather sleep in. And when the photographers get back from their morning shoot, they probably would like to rest a bit, have a snack, maybe do some photo editing on their laptops…..at about the time their companions are ready to do some of their own sightseeing, visit a local market or temple, or perhaps spend the day at a cooking or painting class.

If you go to any of our tour pages and take a look at the bottom of the page, you will see a button for “Companion Itinerary Details.” Click that open and you will see a list of daily activities for the companions group that is quite complete and interesting, and quite apart from the intense photo sessions that the photographers group is involved in. Providing parallel tracks of activities means that a photographer from time to time may “play hooky” from the photographers group, and join the companion group for a day if something on that schedule looks particularly interesting. These parallel activities give our attendees a lot of flexibility.

It is important to emphasize, however, that the primarily focus of our tours is geared to the photographers. If we operated strictly sightseeing tours, we would spend less time in each destination, and try and see more areas of China on each trip. Also, we really don’t have a companion-only option on our trips. Our customers are either photographers traveling alone, or photographers who bring along a companion, or possibly two companions.

If two non-photographers really wanted to participate in a tour, that would be subject to space availability, and an arrangement that our office would have to consider prior to approval.