Impression of Li Jiang

A visit to Li Jiang will not be complete without watching the performance of 'Impression of Li Jiang' put up by the 13 minority ethnic groups of Yunnan. The show is performance with the Jade Dragon Snow Hill as the background. The open air show was realling fantastic as you got to see 300 men on horses when they appeared together. Three of the performers were even able to ride standing on the horses.

The performance was trying to depict the daily activities of the minority ethnic people here. You can see them horse-riding, getting agricultural produce with the bags on the back of girls. There was even a scene ofn drinking wine as a gesture to welcome the guests. On the whole, the 50-minute show was interesting from the beginning to the end.

With my camera with limited functions, I was not able to catch a panoramic view of the performace but fractions by fractions as can be seen from the photos shown below.

Mackintosh-clad audience 1

Mackintosh-clad audience 2

Men on horses

Men acting as horse-riders 1

Men acting as horse-riders 2

Men acting as horse-riders 3

Men acting as horse-riders 4

Men acting as horse-riders 5

Men acting as horse-riders 6

Men acting as feast participants

Can you see water falling down the wall as artificial waterful for the show?

The Jade Dragon Snow Hill as the background of the gigantic stage

Notice the back portion of the traditional dress of the Naxian tourist guide

One of the performers singing her way to the stage

Another performer passing in front of our gallery seats

Let us dance together 1

Let us dance together 2

Let us dance together 3


Let us dance together 4

Let us dance together 5

Let us dance together 6

Let us dance together 7

Let us dance together 8

Let us dance together 9

Let us dance together 10

Let us dance togeter 11

Let us dance together 12

The audience as they left the performance site

Pearly sprout

I would like to share an interesting thing about nature in this post. When I was in Li Jiang, Yunnan, I marvelled at a water source called Pearl River Source (Zhen Chu Quan). It was so named because, when we clap our hands above the water surface, pearly droplets of water will sprout from the crystal-clear river bed. I have never seen a river such as this before. According to the Naxian tourist guide, the water is alkaline and the local people who drink this water will stay slim. What a way to be slim economically! This must be good news for ladies and lasses.

This river source is named 'Zhen Chu Quan'

Pearly drops of water will sprout from the river bed when hands are clapped

Dark skin and ultraviolet ray

Among the places I visited when I was in Yunnan was Li Jiang - home of the Naxis, one of the minorities there. Most of them look dark. The tourist guide then explained why they looked dark.
As they live in a place 2400 meters above sea-level, the sun's rays take a shorter distance to reach their bodies, thereby darkening their skins through the ultraviolet rays.

The Naxian girl would like to be fat as it is considered beautiful. In fact, all Naxian girls call themselves 'Pang Jin Mei' or Fatty Sister and all men are called 'Pang Jin Ge' or Fatty Brother.

I felt quite hot even though the temperature was 6 degrees when the sun was out. It must the heat that does the work of darkening the Naxians.

Saying 'Do not step on the grass' in a subtle way

When I was travelling in China recently, I was attracted by the signboard by the side of land with grass. It tells the public in a subtle not to step on the grass. Look at the signboard. I shall explain what the Chinese words mean and the hidden message it tries to convey to you.

The heart-shaped signboard reads "If little legs do not simply run about, the grass will keep smiling.' Through these ten words, we know very well not to step on the grass because the grass will smile to us if we leave the grass intact and not step on it.

This is actually the play of psychology. If you ask a child not to do something, he will just do it to find why he is not allowed to do it. Hence, if you tell a child not to step on the grass, he will just do the opposite. Some adults behave like children too.

Trick of unscrupulous Traders

It was an eye-opener for me when the tourist guide on the bus bound for Hat Yai told us something which we had to be careful about when shopping in the small town in Thailand.

He asked us to watch out for unscrupulous fruit traders. According to him, when we buy fruits the trader will get ready two bags and place them side by side. As you are looking at your purse while taking out the cash to pay him, he will steal the time to take out a number of fruit and put them into the bag beside it all because you are not looking. Hence, he has two suggestions to avoid this cheating. First, ask the trader to wrap up the fruit and you watch him do it. After taking over the packet do you take out the purse and search for money to pay him. Alternatively, you bring a friend along to watch him wrap the fruit. In your friend's presence, he won't do it of course

A wet shopping spree

I just returned from Hai Yai, Thailand one and half hour ago. It was a one day shopping trip but luck was not with us. It was drizzling and raining the whole day through. Hence we missed the small bazaar where petty traders lined the street selling all sorts of goods and food. When we passed by it, most of the traders did not do their business.

The tour leader then took us to Asian Hotel in Trok Sukomthahang to rest and washed our faces. Thereafter it was shopping and massaging on our own. As it was raining, we had to brave the rain visiting the big bazaar looking for things to buy. We went there by a ten-seater 'toot-toot' - a van-like vehicle minus the backdoor.

One of the local products that we bought wsa ring-like threads of sweetened nutmeg which is seldom available in Penang. We also purchased many packets of dried longans, dried cashew-nuts and dried anchovies. Each of us only paid 20 bahts as the fare.

On the way back, we stopped by 'Ta Shen Ya' temple where some of our group members went in to pray. It we stopped by Gurun for dinner before heading home.

It was really a wet shopping spree.

Things put behind you belongs to everybody

When I was on my trip to Beijing, the tourist guide told us to be careful so as not to be the victims of pickpockets. Snatch-theft rarely happens because Chinese laws are very strict about this.

This time my Guilin tourist guide said, "What is put in front of you is yours, what is put by the side is others' and what is put behind you belongs to everybody." He was giving us advice so that pickpockets will not lay their hands on our properties. After his sound advice, I saw shifting of waist-pouches and sling-bags to the front from among fellow tourists in my group.

Talking about safety of tourists' property, I observed that the Chinese police really patrolled the tourist spots regularly. In places like the pedestrian walkway in Canton, a police-constable will be stationed there. I saw one policeman coming to take over the duty of keeping an eye on the crowd from his colleague. In this way, should any occurrence of pocketing take place, it will be dealt with at once. The patrol car will come very soon because it is on the round all the while in predetermined places.

Cute rubbish bins in China

Almost at every tourist spot, I could spot cute rubbish bins such as the one in the photo below. On the front is written in Chinese 'Huan Bao Xiao Wu' or Litte House of Conservation. One little cute girl is looking at you at her open window. By turning a rubbish bin into a cute little house like this, it really helps to raise awareness among the local people and tourists alike to throw their rubbish into it.

When I was in Beijing, I saw women picking up rubbish every now and then at tourist spots. I saw the same thing while in Guilin too. It is a very good job done to keep the places clean all the time. This picking-up-rubbish-as-they-go-around women seem to work all day because I saw them in the morning and bumped into them again at night. No wonder there is hardly any rubbish in tourist spots in China.

Please help to keep the environment clean, will you?

Where bears and tigers are in abundance

During my trip to Guilin, I had a rare chance to stop by an interesting place called Bear and Tiger Mountainvillage. As the name itself suggests there must be bears and tigers here. You are right. There are about 400 bears and 1300 tigers being reared here.

The bears and tigers at his place were originally reared for commercial purposes, that is tigers are killed to make Chinese medicine and the biles of bears are used to produce Chinese medicine too. However, since China joined the world organisation for the protection of wild animals, these animals have been banned from being killed for medicinal purposes. The owner then had a good idea and turned it into a park for tourists to visit so that the income can be used to feed bears and tigers here.

We were entertained to a show by bears and tigers in the ring. Both animals were trained to stand and walk. As for tigers they were trained to jump through a ring of fire too. Then came the show in the field where a parade of bears on their fore legs passed by us gracefully. One bear even rode one a motorcycle on a steel wire high up with his baby bear hanging below it.

I was not able to take photos while being here because my camera's battery went flat after I took too many shots in the Reed Flute Cave earlier in the morning. The photos shown here are from Thum Xinjing, an engineer who was on the same trip with me. With my request he emailed to me all the photos posted here. Hence I would like to thank him through this post. Thank you, Xinjing, for being so kind and helpful.

Posing in front of Bear and Tiger Mountainvillage

I'm sleeping. Leave me alone, will you?


Welcome my friends from abroad.


Stand on your hind legs. This is an order.


See, we can walk on our fore legs.


Don't worry, son. I can make it to the finishing point.

You come rushing, then you go flushing

During my trip to China, we often had to go the washrooms or toilets to ease ourselves. Usually, the washrooms in restaurants are all right but at Sinopec (equivalent to Malaysia's Petronas) petrol stations, the washrooms have no doors. Hence women tourists have to take turns to stand on guard while their friends are answering nature's call. There are occasions when umbrellas will have to be used when there are no toilets around at certain remote places in China. These will form a barricade or shield for the one who needs to pee.

In one of the washrooms I went to, I saw the following poster pinned on the wall.

It reads 'Lai ye cong cong, qu ye chong chong." The word for word translation is 'Come also in a hurry, go also flushing.' However, I will translate the line as 'you come rushing, then you go flushing' for the pun of it but the Chinese translated it as 'Have to hurry, was also chong chong to.' It is horrible English. For one thing, it is grammatically wrong to say 'have to hurry' - a sentence without a subject. 'was also chong chong to' carries no meaning at all because English people will not understand what 'chong chong' means. Worse still it is written in the past tense 'was' and cannot go with 'have to hurry' which has a finite verb 'have' already assuming that the subject is understood to be 'You'. The last word 'to' must be a mistake for 'too'.

To improve on the above, it can be rendered as 'You have to hurry no doubt, but you need to flush too before you leave.'

The final lap of my journey in China

Finally it was the last day of my Guilin trip. Early in the morning we set off for Xi Guan Mansions to witness the quadrangle courtyards with all the rooms meant for different purposes such as for entertaining guests, for cooking, for study and as rooms to sleep in. As no camera was allowed, I could only take a snapshot of white gold fish which I had not seen before outside the mansion.

Then we proceeded to Xing Hu or Star Lake. It is said that the water here is as crystal clear as the water of Li River and the mountains surrounding it are as scenic as those in Guilin. You can judge for yourselves by comparing the photos of the hills in this post and those earlier ones in Guilin. The lake teems with fish and they belong to the state. Anglers who like to take home their catch will have to pay a fee while fishing here.

The next place we went to is the Liurong Temple - named after six big Banyan trees found there. I took a photo of one of them for display here. The pagoda was quite tall too.

Then it was shopping time. We went to the famous Shang Xia Jiu Pedestrian Street located in Liwan District of Guangzhou City. When we reached there, I was surprised to see such a huge crowd. I took many snapshots of the crowd scenes here. It was quite rushing because we had only one and a half hour to shop as we had to board the bus before 4.00 to reach Bai Yun International Airport in order not to miss the 7.15 p.m. flight back to Penang.

It was home sweet home at 11.35p.m.

A rare species of white gold fish


Liurong Temple - a famous temple in Guangzhou


One of the banyan trees in Liurong Temple


Two of the seven hills in Xing Hu


One of the hills seen around Xing Hu


Shopping crowd at Shang Xia Jiu Pedestrian Street


Shopping Crowd 1


Shopping Crowd 2


Shopping Crowd 3


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Shopping Crowd 4

Shopping Crowd 5


Shopping Crowd 6


Shopping Crowd 7


Shopping Crowd 8


Let us eat some food here.


Let us rest here while your mum is shopping.


A Blood Donation Booth right in the city centre - What a good idea!



An artificial waterfall in the city.