Life in the Heart of China: Part One
INTRODUCTION: Why China, And Why Me!

The Mysteries of the Wa

February 10, 2006
Lincang
Region: Yunnan Province

Xiaoli and I are filming the Wa ethnic minority in a remote part of southwest Yunnan, close to the border with Myanmar (also known as Burma). When we rolled into a small Wa village in our red Land Rover, Wa children, like most Chinese children in rural villages, stopped in their tracks as they caught sight of me through the window.

It’s fair to say that this village hasn’t seen many foreigners—with my pinkish skin and reddish brown beard, some of them wanted to reach out and touch me to check I was real.

Wa men have long jet-black hair and the women exotic Burmese faces and beautiful almond shaped eyes. The straw thatched huts of their villages remind you more of Africa than of China.

Given the remoteness of the region, these tribes have lived relatively unchanged for thousands of years. As part of their animist culture, they still practice sacrificial ceremonies -- although they’re no longer the head hunters they’re ancestors used to be -- and many of their traditions are displayed on ancient murals painted in blood and iron on several cliff faces nearby. But with the spread of Buddhism and Christianity their numbers are dwindling. And as China continues to develop, elders are finding it harder to keep the younger generations from leaving for the big city.

The legacy of the Cultural Revolution still hangs over many of the minority groups in China. Terrible punishment was inflicted on those who were caught practicing their faith during the revolution, when all religious practices were banned. Today, many still fear that oppression will return.

There are 55 ethnic minorities in China, and the Wa people are the only ones who don’t have a written language. (Even though an alphabetic script was created for the Wa people in 1957, many tribes don't use it.) Important political, legal and romantic messages are conveyed using small foot-long sticks.

Tribal members communicate by cutting small, but precise slits into these sticks, which they always carry with them. The carvings and the way the sticks are arranged provide a wide, but exact range of meanings, from “I love you” to “I detest you and want to kill you.”

Many Wa villages are teaming with water buffalo, a sacred animal in their culture. Buffalo reliefs are embroidered into men’s jackets, and the skulls of sacrificed animals hang in the houses of the village chiefs and shamans.

Back in the days when humans were sacrificed, the head of a bearded man was considered the ultimate sacrificial offering. Wa shamans believed the growth of a beard would greatly increase crop yields.

The region’s tourism director, Yunjiang He, informs us that Wa women are famous across China for their “great beauty and loose sexuality.” Some of this reputation comes from a ritual they perform, where two women sit on a man’s lap and force-feed him gasoline-strength rice wine. Our driver, Zhongyue Cao, offered to take part as long as we promised not to tell his wife and 12-year-old daughter.

He confided later that the ritual had changed. In the past, the women would feel under your shirt and you were allowed to do the same in return. These women, he said, do not wear bras.

Not surprisingly, this activity has been exploited into a lurid tourist attraction. The ritual we were invited to was still rowdy, with much drinking but little else. Those looking for more are pointed to the nearest city of Nansan, where there are sex parlors and hotels, lit in neon red, catering to the sex trade.

Our driver also told us that in the nearby “Golden Triangle,” where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet, he was once attacked by a group of prostitutes. They carried him down a back alley and proceeded to molest him.

February 17, 2006

Xiaoli and I have been filming the Wa people for a week now. Tonight, for the first time, I ate dog. It was served in a rich, dark-colored stew. I had just gotten my palate prepared to deal when I saw someone root around in the broth for the snout. Finding the orifice, the man chewed it with the delight of finding a rare delicacy.

Dessert wasn’t a whole lot better. We ate fried pregnant wasps that were about four inches long. The food in these parts was proving a little rich for this Ohio boy …

The Yunnan Province is home to a dramatic network of underground caverns. Today, we explored one more than seven-and-a-half miles long and close to 330 feet high. It was pitch-black inside, but our flashlights found deep reddish brown earth and towering stalagmites and stalactites. It was incredible, like walking on Mars during an eclipse. I thought what a great place it would be to shoot a science fiction movie.

I was there to film several families of bats and some large cave crickets. A slick layer of mud coats the floor of the caves and filming inside was quite tricky.

Tourism has become an increasingly lucrative business for China as the country embraces capitalism at 100 miles an hour, and the government is interested in developing the caves for visitors.

I read in the China Knowledge Press that China’s tourism industry was worth US$60 billion in 2005 -- and it’s growing. The World Travel and Tourism Council predicts that by the end of 2006, the sector will employ 10 percent of China’s work force -- some 77 million people.

With the rate of change here, I’m sure unexplored caves like these will soon become rare as government agencies convert the caverns into fully lit spectacles with concrete walkways, underground rest rooms, and full-service restaurants. Another vast cave, at Sigangli in nearby Cangyuan County, is already being developed this way.

We found out that a few of these caverns lead into Myanmar from China and decided to hike through one of them to see what it was like on the other side. It should be noted that the Myanmar side looked identical to the Chinese side.

Police checkpoints were everywhere, searching vehicles for drugs. Even though security was tight, we found numerous spots along the border fence where wide holes had been cut, and like many border crossings, there were plenty of brothels and cheap hotels to choose from.

We leave the Wa village tomorrow. Xiaoli and I are off to spend the next month filming the extremely rare snub-nosed golden monkeys of southern China.

Death on the Road

March 5, 2006
Jianchuan County
Region: Yunnan Province

What follows happened two days ago. Every time I close my eyes, I replay the event in my mind. I’d better just get it out of my system and onto the page.

Driving back from the Burmese border to Shangri-La, we came upon what at first appeared to be a traffic jam in a poor farming town. We got out of our Land Rover to investigate and discovered a grisly traffic accident. A small van in the left lane had collided with a massive dump truck. The people in the dump truck were fine.

Those in the small van, a cheaply made Chinese model, were not so lucky. The driver was a horror. It looked as if someone had peeled back the older man’s face to reveal the muscle and gore underneath. His left eye was obliterated, and his lower torso was smashed into the thickness of a sheet of paper. At first he seemed to be alive, but on closer examination, it was apparent that the twitching was merely severed nerves acting out. Next to him was a young woman who was, perhaps, unlucky to be alive. Her legs were also crushed, and her face had large open cuts from hitting the windshield. She was obviously on her way to bleeding to death. She seemed to drift in and out of consciousness and would yell out, “Hurry, get me out. Please help me.” She didn’t seem to be affected by the sight of her dead companion

A crowd had gathered around the smashed van. Most Chinese men were carelessly smoking cigarettes around the wreckage. We saw puddles of leaked gasoline on the ground and quickly backed up our vehicle.

Police arrived, but they had no equipment to cope with the wreckage. The crowd managed to pull the broken bodies into the street, using crowbars and their bare hands. It was about 45 minutes before the ambulance got there.

The driver of the van had a half-empty bottle of Chinese rice alcohol in his pocket. Locals recognized him as a drunk. So it seems perhaps his fate was destined. The female passenger probably did not survive, though at this point we have no way of knowing for sure. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop and follow her to the hospital. We had to continue to Shangri-La. I can still see her when I close my eyes.

I describe this scene because such is life on the highways in a country with the highest number of accident-related fatalities in the world. According to research conducted at the medical school of Jinan University, in Guangzhou , the death rate in China per 10,000 people is eight times higher than in America, where there are far more vehicles on the road.

Now I always wear my seatbelt.

The Mighty Mastiffs

April 18, 2006
Deqin County
Region: Yunnan Province

I am writing this from a mastiff kennel high up the village of Gujiu, close to Tibet in western China. When I say high up, altitudes in the region range between 12,000 and 17,000 feet, and it’s home to many Tibetans. We’re here to make a film about the Chinese mastiff, which is under threat. There are 14 adult dogs and three newborn puppies at the center.

The mastiff is perhaps China’s oldest breed of dog. Tibetan nomads used them to guard livestock because of their ability to endure the harsh Tibetan climate and because of their fierce temperament. The dogs were used to fight off wolves and snow leopards, and unscrupulous thieves and poachers.

Fewer than 100 purebred mastiffs remain in the world today, according to a recent story in the People's Daily Online, over the years, breeders have mixed the dogs with other breeds to create a more docile mastiff. Purists feel this has ruined the mastiff’s unique traits.

Wong How Man, from CERS, is trying to reverse this trend. The dogs have been brought to the center from high plateaus across Tibet. How Man wanted only the best mastiffs the region had to offer.

A true mastiff has a big head, nearly twice the size of a human’s, and the males grow what appears to be a full lion’s mane in the winter. Genuine mastiffs also have an extra toe on their hind paws, a feature that time has yet to evolve away.

It took a superhuman effort to transport these huge and unruly animals on a weeklong drive from Tibet to the center here in Gujiu Village. During the journey, the dogs bit several Tibetan handlers, and many became ill, as they were not accustomed to riding in bumpy vehicles at lower altitudes.

How Man hopes to breed enough mastiffs to replenish the population in Gujiu. He will give one purebred mastiff to each family in the village. But they are not allowed to sell them to a breeder.

April 20, 2006

Today, an enormous and vicious mastiff lunged for my throat. The animal had choked himself violently pulling at his metal leash until it snapped in two. With that, he shot at me like a bat out of Hell, clearly after blood. His jaw was a mere 12 inches from my neck.

The foaming beast, named Renruo, had already bitten Bainiu, his caretaker, three times. Bainiu finally grabbed the beast by the fur, but was bitten again on the hand and had to let go. In that split second, the dog went for Xiaoli and me. We ran for our lives and barricaded ourselves behind the door of our lodging.

For some reason, we brought out the fury in Renruo.

I must say I have to respect a dog that wants to kill me. He has become my favorite of the dogs here.

He was given to CERS by Zum Kang Tashe, a direct descendant of the seventh Dalai Lama. Most people just call him the Rinpoche, (“Living Buddha”) for short. He’s a rebellious soul and is protected by his status as a high-ranking religious figure. He is also a devoted animal lover and activist who likes to visit and pet every mastiff, even the vicious ones.

While visiting the center, the Rinpoche, who lives in Sichuan Province, told us about a controversial event he had organized the previous month. He had summoned people from his hometown to burn thousands of rare and endangered animal furs. The Dalai Lama had already ordered Buddhists to stop buying furs, but he hadn’t ordered the furs to be destroyed.

The Rinpoche took his directive one stage further bringing nearly 30,000 Buddhists together to burn tiger and leopard skins, mink stoles, and other rarities. The massive bonfire literally burned green as thousands of furs went up in flames.

Furious over his actions, the Chinese government sent officials to threaten him with imprisonment. “Go ahead,” the Rinpoche replied, and the government thought twice about throwing a descendant of the Dalai Lama in jail.

We spent a few days with the Rinpoche and interviewed him for our film. He later showed us a homemade DVD he shot of the furs going up in flames.

For more information on the fur burning, visit this link (the site is one of thousands blocked by the Chinese government, so I can’t access it myself): http://www.dalailama.com/news.30.htm

The Last of the Hunters

April 22, 2006

I want to backtrack a little and mention that before arriving at the mastiff center, Xiaoli and I spent a month at a rural Lisu tribal village in Yunnan Province , inside the beautiful White Horse Snow Mountain Nature Reserve. It felt very remote -- no phones, no Internet, no toilets.

We were shooting a documentary about the relationship between the endangered Yunnan snub-nosed golden monkey and the equally endangered Lisu hill tribe people. There are only 1,500 golden monkeys in the world, most living in the Yunnan Province in southern China. This affords them Class One Protection status in China.

Like the monkeys, the Lisu hill tribe is under threat – not in numbers but in their way of life and ancient hunting traditions. As outsiders encroach upon their world, many of the Lisu have started to assimilate, adopting more of the traditions of Tibetans and Han Chinese. The first thing I noticed about the tribe is how short they are -- about four inches shorter than your average Han Chinese.

With so much of their identity linked to their role as hunters, they've become pale reflections of their former selves. Yet, even without the ban, they never hunted the golden monkeys, whom they believe to be their ancestors. The tribal elders told us the legend of the young Lisu boy who gets hopelessly lost on the mountain. Soon white hair begins to grow all over his small body. His clothing rots away from exposure to the elements. The little boy is afraid to leave the mountain, as he fears the Lisu will no longer accept him. He has become a snub-nosed golden monkey.

The Lisu now survive by collecting highly prized morel mushrooms on the mountain and honey from beehives they keep near their houses. Three pounds of the dried morel mushrooms go for nearly US$100. Lisu men also make extra money by working as rangers in the White Horse Snow Mountain Nature Reserve protecting the golden monkeys from wild dogs and poachers.

Although the golden monkeys are matriarchal and generally relatively peaceful, we caught on film a rare fight sequence between two adult males. They would furiously slap each other for about 10 seconds and bound away, then return to repeat the performance. Later, we saw the energetic babies play-fight with one another, imitating the adults.

The chief of the Lisu village, Yu Xuelang, has a wonderful sense of humor, and at 54, the energy of a teenager. He accompanied us every day into the jungle to film the elusive creatures.

During our time with the Lisu, Xiaoli and I slept in a traditional log cabin that had a single shower. The shower was broken half the time, and the cabin became infested with fleas. (For some reason, the tiny insects did not bite me, but they loved Xiaoli, leaving huge, red, itchy welts all over her body.) We were happy to leave that cabin.

Despite the living conditions, the Lisu village is astonishingly beautiful, with snowy mountain peaks and lush green jungle surrounding it. It’s my favorite of the CERS protected sites.

Next we are off to Xinjiang Province, an Islamic area in the far west of China, to film the hatching process of the black-neck cranes inside the Arjin Mountain Nature Reserve.

This high-altitude reserve will be a true test of our stamina, as living and working there is extremely difficult. We will also be traveling through some of the most polluted landscapes in China.