I have been on vacation for the past week in relatively remote parts of China. Our itinerary took us to Dali, Lijiang, Leaping Tiger Gorge, Shangri-La and finally Chengdu. Here are some of the highlights:
1. The Impact of the Cultural Revolution is Still Manifest — During a walk through a small village of the Bai ethnic minority (55 ethnic groups in China), we came upon a small Buddhist shrine. As we looked at the paintings, we noticed that the eyes of every religious figure had been poked out, as if to render them sightless. At a Buddhist shrine of 19 buildings in Dali, there has been a twenty five year rebuilding process to restore the shrines that were torched by the Red Guards in the 60s. In the Jian Jianchuan museum in Chengdu, there is a touching memorial to an actor from the 40s and 50s who was hounded by the Red Guards and took his own life in 1969.
2. One Belt One Road — The construction projects are everywhere. A bridge is being built over Leaping Tiger Gorge to cut transit time for freight and trucks, which now have to wind perilously at the river’s edge around close corners (the ride down the hill from Leaping Tiger Gorge on a one lane road in a mini van was not for the faint of heart).
3. Taiwan — The Trump team signed a bill while I was in China that allows American politicians to go to Taiwan as if it were a country in normal relations with the U.S. This is the third rail for China. On an historical museum visit, it was pointed out that Taiwan was seized by the Japanese after the Sino-Japan war in 1895 then came back to China in 1945 at the conclusion of the war. The Nationalist’s illegal seizure of Taiwan is simply a temporary inconvenience. There will be an absorption of Taiwan in the coming years as a matter of right. They do give credit to Chiang Kai Shek for fighting hard against the Japanese invader in the period from 1937-45, with 30,000 battles and 4 million Chinese dead versus 1 million Japanese dead.
4. Sichuan Province — Who knew that Chengdu was a city of 14 million people and the site of the large Apple manufacturing facility producing iPads and iPhones. They love former Apple CEO Steve Jobs so much that a picture of him with a panda on his shoulder is over the bar at the Panda Café in the Panda Sanctuary. The Global Center in Chengdu is of a scale reminiscent of the Mall of America, with hundreds of shops carrying American, Chinese and all other kinds of brands.
5. Tariffs — The measured Chinese reaction to the American tariffs indicates a desire to negotiate, not escalate. The options on the table include a bigger effort to buy American (more Boeing planes for example), a liberating of the car companies from the mandate to partner with a Chinese manufacturer in order to gain access to the market, and lifting of prohibition on service providers in insurance, banking and professional services.
6. Lijiang, Party City — If you closed your eyes you could have been in Miami, Ibiza or Amsterdam. The twenty somethings in the clubs were drinking, spinning around madly to techno music, and utterly oblivious to the gawkers on the street. Unesco did a fabulous job of maintaining the integrity of the city core, with buildings restored to their original 1600s splendor. We were swept up into a mad dance scene in the local square, with three circles of mostly women doing intricate but clearly long-established steps (Chinese version of the Hora).
7. The Jade Snow Mountain and Leaping Tiger Gorge — For the first, there is a cable car that drops you five hundred feet from the summit (4000 meters up). The intrepid couple pounded our way up with a few stops for breath and came to the top to see an exposed glacier, definitely the worse for wear from climate change. On the way down, we had lunch at the tram, a hot pot with yak meat which was delicious. No such help from a tram at Leaping Tiger Gorge, just four hours up, with the locals holding donkeys if you need an easier way. There are 28 twists and turns in the path, with the sound of the Yangtze gurgling to your right. Finally, you reach the summit, sweaty and breathless, then proceed to a local village Tea and Horse inn for beers and photos of the mountains. The next morning, we did yoga with Korean women to welcome the sun in near zero temperature.
8. Tibetan Monastery Songzangling — Shangri-La is dominated by the Tibetan monastery, an immense structure that sits over the town. Built 500 years ago, the shrine is still active, with dozens of red-clothed monks of all ages chanting from their holy books (one was using an iPad). The Buddhas were of the past, of the future and of the present. There were pictures of the local Dalai Lama and his predecessors. This town used to be part of Tibet but was absorbed in the 1950s by China, in part as a reaction to perceived efforts by the Dalai Lama to seek independence through intervention of foreign forces from Japan and the UK in the time of Chinese weakness. As an avowed skeptic, I had a profound experience in this monastery, sat for 15 minutes and performed some of the chants. I am not changing religions as a result, but it was fun to try.
9. The Role of Minorities — We saw three groups, including the Bai, the Yi and the Dawang. Each has its traditional towns. The legends persist; the Yi were always strong enough to conquer the Tibetans. They are much happier under the People’s Republic than in prior times when the Han majority treated them as inferiors. There are periodic conflicts; the central Government refuses to allow one traditional people to continue to cut down trees for housing because of fears of erosion and deforestation, preferring to give them subsidies, which our guide contends then allows the locals to go to the local liquor store to binge drink alcohol.
10. The Ambition of the Smaller Cities — There are 40 cities of over one million people in China. Dali, at the far expanse of the country, has a substantial convention center and the Olympic swimming training center for the Chinese team. The city government was the one to rebuild the Buddhist structures burned by the Red Guards.
It was a spectacular trip. I got to see rural China, with a Sherpa guiding his goats from pasture into barn. I learned how to make a Sichuan lunch with Kung Pao Chicken. I was swarmed by Chinese students eager to talk about the NBA and America at a local museum of food. It is all very much about family, with countless instances of parents and their young children exploring and observing the pandas and butterflies.
For China, history is never far from the present.
Richard Edelman is president and CEO.