Black Dragon Cafe

Available in all good Yunnan supermarkets.

This is HAMS beer. HAMS stands for “Hormone About Man in Society of business”. It has something to do with Asahi (Japanese makers of “Super Dry”).

Links: Asahi Breweries (a taster: “Once Asahi yeast strain No. 318 was chosen, our next step was to choose ingredients and decide on manufacturing processes that were suitable for the bioactivities of No. 318″. Nice.)

Coffee Cola. It tastes far worse than it sounds.

Tree-Hugging Humvees

Besides the taxi driver’s favourite of a VW Santana and the proliferation of China’s own brand cheep-and-cheerful cars (like the QQ), it’s hard not to notice that Yunnan roads are knee deep in SUVs (with the occasional Humvee thrown in). As in the West, the most vigorous challenge that most of these all-terrain vehicles will see is a multi-storey car park.

However, the Yunnan SUV may not be the tree-huggers’ bane for much longer if Yunnan’s biodiesel plan works out. It seems that 25,000 hectares of land are to be planted with jatropha curcas trees (also known as the “Black vomit nut“, please don’t eat it) which can be used to make automotive fuel.

According to Wikipedia, biodiesel seems like great stuff: As a fuel, pretty much the same performance as petro-diesel, but without the nasty emissions. And diesel engines require little or no modification to use it.

However, there are several drawbacks. It turns to jelly below 4.4 degrees centigrade (40 F), and it is “hydrophilic” (bonds with water?), and that’s bad… Water in the biodiesel means more smoke, harder starting, less power, corrosion of vital fuel system components and other unhelpful effects.

From the Shanghai Daily article:

The province still has four million hectares of barren hills, 1.2 million hectares of which are located in the dry and warm valleys of the Jinsha, Lancang and Honghe rivers, where jatropha curcas trees can grow well.

Yunnan began planting jatropha curcas trees, originally native to America, in the 1980s and has conducted research on extracting oil from the trees ever since.

Zhang Wudi, head of the bio-fuel research lab of Yunnan Province, said that they have mastered the techniques of extracting the bio-diesel…

Cost of such diesel oil can reach 5.4 yuan (US$0.67) per kilogram and its market price could be even higher, said Zhang. Currently the price of petrochemical diesel oil is only about 4.3 yuan.

The price of petrol is currently over RMB 5 and rumored to rise to RMB 8, diesel is also on the rise, so Black Vomit Nut fuel could look attractive pretty soon. In a few years time SUV drivers could be the pioneers in environmentally friendly driving.

Source: Shanghai Daily [English]

God help them.

The European tour starts in September, then Yang Liping will be performing – she rarely appears in the Yunnan performances herself anymore (there were a few days this month, but that was a rare exception). If you want to get tickets for the Kunming show call: +86-871-3134218.

Photo from CRI English

Source: ["River Dance"]CRI English
Dynamic Yunnan 云南映像yun2 nan2 ying4 xiang4

From a shop in Little Dragon Jewelry Bird and Flower Market in Kunming (take bus 69, it’s right across from Kunming University of Science and Technology ). Click on the image below to see a larger version.

Signs in Kunming Bird and Flower Market

Barbecued scorpions. The stings have been removed. Allegedly make you more virile.

Being just about an hours drive from Kunming, Fuxian Lake has become a weekend getaway for the moneyed of Kunming, who roll up in their Santanas and SUVs for a weekend of swimming, beach barbecues, and all night cards or mahjong. The place has a real family feel about it though, not the usual seedy karaoke bars that you see in Chinese tourist spots.

The decidedly dilapidated mud-house fishing village (in contrast to the shiny tourist buildings of Luchong [禄充]) is worth a walk around.

Of Yunnan’s nine great lakes Fuxian is one (of only two) that is not polluted, it’s crystal clear and even big fish can be seen from the bank. Banyan trees line the lake, some of which judging by their size must be centuries old, and there are cactuses so ancient they have become trees.

The exploration of an underwater town, first discovered in 1992, was given official backing and a full-scale investigation this June.

Local amateur diver Geng Wei discovered the town in Fuxian Lake (in Chengjiang county , Yuxi prefecture , 60 kilometres from Kunming), a lake formed by a geological fault and covering 216.6 square kilometres. In June 2006 the China Underwater Archaeology Team made its first exploration, and confirmed the discovery of the mysterious city. Among the finds so far recovered are stone slabs embellished with carvings and ceramic cauldrons.

Story translated from Xinhua [Chinese]. It appeared on 17 June. Later this China Radio International story [English] added a lot more detail.

That venture was broadcast live by China Central Television (CCTV ), and divers found a stone wall and a shard of pottery.

The shard was later proved to date back to the Han Dynasty (BC 206BC-AD220), leading local archaeologists to believe the underwater relics were at least 1,800 years old. Some of them even assumed that what was actually beneath the water was Yuyuan, an ancient city that disappeared mysteriously from historical documents.

Old books have shown that there was once a city called Yuyuan to the north of Fuxian Lake, which was never mentioned after the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-581AD)…

[The finding of sun patterns on the rock, instead of Chinese characters, mean] the age of the relics could be about 4,000 years old. [The article later notes that Yunnan was not until recently a Han Chinese area].

But, the scientist was still puzzled by his own conclusion, as “there is little possibility that people 4,000 years ago could build such large stone constructions.”

The underwater building relics, as sonar detected, scatter in an area of 2.4 square kilometres, more than double the size of the city of Pompeii…

The People’s Daily: War heroine nursed secret for decades [in English]

The story of Rita Wong, the only Chinese nurse at the hospital for the Flying Tigers. She only wrote down her story after her husband’s death in 2002 at the age of 90.

The crab pancakes are deep fried so the shells become brittle enough that you can eat the whole thing. Though they’ve been described as “like eating your own teeth” I kind of liked them, more like a really intense prawn cracker.

Mandarin:
Crab cakes 土豆螃蟹饼 tu3 dou4 pang2 xie4 bing3
Yunnan dialect:
Crab cakes 螃蟹粑粑 pan4 hair4 ba1 ba1

Before…

and after…

A photography exhibition is being held in Beijing where the 101 photographs were all taken by five Yunnan farmers, none of whom had ever picked up a camera before. The photos are of the world around them, the rice paddies and rural communities where they live and work. The event was organized by Greenpeace, who gave each of the farmers a simple Japanese Contax T3 camera.

The above photo reflects “the many connections between the water buffalo and the people who farm rice. The Dai people living beside the Yuanjiang river sow two seasons per year, after the late harvest is gathered in October the soil needs to be ploughed three times, and the water buffalo is a vital help. For many peoples who cultivate rice, the first bowl of the harvest is given to the animal.”

“There is no reason that the people who invented the miracle of rice paddy cultivation should go hungry,” says Li Zikang.

The Chinese language story can be found at Science Times, and in English from Greenpeace’ own website.