Black Dragon Cafe

In Haiyan village southwest of Dianchi lake, Stone Dragon Temple squats on a hillside that looks across the water to the Western Hills.

The first temple on the site was built in the early Ming dynasty (14th century), with a wooden plaque inscribed in the Chongzhen emperor’s own script, “The pine trees in the wind, the moon reflected in the water”. Rebuilt during the Qing dynasty, it was once a large complex where local magistrates would hold open air feasts taking in the view across the lake.

This painting of Stone Dragon Temple is by Mei Xiaoqing, formerly vice-chairman of the Yunnan Fine Arts Association and now dean of the Kunming Art Academy.

During the anti-Japanese war (1937–45), when Kunming was under threat, the Kunhua provincial high school for girls (an institution of some note) made the temple its temporary home. There were over 1,000 students and several hundred teachers living here. Under headmaster Yang Jiafeng the school was a centre for the new progressive teaching, including printing of the Shanghai based journal Women’s Voice .

In the 1950s the statues and the entrance halls were demolished. During the 1970s’ Study from Dazhai period, the Lake View Pavilion and another temple hall was destroyed and the temple trees cut down to make way for fields of crops. Of the ten inscribed stone tablets (records of major historical events), only one survives. One temple hall was left standing, as were four trees (Cupressus funebris) over a century old. In 1986, it was listed as a protected cultural relic. In 1999 the local village committee spent some money on repairs, and organized 12 village elders to look after the place on a rotation basis.

Now the local government, in conjunction with a large real estate company, is rebuilding the temple from scratch – the existing old buildings will be demolished, though some of the stone carvings and tablets will be saved and replaced in the new building.

Sources:
Background on Stone Dragon Temple

Stone Dragon Temple recent history

Translation:

Quotation from Chairman Mao

Our educational policy must enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist consciousness and culture.

Report

To the parents of Wang Jianfen:

The school’s winter holiday will commence on 18 January, finishing 25 February, 1974. Registration for next semester and tuition fees should be paid on the 26, 27 and 28 of February, and on 1 March classes formally begin. This report is to inform you of the moral, intellectual and physical performance of student Wang Jianfen in Class 10, High School Grade 1 [=16 years old]; during the holiday period please educate, supervise and encourage the student accordingly in her homework, which should be handed in during registration.

Holiday homework: 1, Write a daily diary entry; 2, Choose a maths question from the practise book; 3, comprehensive revision of subjects in which examinations were failed.

No. 1 Middle School, Wenshan Prefecture

18 January, 1974

Yuhuang Pavilion

Yuhuang Pavilion , in Nuodeng village, Yunlong (“Cloud Dragon”) county, Dali prefecture.

Ceiling painting of the 28 Lunar Mansions

At the most critical moment during the Cold War, when the world was about to come the closest it ever had to nuclear disaster, and when China was in the violent throes of the Cultural Revolution, President Fidel Castro decided to make a present to Premier Zhou Enlai of 180 edible Cuban bullfrogs.
(more…)

Paraphrased from the story “Air Cargo Took Off Above The Himalayas” in Air Cargo News:

In early 1942, Burma fell to the Japanese. The overland truck route known as the Burma Road was closed, and so the only way to move oil, av-gas, troops and supplies from India to China was over the Himalaya Mountains. The American Volunteer Group pilots in China (better known as The Flying Tigers) created an aerial lifeline between the Assam Valley and Kunming. The journey over the Himalaya “Hump” was a relatively short but truly hellish 500 mile flight: The run quickly gained the ominous moniker “aluminum alley”…

Images from Air Cargo News.

You’re probably familiar with the Flying Tigers, but the story adds some detail (especially about cargo planes, if that’s your thing). I wasn’t aware, for example, that it was the first large-scale air cargo movement in history (I guess aircraft hadn’t been around that long). Also from the article:

The actual Flying Tigers (run by Claire Chennault) were volunteers flying Tomahawk fighter planes in support of Chiang Kaishek – their job was to protect the Burma Road while it was still in use. They were disbanded in 1942, but the name is often broadly applied to the American air force in China during World War 2 (that’s why the cargo planes in the above article are also referred to as Flying Tigers).

There is a 1942 Hollywood war film about the (Chennault) Flying Tigers that stars John Wayne. It seems a little bizarre to me that John Wayne and Yunnan should have any connection, and it is as far as I know the last time that Hollywood looked this way.

Nominated for three Oscars, the film looks dated now and the dialogue is painful. Outdoor shots were filmed in Santa Fe, New Mexico (because of the clouds and exotic landscape). Tagline: STRONG Brave Men Flying In The Face Of Death That We May LIVE

Links: answers.com page on Flying Tigers
Internet Movie Database page on the Flying Tigers film

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.