China photo from Robert Daboss

Photos from Guangxi

Travel in China: Guangxi SAR

This is a photo taken by Jacco Bax, who is also this week’s China Photo Contest winner.

Guangxi SAR is an autonomous region located in the southern region of China, populated and administered predominantly by the Zhuang ethnic group. In Guangxi, “xi” is the character for West, linking this province to to nearby Guangdong province (”dong” means “east”). Other nearby provinces include Yunnan, its neighbor to the west; Guizhou, which lies to the north; and Hunan in the northeast. Guangdong borders its southeast region.

Vietnam is southwest and the Gulf of Tonkin is south of Guangxi. The largest city in the Guangxi SAR is also its capital, Nanning, located near the Yong River. Nanning is referred to as the “Green City” due to the vast tropical foliage there, with more than 3,000 plants finding a home in Nanning. Nanning is also key to China’s involvement in ASEAN, and the city recently hosted the China-ASEAN Expo. Nanning continues to be a key city for directing China’s involvement and commitment to ASEAN and its member nations.

The subtropical climate found in Guangxi, with its hot summers, rainy weather and pleasant autumns, is excellent for growing rice, sugar cane, tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, peanuts and wheat, as well as many types of tropical fruit. Guangxi is China’s top producer of tin, manganese and indium, and has large stores of lime. The area, most notably near the seaport of Beihai, also produces some of the most beautiful pearls found.

This autonomous region is heavily populated by the Zhuang, the largest minority ethnicity in China with approximately 15 million individuals (roughly the population of Australia). Other ethnic groups that live in Guangxi include the Dong, Miao, Yao, Hui, Yi, Shui, and Gin people groups. As you might expect, there is also a great deal of linguistic diversity. You will hear languages such as Zhuang, Pinghua, and Cantonese spoken in addition to the standard Mandarin taught in schools. Because of the diversity of cultures living in Guangxi SAR, there is also a rich cultural heritage among the people groups. The Dong people hold a yearly firecracker festival, while the Miao celebrate with a reed flute festival.

Zhuang people have three red-letter days: a Devil Festival, a Cattle Soul Festival and a Feasting Festival. The Devil Festival, which falls on 14 July on the lunar calendar and usually in August on the Western calendar, is second only to Spring Festival in importance. In celebration, families prepare chicken, duck and five-colored glutinous as sacrifices to ancestors and ghosts.

Usually following the spring ploughing, The Cattle Soul Festival is a time that every family carries a basketful of glutinous rice and a bundle of fresh grass to the cattle pen. After a short ceremony, the cattle are fed the grass and half the rice. They traditional explanation holds that the cattle have lost their souls because of the whipping during the spring ploughing and this process calls back the lost souls.

The Feasting Festival, celebrated only by people who live near the Sino-Vietnamese border, carries a legend: a group of Zhuang soldiers, having repulsed the French invaders in the late 19th century, returned in late January and missed the Spring Festival. To pay tribute and celebrate the victory, their neighbors prepared a sumptuous feast that is celebrated on this day.

Mountains will play an important part in your itinerary schedule when you visit Guangxi SAR. Here you will see stunning karst landforms, which are made from water moving against limestone over time. Made famous by early writings of Chinese poets and featured in early Chinese paintings and landscapes, these soft waves of rock make up the mountains that surround Guilin, a beautiful city in Guangxi located on the west side of the Li River. Local guides in Guilin and Yangshuo are quick to point out that the back of the 20 yuan bill features the river and karst peaks of the region.

(photo courtesy of Sophie Nye)

Guilin is also home to the historic Jingjiang Princes City. Featuring beautiful walls, its construction began in 1372 AD, and twelve generations of Jingjiang princes lived within its inner city. Along the Li River you will also find the Reed-Flute Rock, a cave with stalactites, stalagmites, and cave corals; the oldest existing canal in the world, the Lingqu Canal; as well as Elephant-Trunk Hill, which resembles a giant elephant drinking water and is the symbol of Guilin. Yangshuo, another fabulous mountain city, is a favorite hiking and backpacking destination and home to Chun Li and her Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. Yangshuo is also home to the Yangshuo Volunteer English Program, a team of teachers dedicated to empowering underprivileged students learn English and improve their standing in life.

(photo from jackfrench)

Other historic cultural destinations include the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces in Longsheng, reputed to be some of the steepest rice terraces to be found anywhere in the world; and the Chengyang Wind and Rain Bridge, located in Sangiang. A close examination of the trees and forests surrounding the trails in Longsheng will reveal old love charms carved into the trees and stone shrines decorated with red ribbons and built to honor ancestors.

I have traveled to Guangxi several times and will post some of my photos and adventures on the blog in a follow-up soon.

中文

Today’s picture comes from Cyphen, a member of the Photography Association of Sun Yat-Sen University. It was taken at West Street in Yangshuo, Guilin. By showing wooden dolls in kimonos instead of a traditional Chinese folk costume, the photographer wanted to gives us a picture of how commercialization and internationalization have changed this hot tourist spot known for its natural beauty.

West Street is one of the oldest districts in Yangshuo and hosts over 100,000 visitors from abroad annually, and its well-traveled cafes can deliver foods and flavors from around the world. Yangshuo has become a hospot for intercultural interaction.

To see your photos here, send them to or .
Read on »

Yangshuo China Adoption: A Daily China Travel Photo

中文

This begins week 2 of our featured photographers series. This week we will see pictures from Yauly, an Israeli photographer who has taken a number of pictures of China. Her first picture in our series is from her travels in Yangshuo:

Yauly had this to say about the photo:

“[This photo] was taken in a small village near Yangshuo. While walking there, we saw those two kids and waved to them to say hello. The young one was really scared of us, started to cry and ran away. On our way back she was fine and looked at us with curiosity, still hiding behind her friend. When we tried to understand why she was so frightened, we found out that a child from this village was adopted by foreigners and she thought we might take her away.”

To see your photos here, send them to or .

Read on »

China Daily Photo: Guilin Mountains and the Li River

Today’s photo comes from Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga and was taken in Guilin Province. The photo features the Li River and Guilin’s famous and mysterious karst peaks.

Please send your pictures for picture of the day to: or to

One of the many goals of the China Dreamblogue is to create a strong, pro-China internet presence in the blogosphere. To do this, we need your help. And as we create our pro-China network, we would also like to help the people who want to be part of this network by giving them a way to increase their SEO power and their ability to monetize their site. Sound complicated and difficult? The process is deceptively simple and powerful.

We’ve created an idea called link it forward. Similar to the internet memes and the Thinking Blog tag that recently moved through a number of English-language blogs about China, our idea will travel rapidly through pro-China blogs. In addition, this idea will help to create links–as many as four thousand–to your site through a trickle-down method.

There are five simple steps:

1. Take this list of 8 blogs and put them in a post on your blog. The first three blogs, Onemanbandwidth, The China Dreamblogue, and Sinotrading, remain on the list.
2. At the top of the moveable list, put a link to your blog.
3. Remove the link from the bottom of blog.
4. Send your updated list to at least five other people.
5. If you want, create a new moveable list of five blogs you think deserve some links. Be kind and include the permanent list as well.

Perma-List:

• Onemanbandwidth
• The China Dreamblogue
• Sinotrading

The Moveable list:

• The Hao Hao Report
• East South North West
• The Cal Poly MBA Trip
• China Law Blog
• The Opposite End of China

The numbers work out well for you. You will have approximately five rounds on the list. On the first round, you’ll get five links. On the second, you’ll get 25 (each of the five people you sent the list to will get five more people to put your link on their site). The third round nets you 125, the fourth 525, and the fifth 2,625. Your grand total (should everyone follow Link it Forward) will be 3,305 links. And if you get linked to again by another blog, you can start the process all over again to earn another 3,000 links.

To monetize your blog or site please click on the links found on the front page of this blog.

China Dreamblogue的其中一个目标是在因特网上创建一个强大的，支持中国的互联网。实现这个目标，我们需要你的帮助。在我们建造我们中国的友好互联网的同时，我们将会帮助那些支持我们的人，把他们的博客推到网络排名的最前列。这个过程既简单又有效。

我们已经有一个构想，称为“链接在一起”（Link it Forward），与“网络媒母”（internet memes）相类似。“Link it Forward”（ 链接在一起）会以很快的速度在支持中国的博客上移动。另外，这个构想可以使你的网站的链接数量增加几千个以上。

以下是六个简单的步骤：

1. 按照以下的说明列两组博客的目录然后放到您的博客上。第一组名单是三个固定的博客：Onemanbandwidth, The China Dreamblogue, 和Sinotrading。这三个博客的连接必须永远的保留和不可改变。
2. 在第二组上，把您自己的博客连接放在目录的第一位上。
3. 把所有在第二组目录上的连接排名依次向下移动一位。即排第一的移到第二位，排第二的移到第三位等等（第五位的移到第一位）。
4. 这就是说排第五的应该要完成一个循坏回到第五的位置上。
5. 将你的更新了的列表发给至少5个其他博客。您发的越多，您就能获得更多的链接。如果您有一百个人，那就快点去做吧。
6. 如果您想的话，还可以另外创建一个您认为有价值的列表。请也同样包括那个不变名单（即onemanbandwidth, china dreamblogue 和 sinotrading）

请记住，不要改动或者改变第一组名单和不要在第二组名单上加上第六个链接。同样，通过第一组名单所得到的广告收益将用作慈善用途。而从第二组“link it forward”上所得的收益将有您自己支配。我们会为您列举一些能够推算您自己网站价值的地方。

第一组（长期不变得目录）：

Onemanbandwidth

The China Dreamblogue

Sinotrading

第二组（可更新的目录）：

您的博客

您朋友的博客

如果理想的话，您大约会有比从前翻5倍的链接量。

第一个循环，您会得到5个链接。

第二个循环您会得到25个链接（跟您建立链接的那5个人每人会给您带来5个新的链接）

第三个循环您会有125个链接，第四个有625，第五个有3，125个。

如果每个人都按照Link it Forward的方法，您最后会得到3，905个链接。如果您同时又跟其他博客建立同种方法的链接，您将会得到另外3，000多个的链接。有了这上千个的 连接，您就能从Google Adwords（Google搜索引擎营销）那里得到相应的收益了。现在就请按本页底部的Google Adwords按钮来看一下您的网站的价值吧。

这是为了兴趣；这是为了提高中国博客在西方搜索引擎的排名；这更是为了中国的慈善事业出一分力（因为限定组中的3个博客将会把全部广告收益捐献给中国的慈善机构）；同样也能增加中国博客在互联网上的知名度。

让我们一起link it forward(链接在一起)吧！