Explorers China Exploration and Research Society Volume 17 No
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A NEWSLETTER TO INFORM AND ACKNOWLEDGE CERS’ FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS CHINA since 1986 EXPLORERS CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY VOLUME 17 NO. 2 SUMMER 2015 3 Last of the Pi Yao Minority People 30 Entering The Dinosaur’s Mouth 6 A Tang Dynasty Temple (circa 502 A.D.) 34 CERS in the Field 9 Avalanche! 35 News/Media & Lectures 12 Caught in Kathmandu 36 Thank You 15 Adventure to Dulongjiang Region: An Unspoiled place in Northwest Yunnan CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: 18 Blue Sky, White Peaks and Green Hills CERS and village cavers in Palawan 22 Shake-Down Cruise of HM Explorer 2 of the Philippines. A Yao elder lady. Earthquake news in Kathmandu. 26 Singing the Ocean Blues Suspension bridge across the Dulong Musings on fish and commitment while floating in the Sulu Sea River in Yunnan. CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 1 A NEWSLETTER TO INFORM AND ACKNOWLEDGE CERS' FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS Founder / President WONG HOW MAN CHINA Directors: BARRY LAM, CERS Chairman Chairman, Quanta Computer, Taiwan EXPLORERS JAMES CHEN CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY Managing Director, Legacy Advisors Ltd. HUANG ZHENG YU VOLUME 17 NO.2 SUMMER 2015 Entrepreneur CHRISTABEL LEE President’s Message Managing Director, Toppan Vite Limited DAVID MONG isk management is institutionalized into all big Chairman, Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund businesses today, perhaps with exception of rogue traders among leading banks. In life, risk WELLINGTON YEE management extends from practical measures BILLY YUNG to philosophical ones, from having multiple Group Chairman, Shell Electric Holdings Ltd. Ralternatives of partners, insurance and bank accounts, Advisory Council: education and degrees, to Plan Bs & Cs for zillions of CYNTHIA D’ANJOU BROWN activities, to religious options for those who want to Philanthropy Adviser manage their afterlife, just in case there is an afterlife. ERIC S. CHEN Vice Chairman, SAMPO Corporation In some ways, it reflects on my recent experience in Kathmandu. When disaster struck on April 25, the JUDITH-ANN CORRENTE Philanthropist Nepalese and even expat residents of the country did not have a choice. If they had, they would have chosen to avoid being in the middle of it. DANCHEN Whereas, for all the hype of the media on the deaths of foreign climbers on Everest, Former Vice-Party Secretary of Tibet Vice-President, China Writer’s Federation these were individuals who had chosen to take a larger-than-life risk in the first place; there have been 4.3 fatalities for every 100 summits. Had they chosen to climb K2 in DR WILLIAM FUNG Executive Chairman, Li & Fung Group the Himalayan range, second highest peak and even more dangerous than Everest, their odds of survival would be one in four, a bit worse than playing Russian Roulette. HANS MICHAEL JEBSEN Chairman of Jebsen & Co. Ltd. It may seem insensitive to belittle those high-paying mountaineering “adventure KWEK LENG JOO tourists.” After all, my own profession as an explorer would seem to many people to Managing Director, City Developments Limited be also a high-risk preoccupation. Close friends and supporters however would tell you DR MICHAEL J. MOSER otherwise. Why else would many high net-worth friends send their most-valued asset – International Attorney their children - to study with us in the field? TUDENG NIMA Tibetan Scholar I have never worried about the “danger” of circumstances supposedly integral to our CERS Field Staff: work. Instead, as leader of our team, we have very exacting preparations, threading our WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhD, Science Director way on safe ground. Danger should only exist with the same probability as predictions CAO ZHONGYU, Logistics Support of another earthquake, despite dealing with much unknown in wilderness regions TSERING DROLMA, Education Officer of China or its adjacent countries. Above all, it was not for thrill that we went out LI NA, Kunming Admin. Officer there “into the wild,” but to advance our knowledge of the world around us, just like LIU HONG, Speleologist early explorers during the Age of Discovery. This issue has an article by Dr. Bleisch QIJU QILIN, Zhongdian Centre Director describing avalanches that he and our team faced when trying to reach our study site in MARTIN RUZEK, Earth System Scientist western Nepal, even before the earthquake hit. WANG JIAN, Kunming Director ZHANG FAN, China Director I have always professed that in front of nature, humans are so humbled. So that same ZHOU CHEN SU, Speleologist humbleness was with me when the 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal as I was stranded at the Kathmandu Airport ready to fly out. Headquarters Staff: BRENDA KAN, Office Manager Another article in this issue by myself describes surviving the devastating earthquake XAVIER LEE, Filmmaker and the many aftershocks in Kathmandu. As all immigration officers left the airport as JOE LUNG, Web/IT Manager soon as the quake hit, I ended up walking out of the airport building without a stamp TRACY MAN, Financial Controller on my visa, and left again the following day by overstaying my one-day transit visa. BERRY SIN, Logistics Director Rare indeed for a page in my passport to have one entry stamp and two exits - April 25 Associate Filmmaker: and 26 - marking the time when nature not only decided our fate, but also gave some CHRIS DICKINSON of us a wake-up call! Editor: WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhD Design and Printer: TOPPAN VITE LIMITED (852) 2973 8600 Wong How Man HOW TO REACH CERS: Founder/President CERS Unit 7 & 8, 27/F, Tower B, SouthMark, July 2015 11 Yip Hing Street, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong phone (852) 2555 7776 fax (852) 2555 2661 e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.cers.org.hk With respect to the entire contents of this newsletter, including its photographs: CERS TAI TAM RESEARCH CENTER All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015. @ China Exploration and Research Society. (852) 2809 2557 Please contact CERS for reprint permission. PAGE 2 CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY LAST OF THE PI YAO MINORITY PEOPLE by Wong How Man Liannan, Gunagdong Please, please join us for lunch. We are cooking anyway,” said Tang Mai De San, the 32 years old son-in-law of the family. I declined his truly warm hospitality as it was not just me, but seven of us in my team, and it would add undue work to their family’s very last day at “this ancient house. Tang had just arrived by motorcycle at this now remote hamlet. And the road, it was only completed less than ten years ago. Soon it would be abandoned and lay to waste. Likewise electricity arrived last year, and after today there would be no need for it anymore. Dajiang Pi was once a bustling village with over a hundred households and perhaps five hundred some odd inhabitants, one of the largest among the eight Pi villages of the unique Yao minority people of northern Guangdong. They are very different in both language and custom from all other Yao people of southern China. But today, we were seeing the departure of its very last resident family, that of Tang Wu Ji Gung’s, the last to move down the hill some ten kilometers away, to live in the new village by the road. “We have no choice, the house is leaking everywhere, and every family had already moved out long ago,” said the younger Tang with his crisp Cantonese dialect. He was married to Tang Wu Ji Gung’s third daughter, whom by chance we gave a ride along the way as we drove up this windy and narrow road to the village. The other fellow who came with Tang is also a Tang, in fact everyone around was a “Tang”, the common last name of the entire clan. His name was Tang Chiao She Gui, another four-syllable complexity, and he was married to the second daughter in the family. Both men, the sons-in-law, were from Dajiang Pi village originally, and both left for Guangzhou to seek work. TOP TO BOTTOM: “All young people have to leave for the city in order to find work. There is Dajiang Pi Village of northern Guangdong. A last simply no opportunity here inside the mountains. In the city, we can make family moving out of the village. Pointing to the now s money and send home,” said the young Tang as a matter of fact. From their vacant Dajiang Pi Village. CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 3 CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: Elder Yao men with pipes. Firing a matchlock rifle during New Year 1984. A religious parade circa 1984. New Year ritual 1984. Misted hills of the Yao countryside. Yao mother with two daughters. A Yao baby today. Yao lady. Yao elder lady. modern outfit like all city folks of China, no one would guess that they were from the Yao minority group. The ladies in the house, four of them including the mother, were still dressed in the Yao’s blue jackets with white trimmings, dark pants with embroidered leggings, with a touch of brighter color on the head with a red cloth over a bun. They were rummaging throughout the very dark corners of the house, looking for items they may want to take along. The father, Tang Wu Ji Gung, was a 70-years-old Yao man of small stature, seemed a bit high on his last bottle of home brew of rice wine. Next door at an antechamber stood two coffins, one on top of the other. Those were prepared a while ago, awaiting its contents which would be the aging parents. “Aren’t you bringing those down the hill as well,” I asked.