A NEWSLETTER TO INFORM AND ACKNOWLEDGE CERS’ FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS CHINA since 1986 EXPLORERS CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY VOLUME 19 NO. 2 SUMMER 2017 3 Chicken Foot Sacred Mountain CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: 6 Batak Hill Tribe – Less Than 300 Remaining Kids sharing a home-made spear gun in crystal clear water of Cagayancillo, an island 13 Tubbataha World Heritage Site and CERS some two hundred kilometers off Palawan. Zhongdian Center A Karabao cart heading to the Batak village. 17 Up in the Mountains, Down by the Ocean: Vagabond butterflyfish. In Search of Reciprocity and Its Further Implications Danchen, a Rinpoche, or Living Buddha, 20 Guardians of the Sulu with Tibetan monks at Jizu Shan. 24 Santa Claus of the Sulu Sea 28 Hanging Coffins of Guizhou 32 Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow 34 CERS in the Field 35 News/Media and Lectures 36 Thank You + Current Patrons CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 1 A NEWSLETTER TO INFORM AND ACKNOWLEDGE CERS' FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS CHINA Founder / President EXPLORERS WONG HOW MAN CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY Directors: VOLUME 19 NO.2 SUMMER 2017 BARRY LAM, CERS Chairman Chairman, Quanta Computer, Taiwan JAMES CHEN President’s Message Managing Director, Legacy Advisors Ltd. HUANG ZHENG YU nlike clothes and cosmetics, Entrepreneur or even cars and boats, selling CHRISTABEL LEE CERS and our projects is not Managing Director, Toppan Vintage Limited like entering a beauty contest DAVID MONG to win support and funding. Chairman, Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund UAlthough the pictures, films or stories that we OLIVER MOWRER SILSBY III use to illustrate our work may be beautiful and WELLINGTON YEE moving, in the end, it is our results and track BILLY YUNG record that wins the day. Group Chairman, Shell Electric Holdings Ltd. Advisory Council: Over 30 years of passion and dedication to our CYNTHIA D’ANJOU BROWN mission is an asset we value just as much as the legacy of intellectual and tangible properties Philanthropy Adviser CERS has amassed. Many of our team members have been with us for over ten years, and not ERIC S. CHEN a few for over 20 years – something we can be proud of. Even many of our supporters have Vice Chairman, SAMPO Corporation stayed with us for over ten years, some over 20 years; growing old, better yet “maturing”, with JUDITH-ANN CORRENTE us together. In my heart, I am both thankful and feel gratified. Philanthropist DANCHEN Former Vice-Party Secretary of Tibet Today, CERS has ranged far out of China where we started with our original mission, into many Vice-President, China Writer’s Federation neighboring countries, from mountains and plateaus to valleys and seas, as stories in this issue of DR WILLIAM FUNG the newsletter depict. An old friend from almost 15 years ago during our partnership with Land Executive Chairman, Li & Fung Group Rover has stayed tuned with our work and contributed our end piece in this issue. HANS MICHAEL JEBSEN Chairman of Jebsen & Co. Ltd. As with our work, we have carried the same passion, dedication, commitment and logistical TUDENG NIMA skills into exploring and conserving the natural and cultural landscape of Asia. In many Tibetan Scholar places, not only are we conducting worthy projects, we have put together unique and functional CERS Field Staff: operation bases. Likewise, we have carried our message far and wide through lectures to WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhD, Science Director different continents, films shown online or in special channels, and with education programs CAO ZHONGYU, Logistics Support catering to our next generation. TSERING DROLMA, Education Officer LI NA, Kunming Admin. Officer LIU HONG, Speleologist Nonetheless, I still maintain that CERS is a small and intimate organization. That intimacy, EI THANTAR MYINT @ Sandra, Country Manager, Myanmar in today’s internet world, is becoming even more precious, connecting us to our friends and SU HLAING MYINT, CERS Field Biologist supporters, as well as to the world at large, in a personal way. Let us embark on this fourth QIJU QILIN, Zhongdian Centre Director decade for CERS, an intimate CERS, together. It is a wonderful feeling to be large, yet feeling WANG JIAN, Kunming Director quite small. But let me also elaborate, large not in size, but in impact – with a rainbow of projects ZHANG FAN, China Director that we have together painted. Headquarters Staff: BRENDA KAN, Office Manager XAVIER LEE, Filmmaker TRACY MAN, Financial Controller BERRY SIN, Logistics Director Editor: WILLIAM BLEISCH, PhD Design and Printer: TOPPAN VINTAGE LIMITED (852) 2973 8600 HOW TO REACH CERS: Unit 7 & 8, 27/F, Tower B, SouthMark, Wong How Man 11 Yip Hing Street, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong phone (852) 2555 7776 fax (852) 2555 2661 Founder/President CERS e-mail: [email protected] May 2017 Website: www.cers.org.hk With respect to the entire contents of this newsletter, including its photographs: All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2017. @ China Exploration and Research Society. Please contact CERS for reprint permission. PAGE 2 CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY CHICKEN FOOT SACRED MOUNTAIN A once-every-twelve-year pilgrimage By Wong How Man Jizushan, Yunnan But, but….I’ve been eating chicken feet, my favorite dim sum dish,” I stuttered a bit as I revealed this to Danchen, my close friend. Danchen, a very knowledgeable Rinpoche and retired Vice Party Secretary of Tibet, wrinkled “his forehead a little in disgust. Then he continued to explain to me something I was totally ignorant about, despite having visited the Jizushan, or Chicken Foot Mountain, twice in the past. I first came here twelve years ago, during the last Year of the Rooster pilgrimage in 2005. Then I came again in 2007, escorting several Hump pilot friends when they were into their 90s. On that trip they saw on the ground, for the first time, the pagoda they had seen from the air uncounted times while flying during World War II. The pagoda was their check point, navigating them to Kunming after passing the high mountains of the Himalayas. Practically all Han Chinese pilgrims, or tourists like myself, would head straight for the temple and pagoda on the pinnacle of the mountain. In the past it might take a day or two to scale the top. Today a well-paved road followed by a cable car ride and a short hike will take visitors from the bottom of the hill to the 3248 meters top in slightly over an hour. TOP TO BOTTOM: We may be forgiven for using the pagoda and its adjacent Jizu Shan sacred mountain with pagoda on its peak. temple as final destination since they are the most distinct Close-up of Pagoda and temple of Jizu Shan. objects observed from afar. But for all Tibetan pilgrims, Cliff of Huashoumen just below the peak. they come here for something else, something quite hidden, s deep inside a vertical cliff face of the mountain. It is CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 3 not unusual for a Tibetan pilgrim to bypass the summit altogether. “Had it not been for Huashoumen, there would be no Jizushan,” Danchen repeated this remark several times during the three days we were together in the mountain. Of course he meant it figuratively rather than literally in geographic terms. The name Jizushan came from the mountain’s physical features, resembling the foot of a chicken with three toes protruding forward and one aft. But the fame of the mountain was derived from an ancient Tibetan belief that Jaiye (Mahakasyapa), one of the ten principal disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni, came here to preach, then took off his monk’s robe and meditated inside a precipitous cliff face of the mountain. So with this notion Danchen led me the morning after my arrival to this Huashoumen (men meaning gate), some 150 meters below the peak of the mountain. It was only a little after 9am and we ran into many Tibetan pilgrims but few Han Chinese. Among Tibetans, most were monks and nuns in their saffron robes. They came from all regions of the plateau, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. A few Tibetan ladies were making offerings of yak butter, rubbing it onto the cliff face. There is a small niche at the bottom of the cliff. Inside there was a little water dripping. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Tibetans - monks, nuns and lay people - dipped their fingers Danchen, a Rinpoche and retired Vice Party Secretary of Tibet, inside and brought out sacred droplets to rub over their chatted with Tibetan monks at Jizu Shan. eyes, supposedly most auspicious for their eye sights. Two Rainbow clouds above Huashoumen. Cliff face and clouds at Huashoumen. nuns were trying to collect a few more droplets to take Sunrise as seen from Jizu Shan. home for friends. I, with deteriorating eye sight, applied Cliff at Huashoumen. droplets generously to my eyes. Monks applying sacred water to eyes. PAGE 4 CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY A thin and tall Chinese nun in a gray robe was prostrating bamboo pack the bone ash remains of Jingwen and traveled continuously in front of the cliff. She was from nearby for over 5000 li, or 2,500 km, to reach their joint destiny Dali old town and had been prostrating here everyday for of Jizushan. There he offered up the blood sutra of Jingwen over five years, returning each night to a small hut a bit at Xitan temple and buried the ash remains at Wenbi Peak. down the hill. I asked her how the kharta, white ceremonial scarves used by Tibetans as offerings, were put high up on Such an act of friendship is immortalized in Jizushan by the perpendicular cliff, reaching over 20 meters up on this Xu Xiake, the most famous travel writer of China’s past.