China Ethnographic Expedition II. Part V. Panzhihua, Shangri-LaMapNovember 23, 2015 PanzhihuaMapDriving around China. ![]() A lorry veered off into a ditch. ![]() Grave portals for sale on the side of the road. Technically, you’re not allowed to bury people underground in China, there simply isn’t enough room. But no one really checks this in remote rural areas, which is why all of the hillsides are dotted with graves. That’s whom they sell these portals to. ![]() We’ve arrived in the city of Panzhihua. It’s unlikely that white tourists ever venture here. There’s nothing to do or see here. ![]() The city is hemmed in by industrial works. ![]() Based on what’s we’ve seen, it’s pretty polluted, but the real estate ads depict clean air and greenery. ![]() Crowds of sign twirlers in the central square advertise prices per square metre. By the way, right now it’s dead easy to convert Chinese prices into roubles — all you have to do is add a zero to the price in yuan. ![]() Taxi driver. ![]() Transport undertaking logo. ![]() Another transport company logo. I am very fond of collecting transport company logos off the sides of taxis, buses and lorries. As a general rule, they’re always magnificent. ![]() Parking barrier flowerbed. ![]() Apple Store clone. The only way you can tell it apart from the real thing is that it has inflatable red stars inside and food stalls surrounding it. ![]() Our street supper. There’s a grille in the centre of the table and a crate of coals underneath it. ![]() The remoteness of this town was confirmed in the evening, when we settled into a local hotel. A copper and an agent from the local version of the KGB came to see us because they noticed some Arabic script in my passport (it was on my visa for Saudi Arabia), which completely freaked them out. As in, they thought terrorists of some sort had rolled into town. They wouldn’t calm down until they’d pored over all of our boarding pass stubs and tickets from all of the museums we’d visited along the way. They took photographs of everything with their phones, just to be on the safe side. They just could not fathom that foreign tourists would go and visit Panzhihua. Shangri-LaMapSign indicating a long descent down the mountain. ![]() Disabled person or tractor driver? ![]() Yaks. ![]() We’re approaching Tibet. The mountains have started. The Chinese tourists have been issued with oxygen canisters. This one dude draws a breath from his canister and then takes a puff of his cigarette. He goes on alternating like this. ![]() In 2001 the city of Zhongdian was given a new name — Shangri-La. ![]() This was done in the hope of attracting tourists. And their plan totally worked. A whopping six people came to see Shangri-La. A local woman washing her hair over a ditch. ![]() As we’re not in high season by any stretch of the imagination, the whole city has been turned upside down — they’re laying communications infrastructure under the “old town”. ![]() Literally everything has been dug up. ![]() They’re laying pipes where there didn’t used to be any. Because before there was literally nothing here. ![]() First they stuck in a bunch of decorations, now they’re trying to piece together a workable neighbourhood out of them. ![]() There’s nothing here but revolting newbuilds. ![]() All of the ornaments and dragons’ heads were made in the same joiner’s shop. ![]() They’ve applied wood stain to some bits, but haven’t had time to do all of it. ![]() Asya with yak. ![]() Yak with Yakov. ![]() A woman sands down the façade to make it look aged. ![]() The builders should manage to add a few ancient Tibetan neighbourhoods to the old town by the opening of the next tourist season. ![]() The thing is, there is no such place, Shangri-La is a fictional city from a novel by the English writer James Hilton. |
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november 2015
ChinaEthnoExp II. Part V
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