China Cultural Chronicles June 28, 2012

• Just relax...

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  One of my best memories of China. Far for the hustle of Yangshuo city that is overcrowded by tourists we had a cycling tour along the Yulong river (Li river affluent) and admired the countryside all around.

• Cycling along the Yulong river

  Sokleine has added a photo to the pool:

  

  One of my best memories of China. Far for the hustle of Yangshuo city that is overcrowded by tourists we had a cycling tour along the Yulong river (Li river affluent) and admired the countryside all around.

• Rice culture near Yangshuo

  Sokleine has added a photo to the pool:

  

  One of my best memories of China. Far for the hustle of Yangshuo city that is overcrowded by tourists we had a cycling tour along the Yulong river (Li river affluent) and admired the countryside all around.

• 自由的气息

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• Amazing scenery of Wuzhen

  

  With a history of 1,200-years, Wuzhen is about one hour's drive from Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. The small town is famous for the ancient buildings and old town layout, where bridges of all sizes cross the streams winding through the town.[Photo by Chen Baojian/China.org.cn]

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• Beijing's best art galleries part 1: UCCA

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  As Beijing's modern art scene continues to surge into the lime light, the number of its galleries keeps apace. As with any city with a massive art scene, the quality of art you can find ranges from jaw-droppingly phenomenal to stomach-churningly terrible. CRI's William Wang takes you on a tour to galleries which showcase high caliber art, art which impresses via its subtleties, shock-value, craftsmanship or… inaccessibility.

  Red dinosaurs outside of UCCA mark the nerve center of 798 art district. [CRIENGLISH.com/William Wang]

  UCCA

  The 798 art district is China's premiere art hub, and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art is its nerve center. Tucked in off the main street, three caged trademark tyrannosaurus rexes stand as the landmark which has come to represent not only the UCCA, but 798 itself.

  Technically, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art is not an art gallery at all. It showcases art, but doesn't sell it. This distinction actually allows for UCCA to take a unique approach towards art, where profit is not a focus. In fact, the art scene has always been a difficut market to make profits in so UCCA fortunately has the funding to promote art without considering whether it is saleable or not.

  Many art installations (particularly large ones) are extremely difficult for private collectors to purchase, but UCCA takes its adopted role to push Beijing's art scene forwards seriously, presenting new exhibits and experiences to audiences. Avant-garde artist Gu Dexin's installations included meat and vegetables in their composition, giving pause to the temporal, while refusing to be art that seeks to be sold.

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• Into the Mouths of Wolves at Mount Langya

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  The jagged peaks of Hebei's Mount Langya. [CRIENGLISH.com/ William Wang]

  Beijing itself is flat as a pancake, with just a hint of mountains to the west. Travelers in search of some verticality need not go all the way to Guilin to take in some steep rocky slopes. Hebei province's Mount Langya is one of China's national forest conservation areas, and its peaks somehow pass under the radar of most travelers.

  Although few foreigners are acquainted with Mount Langya, virtually every Chinese knows about it: not for its scenery, but for its history. Mount Langya is the site where five brave soldiers held back the Japanese while the Chinese civilians evacuated. Eventually the five men ran out of ammunition, destroyed their rifles, and then leaped off the mountain to their deaths. This beloved story has been the subject of a number of paintings and also a movie. A museum at the base of the mountain provides more insight into the details of the five men's fight, though English signage is limited.

  Monkeys make an appearance at Hebei's Mount Langya. [CRIENGLISH.com/ William Wang]

  Just a few hours outside of Beijing, the mountain itself is provides a stark contrast to the plains of Beijing. The trek to the top one is a long one, not only because it's arduous but because hikers keep stopping to reach for their cameras. Taking this into consideration, hikers should allow themselves at least two hours to get to the top.

  The first few kilometers of the hike are along a man-made river. It's attractively done, though completely unnecessary for those who actually want to experience a more authentic version of nature. Artificial deer and monkeys punctuate the hike, just in case the region's wild animals are feeling shy.

  An impressive cave is located about half an hour up the mountain, which is included in the ticket price. Stalactites, stalagmites and other strange rock formations drip with water beneath multi-colored lights. Visitors couldn't ask for a better excuse to stop and catch their breath.

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• Int'l Tourism Festival of Imperial Palace opens in Beijing

  A model joins in a fashion show at the opening ceremony of the 2012 International Tourism Festival of Imperial Palace in Beijing, capital of China, June 26, 2012.[Photo/Xinhua]

  
• Report criticizes China's protection of cultural relics

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  A senior legislator has pointed to weakness in China's protection of cultural relics, describing efforts in this area as "disproportionate" to the country's wealth of ancient history.

  Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, made the remarks on Tuesday while delivering a report on law enforcement inspections pertaining to the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics.

  "Some local governments and enterprises have demolished at will sites and buildings with historical and cultural value during urban construction... In some cases, archaeological surveys were deliberately avoided to make way for the implementation of construction projects," Lu said, citing the report.

  The inspection, which was conducted in April and May, is the first of its kind on a national scale since the cultural relics protection law was promulgated in 1982.

  China's protection of ancient relics has been under increasing public scrutiny, especially after the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, former home of Chinese emperors, suffered a string of incidents involving the theft and damage of relics.

  Last August, Palace Museum director Zheng Xinmiao said that careless staff members damaged three relics that date back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Two ritual implements suffered damage in May 2004, and a flower receptacle was damaged in 2009, according to Zheng.

  In one case of theft from the site, a Chinese man was earlier this year sentenced to 13 years in jail and fined 2,000 U.S. dollars for breaking into the heavily guarded museum on May 8, 2011, and stealing nine pieces of art made of gold and jewels.

  A five-year census of the country's fixed cultural heritage found several months ago that construction projects were responsible for more than half of 40,000-plus fixed cultural relics, including those located underground and underwater, "disappearing" over the past 30 years.

  The census, the third and largest since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, showed that about 17.77 percent of the country's cultural relics are in relatively poor preserved condition and 8.43 percent are preserved in poor condition.

  Meanwhile, Lu noted that cultural relics in some areas were "overly used" or even "damaged" for tourism development, and relics-related crimes, such as theft and smuggling, have been "rampant despite constant crackdowns."

  According to Lu's report, a special campaign is under way to eliminate security risks and restore damaged items in the country's key cultural relics protection units.

  "Cultural relics that were damaged during earthquakes in Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai and other provinces have been repaired in a timely manner... and the expenditure on relics protection has been written into government budgets at all levels with yearly increases," noted the report.

  Figures from the Ministry of Finance show that the country's public spending on cultural relics from 2006 to 2010 amounted to 57.25 billion yuan (9 billion U.S. dollars), with a yearly increase of 37.9 percent.