Finding part of the beast - Elephant Hill

  Lijiang, China
Monday, March 19, 2007

  Elephant Hill


Lijiang is surrounded by three main 'Divine Beasts'. Right next to the old town Dayan is Lion Hill [Shizi], partly housed, partly covered in forest, topped by a tall telecommunications tower. Right down the main street of the old town Sifang Jie you can most days see the jagged peaks of the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain [Yulong Xueshan]. And from most places around town you can see the outline of Elephant Hill [Xiangshan].

We are well protected here in Lijiang, with these Divine Beasts protecting us mortal beings, and also providing a windshield against the cool winds from the north.

The Elephant Story
Perhaps you've heard the story, about how, once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived six blind men. Each was quite wise, all had gone to school and read lots of books - presumably in Braille.

One day, unknown to our six blind wise men, an elephant escaped from the zoo through an unlocked gate and wandered slowly into town along a path in the woods. As it lumbered along, it saw near the path the six blind men talking knowingly.

Before it could turn around, the elephant stepped on a twig. The crackling noise startled the men. The first blind man went over to investigate the sound. With a big bump he walked into the side of the elephant. He put his arms out to either side but all he could feel was the broad smooth side of the elephant's body.

"Fellas, I think I've just walked into a wall, again."

Meanwhile, the second blind man went to check out what had caused the unusual sound along the path. Now he walked straight to the front of the elephant and grabbed hold of its trunk. The elephant snorted in surprise.

"This isn't a wall. It's a snake. And a big one at that. We'd better watch out, this thing could be poisonous.

The third blind man didn't think it could be a wall, or a snake, so we he went to investigate, finding the elephant's tail.

"You guys are both wrong. There's no need to worry. I know for sure this is a frayed piece of rope."

The fourth man let out a sigh, knowing how stubborn his friends were. He decided instead to get down on his hands and knees to get to the bottom of things. He felt around the elephant's legs at its rough skin and thick stumpy legs.

"My esteemed friends. This is no wall, it's not a snake and it sure ain't a rope. Gentlemen, here we have four mighty tree trunks. Case closed."

The fifth blind man was not so quick to jump to conclusions. He walked to the front of the elephant and felt two long ivory tusks, smooth and hard. "Learned colleagues, it seems to me like this object is has two swords, because I am holding a long, curved object which is sharp at the end. But maybe our sixth friend could help us identify further what we have here."

Now the sixth blind man was really the wisest of them all. But he scratched his head and thought long and hard.

Just then along came the zookeeper, looking for the escaped elephant. The sixth man turned to her and asked, "Can you help us wise men identify what this is? You see, one of us thinks it's a wall, another a snake, one a rope, one thinks it might be four tree trunk and the fifth member of our group believes it could be two swords. We seem to have contradictory descriptions of the same object. So it would be great if you could help us out on this matter, before we get into a nasty knife fight like last time."

"Well," said the zookeeper, "You are all right. This object in front of you seems like a different thing to each of you. But really, to find out more about something, you have do more than just gather information yourself."

"What do we have to do? Asked the sixth wise men on behalf of the group. They all leaned forward to hear this new wisdom.

"Well," she said, "You've got to share your knowledge. Each of you was too quick to make conclusions. You thought that because you experienced one part you understood fully the whole. You see, only when you share what each of you know can you possibly reach a true understanding."

The blind men conferred and realised that the zookeeper had taught them something very important that day. The sixth man spoke again, "So, are you single?"

The zookeeper led the elephant away, though rather than taking it back to the zoo she decided it should be liberated back into the wild.
The blind men conferred. "I bet she was a babe," said one. "Yeah, probably a 10," said another.


The warnings and the rewards

The Lonely Planet China warms travelers about the dangers of climbing Lijiang's main hill. Internet bulletin boards echo this with stories of robbery at knifepoint. There's even a story about a foreign tourist being murdered on the hill.

Even the local authorities concede it is advisable to attempt the 2-3 hour climb with others rather than go alone.

For my money, the main danger about climbing the hill is not the risk and danger of being mugged, but the certainty that you will have to pay 60 yuan - almost US$9 - to enter Black Dragon Pool so you can begin the ascent. That is daylight robbery.

So I did what many locals - and a few travelers - do. Take an alternate route. I skirted around the hill, north past Black Dragon Pool. Past the several entrances with sleepy ticket-sellers. Through a park with ponds and lakes, bridges and walkways, rocks and boulders, camellias and rhododendrons, beside some above ground graves and around a yin-yang inlay. In the distance, the dragon mountain had smoke rising off its back, as if in flight through snow storms. The side I could see was in shadow.

I went up around some walls, behind a high school and its dormitories, beside where rubbish had been thrown from fourth floor windows or unceremoniously dumped over walls guarded by shards of broken glass, glistening in the late sun. On a loudhailer, a woman was reading out a notice, its message being carried across playing fields, courtyards, into white tile dormitory rooms, wafting into classrooms where students practiced piano, or grim toilets where students squatted.

There is no privacy in China. Not even in toilets, where you must squat in a stall along with others. Some constipated. Others obviously not.

A bra tree

The hill has some privacy, afforded from high walls, newly-entwined barbed wire fences, steep slopes, thick vegetation. Eventually I got onto a quarry road where a truck was loading up with rectangular blocks. There I decided to head up, up onto the elephant's head via the trunk.

I guess because of the location close to the boarding school and also the limited time and space where young people can get together, it seems the lower part of the hill was used for illicit liaisons. Along the rough path I took there seemed to be a lot of bras lying around on the ground, shed perhaps at night in the heat of passion and never recovered. Funnily, someone had started putting the bras up on trees, twining together two pines with flowery bras, as a symbol of freedom, loving, togetherness - or maybe just support for the trees against the winds.

Another bra tree

I carried on up, along goat trail tracks, indeterminate over rocky ground, zigzags, slow contouring around, worn in places, unable to be discerned in other parts. It was steep, and the ground unforgiving. Limestone jutting out of red earth. Dry, brittle, not giving of anything. The limestone like shells - smoothed, sculptured, hollowed and rounded on one side, on the other ragged, corrugated, its rills harsh on the soles of my walking shoes.

Gradually as I went up, the viewing plane changed. Below I saw fields of bright yellow/green canola, darker greens, the brown of newly ploughed fields. In the reservoir a man seemed to be on a windsurfer smaller than him. A long straight road led up the valley to the Dragon.

I kept on going, aware of the passing of time, the sun in its golden hour making lanterns of leaves, giving each blade of grass a golden sliver of highlight. To my left two valleys below revealed themselves bare and quarried. From one I heard a blast and looked for signs of damage.

The holly-like leaves, dark verdant on one side, pale lime on the other, rasped at my clothes as the vegetation closed in as I neared the top. I was reduced to traveling crouched low, my head close to the earth, my hat taking the swords and barbs of the dry plant brittle twigs and leaves. The path became a dry rocky creek, then passed through an area with graves, into a patch of pine trees. When I saw toilet paper and the discarded plastic of snack packets I knew I was close. Another minute and I was at the head pagoda in time to see the sunlight line the back of the Dragon before it sank below the horizon of hills.

Below me the grey and white of the city, with its neatly planned gated communities of townhouses, the rounded convention centre like Jupiter with its rings, the shadowed old town clinging close to Lion Hill lighting up. The barks of distant dogs drifted up from the town below, overhead the 7.10 flight to Kunming roared back at the beauty of it all.

I carried along the path, made for paying guests, but quite rocky too. Along the head, over the head, down into more Yunnan pines, where I had to choose between a path down and a path up towards another telecommunications tower. Figuring down was through the Black Dragon Pool, where security guards and ticket collectors waited, I instead opted for going up and along the top of the hill.

More steps up, pasts a tower with a large satellite dish. Time for a quick photo down into the old town, with the outline of the Ink Brush mountain in the background. Then down, through a gateway. A pause to appreciate that the sun had now gone done. A glimpse down into the green reflections of Black Dragon Pool - there was a man standing on a bridge, perhaps looking up at me. Perhaps waiting for the last person still on the hill - I hadn't seen another soul.

Sunset from Elephant hill

Then before I was too low, I found a path sidling across to my left towards more graves and the back leg of the elephant. I got onto a rough road cut on top of the ridge, picked up some small rocks in case of dogs, and a couple of minutes later a dog came bounding across a clearing towards me. "Ni hao! Ni hao!" I called out, hoping there was an owner nearby who could call off the dog.

Luckily a young man appeared and realising his dog was about to investigate me with 'extreme prejudice to my life' he called out, and the dog looped around. The young man in question carried a long pole, possibly the kind for prayer flags, possibly a good bendy pole for fishing.

Anyway we walked down together, talking as much as we could, me with a smattering of Chinese. I learned he was Naxi, lived nearby, was single, had five people in his family and liked to go walking in the forest. Before long, as the light faded, we came across his house, one of the highest up the hill. As if on queue his family appeared and he invited me in for a cup of tea. But no, I said, maybe tomorrow.

I carried on down the road, past where a dog had charged me the previous week. Tonight it was inside, but it still barked. Eventually I got more into the suburbs of Lijiang - rather ramshackle houses and poorly-maintained housing estates. I dropped my rocks once I passed the basketball court and followed someone heading down a lane, which took me onto the main street of new town Lijiang.

On my way home, I stop in at a cafe to see a friend who works there and the owner. With limited English the owner at first seems alarmed when I tell her about my adventures. Then my friend explains. "She thinks you saw an elephant in Lijiang. A real live one."

Strangely enough, there are more elephants around Lijiang. Many of the street stalls and shops carrying t-shirts seem to have no qualms about stocking black t-shirts with pictures of elephants, entitled Thailand in English.

Another strange fact is that elephants probably once lived here. In fact elephants were found all across mainland China. Marco Polo saw them and according to an environmental history of China, entitled The Retreat of the Elephants, four thousand years ago elephants roamed where Beijing now stands.

Today however, the largest land animals on earth now survive in China only in a few small enclaves on the Burmese border. Recent reports suggest there are only 250 of these animals left in China. The book says the elephants were 'the victims of both human persecution and of climate change'.

"The great sage Mencius wrote of how the Duke of Zhou in around 1000 BC "drove the tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses and elephants far away, and the world was greatly delighted." Elephants fell victim to the clearing of forests for farming and they were also destructive of crops, so human persecution played an important role in their extermination, but climate change also contributed to their demise as temperatures cooled in the first millennium BC. By this time elephants were no longer used in warfare, except in the west and southwest, although the last known use of war-elephants was as late as 1662 when they were commandeered from non-Han locals in the course of anti-Manchu resistance in the southwest."

According to WWF, only 30,000-40,000 wild Asian elephants survive today, mostly in India. There are also 16,000 domesticated elephants, mainly used in the logging industry throughout Asia, as well as a significant number in captivity around the world.

I've also read that poaching is quite a problem on the Chinese border, and the preference for elephants with tusks means that the population of surviving elephants has more of the non-tusk gene. So eventually the elephants in China may not have tusks.

And as a side-effect from China's recent interest in Africa, elephants there may also suffer.

"Across China, new shops are opening for hundreds of thousands to buy items that only a generation ago were beyond their reach. Ivory is one of them. "On a recent visit to China, I found twice as many shops selling ivory products than I saw only a few years ago," said Esmond Martin, a conservationist who has tracked the global ivory trade. Chinese companies are making their mark, building roads in Ethiopia, buying up the Sudans oil and relaunching Sierra Leones tourism industry."