Surely you can't ruin Yangshuo?
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2006
1
16
132
Trip End
Jun 03, 2009
Yanghsuo, Guangxi, China
Monday, August 7, 2006
But.... And with Yin and Yang floating around there's always a but. In a year since I last came, the place changed. Talking to one or two old hands the place has been changing for the last 30 years, but maybe now the change is faster and places all that I tried to convey about what makes Yangshuo special in jeopardy.
The issue is a familiar one, money. People in the area understandably want to earn it. The flow of foreign tourists isn't enough to expand the revenues, so the target market is changing to the nouveau riche chinese of Guangdong province. This means that the entertainent, catering and style of hotels, building and so on are changing apace. The foreign backpacker or climber might want a bargain room in with mouldy walls in a rickety "characterful" building, but the new Chinese want to show their wealth in brand new white concrete, imitation Ming Dynasty hotels and shopping malls. The town is increasintly awash with tour groups marching after a guide holding a flag and loud hailer.
It's a meeting of worlds and styles, but the irony could be that by following the prototype tourist theme park of modern China (you may guess that I'm not enamoured of it), the very fusion of cultures that defined the town and increased it's popularity could be destroyed. Realistically, it won't stay a westerners' haunt if the mass chinese tour groups kill the atmosphere. But will the chinese come if the western aspect has gone? Almost certainly yes, but Yangshuo won't be the same, and that would be sad.
Right now, this is still a magnificent place to amble around. Things I love to do:
- stare across the Li Jiang at any time of day or night. I never get tired of the scenery.
- wander through the local markets (i.e. those where the locals buy food) at 3pm and find that business stopped for the tens of card games taking place.
- Go down XieJie at 8.30 in the morning and find that the prices are 25% of those at 8.30 in the evening as the shopkeepers either haven't woken up or seek the first lucky sale of the day.
- Swim in the Yulong River
- And potter, study, and potter, and don't count a single minute, hour or day......
Long may it last.
