My second visit to the Stone Forest of Yunnan was markedly different from the first. In 2005 I visited the area while researching an article on geological parks in China. Our guide for that trip was a geologist, and we met with the park geology staff and several academics conducting research in the area. The article (in Focus on Geography: Winter 2006) described the park and its educational efforts in somewhat glowing terms. Yet, I think I really was seeing the park through the eyes of a geologist, not one of the masses of tourists.
Our group visit in May 2007 was as tourists. We gave no advance warning and there was no party of cadres ready at the gate to answer all of our questions. Hoards of tourists were milling about, all seemingly refusing to progress more than 200 m inside the park. They stayed on the paths and many were carted around in open-air buses. Typical Chinese tourism some might say, take photos where told and don't really experience the park, just tick it off your checklist to tell the folks back home. I had a feeling of depression, knowing that off the beaten path was a wonderfully strange geological site, yet none of the visitors seemed to grasp that. Nor were they interested.
Part of the mandate of World Geoparks is that they must promote geological heritage education. There certainly are informative signs scattered about the park. But, there are no guidebooks available to the general public, and the location of the museum remained a bit of a mystery (none of the guides knew of its existence). In 2005 the park officials were eager to mention a new geological museum was under construction, although we didn't see it. Apparently not many people do in 2007 either!
Once again it seems that mass tourism has trumped educational tourism. Or is it just that the culture of tourism differs in the east?
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I'm so glad you brought up the Stone Forest, Steve-o. I also was pretty shocked at first to see such a large group of tourists milling about this beautiful park. Yes, they got onto their shuttle busses and drove around and took pictures. However, spending several days at Sean's guesthouse was rather enlightening.
There, I met tons of Western tourists (Scottish, German, British, Kiwi, French, Swiss). In such a remote place, they were obviously "not doing the tourist thing," and just backpacking around China. Many of them took on a slight arrogance when hearing that I was in China for ONLY two weeks. "Thats not enough time," was a common remark. However, when I asked if they had been to the Three Gorges Dam, nobody had been, and we are talking about people who have been in China for over 2 months. I felt like a professor lecturing them on the whole situation.
So, it got me thinking a lot about Chinese vs. Western tourism. Yeah, maybe the Chinese like to take a bus, get out, take a picture, and then ride to the next pretty place. Does that really mean they are enjoying it any less? I feel that many western tourists have this arrogance about them, that going off the beaten path and "earning" what you get to see is superior. However, in a country like China, they have a different way of doing things, and different ways they like to see their country. How can you say that Chinese tourists aren't getting the "real" experience, when, in fact, the touristy places are where you can learn the most about their culture?
I did tell the people at the Stone Forest to stop mowing the lawn. Now I realize that I was being culturally insensitive, and perhaps the mowed lawns were more appropriate for domestic tourists viewing pleasure.
News today out of Xinhua says that the Stone Forest has just been given status as a World Heritage site, grouped into the South China Karst site with several other karst regions including the Guilin area.
As one of the carts full of chinese tourists passed us on our way to the more remote area of the stone forest I heard one of them remarking on how foreigners are always exercising. Obviously, being the only ones on foot and the only foreigners he was talking about us. Why do we like to exercise to much?
I don't exercise for the sake of exercise, I use my two legs to see what's around hte next corner. So for me it's more about natural curiosity to see everything and anything than staying fit. Witness the Tiger Leapoing Gorge hike. That hike kicked my ass.
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