A Little City with a Bia Heart
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IF you are planning a visit to Zhangji- ajie,the natural reserve in Hunan Province,you could do yourself an,extra favor with a stopover in Yi-yang,a small city on the route from pro-vincial capital Changsha.People swoonover Zhangjiajie's spectacular mountainscenery,its waterfalls,pools and brooks,its foliage of myriad hues,its untamedflamboyance.Yiyang's charm is of anotherorder,understated and cultured.
Flanked by the Xuefeng Mountains tothe southwest and the South DongtingPlain to the northeast,Yiyang is traversedby the restless flow of the Zijiang River,nurturer of long lost civilizations.Itsdocumented history began in the War-ring States Period (475-221 BC),when itwas part of the State of Chu.After the na-tion was united by Emperor Qinshihuang(259-21o BC),Yiyang County was estab-lished in the region.The size of its terri-tory changed over the following centuries,but the name has survived these millen-nia.In the 199os Yiyang was promoted toa prefecture-level city.
People Who Made Their Marks inHistory
A popular song about Yiyang's PeachBlossom River was a smash hit in the1930s Shanghai,the vanguard of Westerncultural influence at the time.DuringWorld War II,Shanghai was refuge toa large Jewish refugee community,inflight from extermination at the hands ofthe Nazis back in their home countries.Some of their number would never havemade it to a safe haven in China withoutthe help of rio Fengshan,a Yiyang native.
As Chinese consul general in Viennafrom 1938 to 1940,Dr.Ho's epitaphtells us he risked his life and career forthousands of Jews who applied for Chi-nese visas in a desperate effort to escapeNazi concentration camps.In 2ooo YadVashem,Israel's Holocaust memorialauthority granted one of Israel's highesthonors "Righteous Among the Nations"to Dr.Ho,the "Chinese Schindler," at aceremony attended by families of thosehe saved.
Son of a poor peasant,Dr.H0 (1901-1997) was an exceptionally diligent andintelligent student; in 1932,studyingin Germany he obtained a doctorate inpolitical economics.A few years laterhe started his diplomatic career in thegovernment of the Republic of Chinaand was sent to Vienna.In 1938 Austria.was annexed by Nazi Germany,and soonafter the Anschluss most of the capital's18o,ooo Jews were rounded up andtransported to concentration camps.Theremnant shuttled frantically between for-eign embassies to get a ticket out of thecountry.Many embassies turned awayapplicants en masse for fear of Nazi retali-ation,but Ho Fengshan managed to issuevisas to all who came to him.
Soon the Nazi authority comman-deered the consulate office on the pretextthat the building was a Jewish property,and Ho's appeals to the Kuomintanggovernment for relocation funds were re-jected.Dr.Ho dug into his own pocketsto rent a small apartment where he con-tinued to hand out visas to Jews.He was quoted as saying: "It was natural to feelsympathy to the Jews when seeing theirplight,and I felt a humanitarian obliga-tion to help them."
Dr.Ho never boasted about hisheroic deeds; indeed the story only be-came public knowledge three years afterhis death.At the 10th anniversary of hisdeath the famous writer Yu Qiuyu wrotehim an effusive epitaph,which containsthese words: "It is not a trifle to extend ahelping hand to those close at hand,andit is even more unusual to do good tensof thousands of miles away.The worldnever overlooks any spark of kindnessamid the commotion of wars."
A benign heart is a defining element ofYiyang's ethos,one shaped by Confucianteaching and the esteem for educationand other cultures that have prevailedhere since ancient times.Local academiesachieved national reputations as early asin the Northern Song Dynasty (96o-1127)that endured into Ming and Qing times.In the early 20th century the college andprograms funded by the Norwegian Mis-sionary Society seeded a cosmopolitanvision among local youth,including HoFengshan,a beneficiary of the society'seducational subsidies.
Yiyang was the birthplace of or was sig-nificant in the lives of many luminaries ofChinese history,including the four seniorofficials who swayed the course of the lateQing Dynasty: namely,Zeng Guofan,HuLinyi,Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang.Zhou Libo (1908-1979),a writer fromYiyang,is known for his novel Bao FengZhou Yu (Hurricane),on the 1950s landreform,which is lauded as a literary mon-ument to an epoch-making event.Eventoday people from all over China tricklein to pay tribute at his former residence,athatched cottage amid an ocean of whitecamellia,with bamboo forests stretchingas far as the eye can see.
Tea Horse Trail
Yiyang lies on the Ancient Tea HorseTrail.Its Anbei County,tucked deep inthe Xuefeng Mountain,produces primedark tea,which became nationally re-nowned back in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).Interestingly,the beverage is mostloved by nomad herders in northwesternprovinces such as Qinghai,Shaanxiand Xinjiang,far away from where it isgrown.Their taste for it apparently datesback to Genghis Khan's military expedi-tions.
In .the mid-13th century the forces ofthe ambitious leader of the Mongol tribesentered Yiyang,as part of his campaignto conquer Eurasia.Worn out by the longdistances and debilitated by gastric prob-lems triggered by the alien climate anddiet,the contingent could make it no fur-ther than this hostile mountainous region.Hospitable local farmers offered them adrink made from dark dry leaves,whichtranspired to be most effective in curingdiarrhea.Mongolians took to dark tea ina big way and it was later introduced intowestern China.
The Yiyang section of the Tea HorseTrail is dotted with historic sites,includ-ing 38 venerable bridges,one of which isYongxi Bridge.A roofed wooden struc- ture atop white stone piers,the bridgehas gate towers with multiple tiers ofupswept eaves,so it looks more like aframe house than a bridge.The weedspeeping out from between its gray tilesand the green moss that fills the cracksin its stone steps produce a patina ofage,completely at one with the peacefulcountry views that form the backdrop.The bridge was built in the Qing Dy-nasty with money raised by residents ofnine towns,and its construction took sixyears.
The meandering route of the caravantrail crosses several rivers in Yiyangbefore starting to climb the GuanshanValley,its entrance guarded by a tower-ing monolith - the "General." A ruggedfootpath winds through narrow defiles,dense bush and forest,treacherouscaverns and babbling creeks.At somepoints one has to crawl prostrate orgrope one's way through.Walking~ raft-ing and horse-riding alternate withinthe course of one kilometer,but thisseems like one extremely long kilometerfor those experiencing it.People withstrong nerves and legs would definitelylove the thrill of this adventure.Thoseof softer tastes can also enjoy it if theydivert their thoughts from their soremuscles and pounding heartbeat to thesweet chorus of birdsong and visualwonders of a lost world.
Once through the valley,the trailleads to Gaoeheng (High City).This isa total misnomer: it is actually a littlevillage on the northern slope of BigBear Mountain.Caravans reprovisionedand took a break here in the days whenhorses were the only means of landtransport.Its inaccessibility has proveda good preservative for this ancientcommunity,one that seems to haveturned back time.
Southern Dongting
Southern Dongfing is part of the wa-ter body of Dongting,the second largestfreshwater lake in China.Lauded in themost creative and luscious language bythe most revered stars in China's liter-ary firmament,this formerly pristineexpanse has become the victim of siltaccumulation and land reclamation; itis no longer a single,vast,water bodybut three smaller lakes.Its beauty is ofcourse compromised,but not to the na-ked eye,since each sub-lake still extendswell beyond the range of human sight.
Southern Dongting is speckled withislands large and small.Some are over-grown with a lavish covering of wildflowers; some are treasuries of edibleplants,lOO percent organic; some are thehaunts of local herders.
Chishan Island,3o km long by 4 kmacross,distinguishes itself from theothers by reason of having a lake of itsown with minor islets.It supports a vil-lage - Lishiehong - that was said to bethe hideout of Fan Li and his love Xishi.Fan,an advisor to the King of Yue duringthe Spring and Autumn Period (77o-476B.C.),hatched a scheme to overthrow therival state of Wu.It involved infiltrating afemmefatale-namely Xishi-to seduceand distract the King of Wu,a missionshe fulfilled to perfection.Yue overthrewWu and the pair slipped into seclusion,feeding a myriad of rumors about theirrelationship and their whereabouts.
An extension of the nearby XuefengMountain,Chishan is a spread of hillyterrain of reddish soil set amid blue rip-pling waters.The reddish tinge,however,is barely visible through the dense forestcover.