| PRESERVING CULTURE & HISTORY CERS has been involved with culture conservation for over two decades. It started as documentation of many indigenous cultures unique to China's minority nationalities, many of which were in the process of disintegration, assimilation, or simply eclipsing in modern times. We gradually moved into the design and implementation of culture projects, at times involving entire local communities. We preserve both material and intellectual culture. In the former we sometimes conserve and restore entire ensembles of architecture, up to twenty houses or more in some projects. In the latter we document and support collections of ethnic music and legends. CERS is also an important repository of many old records, select pictures and films. |
PILGRIMAGE LONG OVERDUE
Wong How Man
Zhongdian, Yunnan
Statue of Damuzong. It seems strange that I should be making my first pilgrimage to Damuzong’s meditation cave only after it was burnt down by fire last year. Damu was considered to be the First Patriarch Master who brought Buddhism from India to China. I’ve been looking up at this cave from far below, from some 1000 meters in elevation lower down at the foot of the mountain, for well over ten years. Every time, several times a year, we drove past the foot of this pinnacle peak rising west of the Yangtze River, on our way from our Zhongdian Center to the Golden Monkey/Lisu Hill Tribe site.
CAVE EXPLORING IN SABANG, PALAWAN
Zhang Fan (translated by Roger Yung)
Kunming
Exploring deep inside unknown cave. Palawan is considered to be the best preserved islands in the Philippines. In 2011, the National Geographic magazine named it the world’s best place for scenic photography and diving. When our team first arrived at Palawan’s Puerto Princesa Airport, the first thing that caught my attention was an advertisement about the region’s caves and underground rivers. As a cave explorer, I was so excited. I said to the team, “Bingo, we hit the right target, because our whole team is now coming to explore these caves.”
THE SECOND DEFILE
William Bleisch, PhD
Aboard the HM Explorer on the Ayeyarwaddy, Myanmar
Bamboo raft at foot of Second Defile. The sound of chainsaws echoes through the canyon almost throughout the day. The Second Defile is being logged.
The dreadful background noise makes me cringe reflexively, but the visual scene is still spectacular. The mighty river narrows to a deep ribbon of dark water that snakes between towering hills. The bare rocks of the cliffs stand out from the deep green of the forest, several large trees towering over their neighbours. Birds are abundant and diverse. We even see a small flock of hornbills flying high overhead.
LAST OF THE PI YAO MINORITY PEOPLE
Wong How Man
Liannan, Gunagdong
A Yao baby today. “Please, please join us for lunch. We are cooking anyway,” said Tang Mai De San, the 32 years old son-in-law of the family. I declined his truly warm hospitality as it was not just me, but seven of us in my team, and it would add undue work to their family’s very last day at this ancient house.
Tang had just arrived by motorcycle at this now remote hamlet. And the road, it was only completed less than ten years ago. Soon it would be abandoned and lay to waste. Likewise electricity arrived last year, and after today there would be no need for it anymore.
SINGING THE OCEAN BLUES
Musings on fish and commitment while floating in the Sulu Sea
William Bleisch, PhD
Palawan, The Philippines
Five-banded Seargent Major, Abudefduf vaigiensis. Back on the boat, I found myself spontaneously bursting into song, singing all the sea shanties I could remember at the top of my voice.
My father was a fisherman all of his life;
And he courted a mermaid one fine night;
And out of this union, there came three;
A porgy and a sea horse, and then there’s me!
We were on the island of Palawan, the southwestern frontier of the Philippines. For our first explorations, we had come to El Nido on the northern tip of the island, traveling by car instead of boat, a change plans at the last minute when it became clear that our new CERS research vessel, the HM Explorer 2, would take months to register. Without our own boat, we were constrained to join one of the tourist circuits. “Today you are doing tours A and C,” declared the tour guide, before he quickly rattled off the names of our destinations. He was obviously all too-familiar after many repeated trips. The beaches and near shore were crowded with visitors, mostly young Filipinos from the city, together with a few trendy young European and Asian tourists.
BLUE SKY, WHITE PEAKS AND GREEN HILLS
And audience with Her Majesty the Royal Grandmother of Bhutan
Wong How Man
Paro, Bhutan
Royal Grand Mother, her sister Tashi and nephew Dasho Benji, with How Man at Her Royal Palace. “That is a very auspicious sign,” said Lama Neten with a sliver of smile, finally. It seemed at last we had broken the ice as he looked very serious and solemn when I first met him the night before, at a home down the hill.
Though only 49 years of age, his demeanor was like that of an old teacher. After all, he is the abbot of a monastery with 120 monks, most of them boys. And they reside in this monumental castle of Gasa Dzong, the seat of one of the twenty Dzongkhags (Districts) of Bhutan and the northernmost, largest and highest of all the Districts. Below him, but above him in elevation, he controls another twenty smaller sub-monasteries, most sitting at dizzying height of the plateau bordering Tibet.
AVALANCHE!
William Bleisch, PhD
on the trail below Api Himal
A musk deer, one of the first images recovered from our camera traps in Api Nampa. The third avalanche stopped us, but it was the fourth avalanche that convinced us all that we had been right to turn back.
I am in the Api Nampa Conservation Area in western Nepal again, back to try to retrieve the camera traps that we set high up near the source of the Chemaliya River last October, just below the cliffs of Api peak itself. We need to retrieve the traps to see what wildlife they have caught and also to bring them down the mountain before thousands of caterpillar fungus collectors enter the protected area later in the month. Unfortunately, a bit of freak weather has left several feet of snow accumulated in the upper reaches of the valley.
NO MORE FAMILY DIVISION: ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP BY CONSENSUS IN GUJI
Prof. Yu Shuenn-Der
Grandma uses pebbles to count her circuits around the stupa. We meet Grandma on entering Guji Station. She is chanting her mantra and processing in a circle around the village’s white stupa. The eldest among her siblings, whose parents passed away when she was only nine years old, Grandma is now 78. She has remained single and spent decades taking care of her families. Now her great grand-nephew is of age to inherit the family responsibilities and she can finally retire. She spends most of her day time circling the white stupa, 250 rounds in the mornings and 200 in the afternoons; each session takes three to four hours.
HEADWATER OF THE CHINDWIN
Wong How Man
Khamti, Myanmar
Last navigable stretch of the Chindwin River. Momentarily a few leafs drifted down and floated on the stream where rattan and vine branches intertwined overhead. At another open bend of the river, half a dozen water buffaloes lay sunning themselves while as many white egrets stood on their backs. It was all so very romantic and simple; like childhood revisited, when simplicity reigned before the onslaught of gadgetry and other complexities. How could I not feel like a child when looking up at giant trees and forest?
The red spotted clouds before sunrise this morning seemed indicative of a special day. Bill’s boat was in front. I wasn’t sure if he felt the same, as he was turning 60 on this day, but then I was 65. It seemed strange that I was just made a grandfather for the first time and yet felt like a child. But many images, real or imagined, returned as if I was barely a few years old, maybe a boy of five. Perhaps that was what serenity really meant, to feel like a child again.