Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

Page 371 - 383, Changjiang

             Shilu     石碌   “Toilsome Rock”

Remembering the Chinese and also the Australian and Allied

 prisoners-of-war who toiled under the Japanese invaders

       of Hainan Island during the Second World War

                                  Copyright @ 2015

Chapter 12:  West Coast - From Changjiang

Li Autonomous County To Danzhou

 

About fifty-five kilometres northeast of Dongfang town is Shilu (now Changjiang; 昌江黎族自治县), the site of China’s largest open-cast iron ore mine.  During the Second World War, this mine was exploited by the Japanese, whose prisoners were coerced to extract its ores as well as build a railway line from the inland hill to the coastal Basuo port for transportation.  Its proven reserves of more than two hundred and sixty million tons of ores with an average iron content of fifty-one percent also contain cobalt and copper.  Verified cobalt deposit tallies at more than thirteen thousand tons.  Cobalt is used to strengthen steel plates of aeroplanes, missiles, and tanks.  An iron-and-steel factory to manufacture steel has been planned for Shilu.

Hainan has other ore deposits like aluminium, brown coal, gold, lead, manganese, oil shale, uranium, and zirconium.  Beneath its eastern coast are at least one billion tons of titanium ore.  Titanium alloys are used extensively for manufacturing aircraft engines and frames.  Interestingly, large deposits of lignite and oil shale have also been discovered.  Off-shore in the surrounding sea is oil and natural gas reserves.

Leaving the Dongfang station with only a few passengers, the bus routed for Shilu crawls along the main Donghai Road for thirty minutes, picking up people waiting patiently by its kerbs.  With twenty-two passengers (including a boy of eight and three babies), it turns into another road (Jiulong and Dongfang Avenue), attracting six more scrambling passengers.  Now carrying a profitable load of thirty fare-payers and three babies, it speeds off at eleven-fifteen, travelling along 435 Road (also known as 225 National Road). 

In green T-shirt and jeans, a short and fairly tanned local lady of about twenty-eight sits on the platform behind the driver.  Cuddling her baby, she faces me and the other passengers in comfortable seats.  Halfway through the trip, she unhesitatingly lifts the right side of her T-shirt to breast-feed her six-month old baby.  She has probably done this so often that her action emerges spontaneously, without any hint of hesitation or doubt.  Although seeing me occasionally stealing a glance at her, she manifests neither embarrassment nor indignation.  I am amazed by her moral innocence.  But I am also ashamed of my lack of it, gazing at her small firm breast.  No one else is offended, no murmur or protest.  The moral complexities of the developed world have not yet afflicted her or them.  She politely declines when I offer to swap seats.  

 

Prisoners of war, tears in Shilu Iron Mine (石碌铁矿)

 

After an hour and a half, the bus reaches Shilu Bus Terminal along the main Renmin North Road.  This road is very busy with cars picking up and dropping off passengers and pedestrians walking or shopping among the roadside stalls.  All kinds of items are on sale.  Fruits like berries, longans, mangoes, pears, pineapples, and jackfruit are the main goods.  Clothing and drinks are the next best-sellers.  A gentleman approaches.  He is perhaps a cab driver.  I politely tell him that I am looking into the hotel ahead.  It is only two hundred metres away. 

Hong Jun Hotel (鸿俊宾馆, which subsequently ceased operation) is almost at the corner of Renmin North Road and Dongfeng Road.  Its rate is comparable to the rates at Longquan in Haikou and Longyuan in Wenchang.  I check in, before proceeding for lunch.  A café serving cheap ready-cooked food is around the corner at Dongfeng Road.  A tin plate of rice, an omelette, a small fried fish, and a small plate of vegetables cost less than 15 RMB.

Some cab drivers are milling around the bus stop across my hotel lobby.  I ask one.  He quotes a fare 10 RMB to the office gate of Shilu Iron Mine.  As it is inexpensive, I accept his offer.  The ride takes about ten minutes.  I later discover that the office is only two and a half kilometres south of my hotel.  When I alight, I find to my dismay that no mine is around.  Only houses.  The driver points to the tiny sentry office at the gate of the ore-mining company and departs.

Fortunately, the security lady is a Hainanese.  I explain my purpose in our common dialect.  Seeing that I bear no authorisation letter from her company, she initially rejects my entreaty.  Extremely disappointed, I none the less politely thank her and leave, giving up my dream of ever viewing the mine, when she unexpectedly calls me back.  My heart jumps.

Convinced by my bona fide claim as a harmless travel-guide author, she asks me to wait.  She rings her friend, an employee at the iron mine.  He is free to bring me up on his motorbike.  I happily wait.  Within fifteen minutes, he arrives.  Is this for real, I pinch myself.  The lone guard at the only road up hoists the security bar to let us through.  Yes!

After curving with the winding road for about three kilometres, my guide stops at a vantage spot for me to photograph the deep oval-shaped open mine on our left.  I stand by the edge of the narrow road, on the edge of a huge cavity.  Our road runs around it.  I gape in astonishment.  Its depth is, in my mental computation, at least two hundred metres.  Its width at its widest is at least five hundred metres.  I quickly survey my surrounding.  The highest point of this hilly range is probably around three hundred metres above sea level, and we are standing on an elevation of some two hundred and fifty metres.  

Half a kilometre ahead is one of the peaks of this range.  Unlike the barren terraces around the monstrous pit below us, the higher slope stretching from our road to that peak is also terraced but lightly covered with trees and shrubs.  As I stare at the ascending stepped slope, the gentleman informs me that the earth and ore excavated from the hole below us was once part of that mountain ridge.  But this huge hole has been dug by Chinese labourers after the war, he continues.

Fingering the upper slope again, he relates that it is the locality laboured by the Australian and British prisoners.  From my calculation, they had onerously removed at least a fifty-metre depth of earth with the primitive hoes and shovels supplied by their Japanese captors.  I can now visualise the road terminating at the ground where I am standing; I can now visualise the scrawny starving prisoners dragging their exhausted feeble bodies, daily along the sandy tracks to the peak to cleave the hard ground.  From there they precariously bore their cane baskets of ores down the steep slope to the waiting trucks and rail carriages.

Still persisting as evidence of their toil and suffering are the sparsely vegetated terraces on the raped slope but in time, as the sterile slope slowly recovers with lush green regeneration from the accumulating nutrient-rich plant compost and animal or bird manure, the prisoners’ presence may, sadly, be forgotten.

As I recapitulate the horrors of war inflicted upon those men merely six or seven decades back, I have an unflinching respect for their grit and perseverance in enduring another day of hell-hole in a strange land, an island they had not even heard of previously.  The bravery of the few who attempted escape is laudable and even astounding; they trusted the local inhabitants to protect them.  The name “Shilu” (石碌) now evokes sombre images in my thoughts.  Its literal translation “Stone Toilsome” (or “Toilsome Stone”) was apt, although not a full description of this town now.  

A passing car awakes my mesmerising introspection.  It probably belongs to a senior company officer.  Swiftly, I snap a few photographs before he emerges and expels me from the scene.  No, there is no monument at the peak to commemorate the war prisoners’ labour, my guide answers.  

With that response, I have no justification to beg him to take me to the peak, even though I harbour that wish.  As his motorbike brings us down the paved circuit, I am haunted by visions of weary POWS writhing under their loads.  I am extremely glad the security officer does not stop and confiscate my camera of indelible memories.  

My guide is very generous.  Going out of his way, he drives me down Kuangshan (矿山; lit: Mine Mountain) Road to the nearby railway tracks where the Japanese masters had transported the iron ores.  Unfortunately, he is unaware of the location of any prisoner’s grave.  As we converse, a dark-green locomotive engine with white identification number “0522” slowly creeps before us.  It has no carriages.  A man in yellow safety helmet is standing at its open left door.  He is looking out for someone or something.  Perhaps the lead train will later be hooked to its cargo carriages.  I thank my guide profusely for showing me the mine and railway, the few reminders of the Japanese exploitation of my ancestral Hainan.

 

Bawangling, home of the singing Mountain Bulbuls (绿翅短脚鹎)

 

Bawangling National Forest Park is fifteen kilometres south of Shilu as the crow flies but twenty-six kilometres by the winding road.  From Dongfang town, the distance is forty-five kilometres east.  Ever since I first heard its name some time ago, I had been under the assumption that the term “Bawangling” means “Ridge of the Eight Kings” (八王岭).  But now, a consultation of my map and pocket dictionary erases my error; it is “Ridge of the Feudal Overlord” (霸王岭).    

Established in 1980, this fairly large reserve of sixty-seven square kilometres was generously expanded by the government in 2003 to some three hundred square kilometres, transmitting its serious intention in preserving the island’s rich flora and fauna.

Not knowing much about my destination, I decide on an early start with lunch at the very early hour of nine-thirty on Saturday morning.  I am fortunate.  Some coffee shops and food stalls are open.  I enter one at random.  I am its first customer.  I stick to my list of hygienically safe dishes: a cup of tea, a bowl of rice, a small plate of vegetables, two small fried fish, and an omelette, selected from a variety of cooked food on the counter. 

Shortly thereafter, two gentlemen enter and, after placing their orders, sit at separate tables.  We pay on delivery of our food, and I inadvertently overhear the cost of their meal: it is even less than mine, which is only 15 RMB.  Silently, all of us finish our meal in quick time.  

Walking towards the bus station diagonally across the road from my hotel, I meet hawker stalls selling clothing, fruits, and grocery products.  The kerb is thronged with people.  Some are making their early purchases for the day; some are spectators; and some are waiting for public transport.  In the small parking lot suited for accommodating nine buses are five, two seated with passengers.  The driver in one points to the empty vehicle behind his.

Being early, I quickly board and occupy the front seat to the right of the driver’s.  The green “Shilu – Bawang” (石碌 - 霸王) bus leaves at ten-fifteen.  The fare is 6 RMB.  It creeps out of the car park, picking passengers along Renmin Road.  By the time it reaches the end of the road, it is full.  And when it leaves the perimeter of town, it is packed to the brim.  

On the edge of town are some industries related to mining.  Travelling further along 705 County Road, I face the giant silos of two cement factories about half a kilometre apart.  Their names in Mandarin and English are prominently fixed to the walls near their entrances: “Chang Jiang Hua Sheng Tian Ya Cement Company” (昌江华盛天涯水泥有限公司) and “China Resource Cement (Changjiang) Limited” (華潤水泥（昌江）有限公司).  The former receives its sand from a quarry about fourteen kilometres south of Shilu while the latter receives its sand from two quarries, the smaller one about three kilometres south and the larger one about ten kilometres south.  One of the largest cement producers in China, China Resource Cement has twelve other production lines in southern China.

Our bus glides under their elevated sand-conveying belts, which look like miniature train lines.  Hainan produced eight million tons of cement in 2006.  As its local demand was only six million tons, the surplus was exported to the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.  

During the journey along the clean two-lane asphalt road with few vehicles, I catch glimpses of flat farms and fields, vast expanse of verdant forest, and long mountain ranges.  Trees, shrubs, and long grasses proliferate on both sides of the land.  At one bend, the thin overhanging branches and leaves of some tall overgrown shrubs lightly brush the right side of our speeding bus. 

Two young girls aged about eight and ten are standing on the uneven gravel track to my left, looking aimlessly.  Freed from classes and daily chores on Saturday morning, they are perhaps finding excitement in spotting or identifying the passing traffic.  I ponder over their future, the lives they would be leading once they have finished their education in this rural country region.

“Will their children stand here too the way they do?”  I ask myself.

As usual, passengers alight at their villages, which are far apart, while others board, bound for their destinations.  The changing view is scenic and refreshing, perhaps because I am a city dweller.  One structure intrigues me: a four-metre wide concrete flight of stairs that lead to nowhere and a cage on the concrete platform at its upper left corner.  Do the villagers sit on the stairs to watch a night opera performed on the empty road under the bright and clear starry sky?  Or do they stand there to mock a local recalcitrant imprisoned in the temporary lock-up?

Some enterprising entrepreneur is advertising his company on the podium wall; his beautiful graffiti sprayed in black of the two Chinese characters “挖机” (“waji”, or “excavating machine”) and a telephone number reveals an artistic hand.  He should consider a career in art instead.

Surprisingly, the bus is still full when it ends in Bawangling town at eleven-thirty.  I should have a good start for the day.  As I descend, the driver thoughtfully explains that I need to hire a motorcyclist to bring me to the park at the cost of 30 RMB.  I thank him profusely.  “Xie xie ni; xie xie ni.”  I see a bunch of men waiting for passengers.  I ask one.  When he mentions the reasonable fare, I immediately accept, and leap onto his motorcycle. 

Riding the low-powered noisy machine around the higher slopes on the smooth but narrow twisting road, with the width of almost two lanes, induces a thrill that I cannot explain.  In the stillness and quiet of the mountain, the repetitive spluttering of the engine is hypnotic.  I am delighted with my decision to come here.  The weather is fine; the sky is blue.  Evergreen vegetation surrounds me.  Some birds are singing in the bush somewhere.  No houses can be detected the further we travel.

Unthinkingly, and - on hindsight - foolishly, I reach for my instant camera in my T-shirt pocket.  The fresh breeze cools my face as I dangerously clench the pillion belt with my left hand while filming with the other.  The distance to my destination is about seven and a half kilometres.    

When we reach the carefully designed and neatly maintained small park in front of Bawangling Forestry Reception Center and Hotel, not a soul is around.  No tourists, no employees.  The only sign of their presence is the ten or so empty stationary cars scattered along the narrow drives.  All around me are the towering mountain ranges and thick green forests of gigantic trees.  Although the day is bright and clear, I have an uncharacteristic fleeting fear.

Where do I begin?  I have no desire to spend a night or two, wandering confusedly in this vast rugged terrain filled with unknown dangers.  Keeping my terrified thoughts to myself, I unhesitatingly seek my motorcyclist’s service as guide for an hour or two for the price of 30 RMB.  He accepts.  

Thus, we begin our ascent on his motorcycle along the elevating paved road to report at the small ticket office about four hundred metres off.  After I have paid the 30-RMB admission fee, he drives me further up another three hundred metres where flights of wooden stairs had been constructed on the higher slope on our right for easy access. 

This section of the slope inclines at a steep angle of more than forty-five degrees.  The wooden structures were installed before the park opened its door to the public three years ago, my guide informs.  After finding a suitable site by the road to park his motorcycle, we proceed on foot.  Ahead is a lookout. 

“What do these words say?”  I politely enquire.

“夫妻石 (Fuqi Shi)”, he reads aloud the words on the wooden plaque for me.  

He briefly explains its meaning, which I grasp.  This is the “Husband-and-Wife Rock”.  Product of a climatic fissile, two large slaps of sandstones tilt at a seventy-degree angle beneath us, imparting an indistinct impression of a person supporting another on his back.  How appropriate!  

“Zhege difang hen piaoliang!”  (“This place is very beautiful!”)  I comment laconically, recalling my list of stock phrases.

“Shi.”  (“Yes”)  He acknowledges. 

As I rapidly scan, I am overwhelmed by the seemingly impenetrable forest, its bushy foliage masking the valleys and mountain ranges with all shades of green.  Directing my attention on a vegetated slope far away, I discern a few denuded thin and tall boulders pointing to the sky as well as some steep, bald crags just like the one below me.  

Somewhere in the distance, or perhaps hidden among the leafy branches behind me, Hainan Gibbons are teasing one another or even eyeing us.  Endemic to Hainan, they once roamed the whole island when it was thickly wooded.  But after centuries of deforestation and hunting, these harmless primates verged on the precipice of extinction.  Only seven individuals in two groups were tabulated in this area in 1980.  Fortunately, with the immediate foundation of this conservation reserve, their numbers increased to twenty-three in four groups in 1998.  Unfortunately, a 2003 survey confirmed the presence of only thirteen individuals.  

Professor Liang Wei is one of the conservationists involved in an international effort to rescue these native mammals.  These pioneers include Wu Wei and Duane Silverstein, Director of Seacology, an American non-government environmental organization.  With their diverse expertise and financial support, as well as cooperation of the Li ethnic minorities living in the neighbouring villages, the Hainan Gibbons may yet be saved. 

These black-headed kin of homosapiens live in small sedentary groups and advertise their presence through their morning songs.  They are a separate species, the Hylobates Hainanus, distinct from the gibbons in Vietnam and Yunnan, some taxonomists recently suggest.  

Besides the Hainan Gibbons, other animals may be lurking nearby such as the Asiatic black bears, Hainan rabbits, Hainan flying squirrels, pangolins, and sambars.  The Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is one of the five species of black bears in the world and is registered as globally “vulnerable”.  Growing up to one metre and a third in height, the Asiatic black bears are found in China, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Himalayas, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.  Being agile climbers, they live in deciduous forests of the highlands, feeding mainly on berries and fruits.  They have a ferocious reputation and are unafraid of human beings. 

Clouded Leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) are slightly smaller at up to one metre in length.  But they may be extinct.  However, reptiles like snakes and frogs are slithering or hopping around.  Some researchers have discovered ten species of frogs in a single stream.  At night, the twinkling lights of the fireflies will be spectacular if one does not mind the occasional leeches.  

Below their Chinese characters, with my subsequently transposed pinyins in the parentheses, the English translations on two signboards perplex me: “Bossy” (霸道; Ba Dao), “Python king” (蟒王; Mang wang), “Overlord Sihai” (霸王石海; Ba Wang Shi Hai), “Ba Wang Sheng Tam” (霸王圣潭; Ba Wang Sheng Tan), “Stone Bully”, (石霸; Shi Ba), “Jas increase waterfall” (雅加大瀑布; Ya Jia Da Pu Bu), “Jas plus holiday center” (雅加度假中心; Ya Jia Du Jia Zhong Xin), and “Tourists stepped” (游客止步; You Ke Zhi Bu).  During times like these, I wish I was more studious during Mandarin lessons in the days of my primary education. 

Nearby is the flight of wooden stairs.  By its entrance is a signpost.  Polished and varnished, the sawn tree trunk stands at a metre and a half in height.  On it is artistically craved: 霸道.  Is “Bossy” an apt description for a mountain walkway?  Now, I say to myself, the translation of “Bossy” does not seem right.  “Dao” is “road”.  That I recognise.  “Ba dao” is, I suspect, an abbreviation of “Bawangdao”, or “Overlord’s Road”.  Perusing my Chinese-English dictionary later, I painstakingly endeavour to unravel the meaning of each character.  Linked together, the two characters of “Ba Dao” (“Bossy”) denote despotism or tyranny.    

Hobbling up the planks, I soon grasp the intent of those enigmatic official translations.  Weathering over the millennia had eroded the soft soil on the slope to my right, thus creating many stone features, including a couple of rock pools, each at a higher elevation than the others, from the firmly entrenched hard rock.  These small, shallow pools, averaging four or five metres in diameter, are replenished with water from the constant supply trickling from the misty peak.

During the monsoonal season from May to October, the heavy downfall will gush down this slope, producing a fascinating cascade of short waterfalls.  “Jas increase waterfall”, if corrected into “Typical Increasing Cataract”, might enlighten visitors.  But I will forego the pleasure of seeing this marvel during a heavy downpour or thunderstorm.

“Python king” is an elongated, greyish natural granite pillar lying on its side.  Partially covered by shrubs, the visible part seems like a snake’s head.  “Overlord Shihai” is an exaggeration.  “Overlord’s Stone Sea” or “Overlord’s Sea in the Stone” is not a “sea”; it is a deep rock pool if full, and it may even serve as an impromptu swimming pool to the courageous.  Today, the water is shallow and cloudy after a dry spell.  “Ba Wang Sheng Tam” is another rock pool, revered as “Overlord’s Holy Pool”.  Why is it revered? 

I hear voices coming near one of these pools on the upper slope.  I climb the walkway towards the source.

Dominating the edge of a gentle fall is a round boulder, slightly more than a metre in diameter.  Its spherical shape reveals that over the decades or centuries it has been rolling down slowly until it pauses in this position.  Another mighty spurt of rain water may tip it over to the lower level, and the resulting fury may perhaps be a thunderous roar.  Is this “Overbearing Stone”, so named in the nearby plaque, the same “Stone Bully” referred to in the signpost?

A couple in their late thirties or early forties are enjoying their leisure with their teenage daughter, who is merrily jumping from rock to rock.  I greet the gentleman with a “Ni hao.”  

Getting a favourable identical response, I then pose, “Ni nali lai de?”  (“Where do you come from?”)

“Wo men shi bendiren.”  (“We are locals.”) 

Hearing the term “bendiren” for the first time but suspecting that it means “local”, I enquire, “Ni de jia zai nali?” (“Where is your house?”)

“Bawangling”

“Oh, you are not from Beijing or Shanghai?  I have met many tourists from Beijing and Shanghai travelling around Hainan.”

No, this is not the first time they have been up here.  They have visited the park several times.  Naturally, I praise the beautiful scenery of their backyard and courteously take my leave, allowing them to continue enjoying their delightful moments.  Like them, I too would wish to frequently tramp up this tranquil mountain, inhale its refreshing air, and meet some of its - I suppose, harmless - inhabitants.

Luckless, I hear or see no Hainan Gibbon or Asiatic black bear.  I am not disappointed because one is more likely to find a needle in a haystack than stumble upon these reclusive creatures.  What would I do should one suddenly pop up in front of me?  I would panic and vamoose in the opposite direction.  I have an eerie feeling that they may be watching me.  Discretion leads me to end my tour after an hour.  I am too scared to tarry.  I am satisfied that I have at least seen their lair or nest, a home that is environmentally safe for them to inhabit.  My desire is for their off-springs to multiply and enjoy the fruits of this rich and serene forest.

Taking another road down, we saunter under the canopy of a tall tree.  On its branches, numerous birds are singing their hearts out.  They constantly fly from branch to branch like restless kids, perhaps in courtship dance.  Could they be Hainan Blue Flycatchers (Cyornis hainanus)?  An adult male is a beautiful bird.  He has brilliant blue plumage on the upper half of his body to attract the females while an adult female has brown wings, which blend with the ground to escape predators’ notice.  A juvenile is brown in colour.  Its wings are brown while its breast is light-blue turning to white at the lower part.  When he is serenading, an adult male, measuring even up to fifteen centimetres in length, raises his head, his beak directing his songs to heaven.  

Cursing myself for not bringing a pair of binoculars or a higher-magnification camera, I randomly aim my functional digital one at the height, hoping to capture some images, however fuzzy they may be.  Fortunately, one photograph is successful, the mystery birds being kindly identified by Liang Wei as Mountain Bulbuls.  As their name implies, these songbirds live in the forests of hills and mountains.  Classified as sub-species “I.m. holti”, they belong to the species “Ixos mcclellandii” in the family of Pycnonotidae.  They are found in southern China, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas.  They feed mainly on berries and fruits, and occasionally on insects.  Like the other species of bulbuls, their voices, reminiscent of the mythological Sirens’, are so melodious that they are simply unforgettable.

Ornithologists would have a fruitful day sporting with the numerous varieties of birds carousing in this reserve.  Using night surveys and infra-red auto-triggered cameras, a group of researchers has recorded one hundred and forty-three species of birds over the seven-year period from 1998 to 2005.  Bulbuls, cuckoos, minivest, needletails, prinias, swifts, Thick-billed Green Pigeons, and Hainan Blue Flycatchers were the most frequently encountered species while the rare and threatened species included Slaty-backed Forktails, Yellow-cheeked Tits, Mountain Tailorbirds, Hainan Partridges, Hainan Leaf Warblers, Japanese Paradise-flycatchers, Yellow-billed Nuthatches, Hainan Peacock Pheasants, Blacked-browed Barbets, and Indochinese Green Magpies.  

Retrieving his motorcycle from the Couple Stone Lookout, my guide then points to a flight of wooden stairs down the mountain slope, saying that he will wait for me at the car park.  

Meekly, I ask him, “Will I get lost going down there?”

“No.  There is only one way down.  You won’t be lost.”  He reassures. 

Still, I am alarmed.  The boardwalk is broad, sufficient for two persons to amble side by side.  The trees are tall but the forest is not dense, permitting sunlight to penetrate and brighten the ground.  With an annual precipitation of 1750 millimetres in Bawangling, small palms thrive under the cool shadow of overhanging branches and leaves.  I am surprised the undergrowth is not as thick as I have expected and the tree trunks are thin.  Many small boulders are scattered on the floor.  They have obviously tumbled their way from the upper slopes.  My mind wanders to the time when the pre-modern ethnic Li hunters lumber their way on this steep terrain to track and snare their prey with their bows and poisoned arrows.  I am fortunate.  My route up and down has been made easier.

Under the wooden safety handrail of the boardwalk is an empty reddish-brown pupal shell about five centimetres in length.  I look closely.  Of its three pairs of legs, its front pair is thicker and thus stronger.  What sort of insect has emerged from this exoskeleton attached to a ledge that is exposed to human disturbances?  Its size suggests a cicada.  It was home to a cicada nymph.  This is confirmed later by an online check. 

An adult female lays her eggs on the leaves or in the stem of a plant.  After hatching, the wingless nymphs fall onto the soft leafy humus where they burrow and feed on root sap, moulting several times.  Finally, they claw out of their burrows with the aid of their powerful forelegs and cling onto a higher place like a tree trunk or this ledge where they will break out of their skin after an hour or so and fly off to a new life, propelled by their delicate harden wings.  Too late, I have just missed the opportunity of witnessing this wondrous event.

“Lovers’ Valley” on the nearby signpost is the English translation of the large faded-red characters 情人谷 (Qingren Gu) calligraphically chiselled on the upper rockface of the seventy-metre cliff to my right.  This cliff is almost barren, except for grasses struggling in the crevices which have trapped minute particles of fertile soil.  At the foot of this cliff is a cave that is partially covered by ferns and shrubs.  Perhaps it is the den or lair of some animals, I mumble. 

Other directions are also etched on the signpost, directions to, for example, “Lovers Waterfall” and “Lovers Bridge”.  But “Excaliber Incense” (the English translation beneath “王者之香”) and “Days ax ShenGong” (beneath “天斧神工”) befuddle me.  “Tian Fu Shen Gong” may be literally rendered as “Heaven Axe God Work”.  But what does it mean? “Excaliber Incense” (Wang zhe zhi xiang) should perhaps be revised to “The King of Fragrance”.  It probably refers to the most fragrant species of sandalwood.        

Crossing Lovers’ Bridge, I notice some plants with name tags.  With a diameter of about ten centimetres, a Combretum squamosum Combretaceae vine is twisting its way a metre from a Canarium album Burseraceae.  The latter is a tree with a trunk of about twenty centimetres in diameter.  It can reach a height of thirty metres.  Tapped from its trunk, its aromatic resinous white sap is used for making incense.  Perhaps this Chinese olive tree is the referent of “Excaliber Incense”.  Its raw fruit is edible while its dried fruit is used in traditional Chinese medicine. 

Belonging to the Annonaceae or custard-apple family, the Artabotrys hexapetalus (commonly known as Climbing Ylang-ylang) here develops into a vine instead of a woody plant, creeping over a boulder.  As its name implies, it has six-petal flowers.  These aromatic yellow flowers contain essential oils that are used for the manufacture of perfume.  Ellipanthus glabrifolius Connaraceae and Pterospermum lanceaefolium Sterculiaceae are two of the other tagged trees.  

I emerge at the car park where my guide is waiting.  I have a quick last glance at the majestic and beautiful mountain ranges, which I may not have the chance to revisit.  With a tinge of sadness, I mount his bike and we begin our descent.  I note the time: it is only two in the afternoon.  A bird perches on an overhead electrical cable.  My guide kindly stops his bike.  Before I could alight to photograph the shy beauty, it flies off.  This is a good sign; she possesses the instinctive skill for survival because she might otherwise fall victim to hunters or collectors. 

Bawangling town does not have many food or goods shops.  Perhaps the residents are not rich enough to dine in cafes.  I would like to try the local food.  With nothing else to do, I sit in the bus and wait for twenty minutes.  More locals fill the bus, which leaves at two-thirty.  Many drop off along the way. 

After an hour’s journey with few stops, the bus reaches Shilu bus station.  It is a very hot afternoon.  The light breeze brings a blast of oven heat to my face.  I estimate the temperature to be about thirty-three degrees Celsius.  It is unbearable to walk further.  I return to my hotel to escape, to enjoy the fruits that I have just bought from one of the roadside stalls.

 

 

 

Copyright 2015

Photos