Joseph Rock has been 'cancelled' in China

 

I sadly have to report that Joseph Rock and his legacy appear to have fallen into disfavour with authorities in China. His former residence near Lijiang that had been turned into a small museum has been closed down, and his name in Chinese, 洛克 'Luoke', has now become effectively become censored. Online articles that highlighted Rock's achievements in plant collecting and Naxi ethnography have been taken down, and his name has been removed from local features such as the 'Rock Road' to Zhagana in southern Gansu, one of the wilderness areas 'discovered' by Rock in the 1920s.

What does it all mean?

Perhaps we need to go back a decade or two, when local authorities in southwest China started to develop their tourism industries. The effusive articles published in National Geographic magazines of the 1920s by Rock describing areas such as Yading and Kawakarpo (Meili Xueshan) were ready-made free publicity material for local governments in the areas of Daocheng, Sichuan and in Diqing, Yunnan. 

Local authorities also seized on Rock's amazing portrait photographs of local minority people and his accomplished landscape photographs of the incredible mountain scenery and colourful monasteries. His stories and images epitomised the lost mountain world of Shangri La, which was in part inspired by Rock's articles. 

The concept of Shangri La came from writer James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon, and subsequent 1937 movie by Frank Capra. Several scholars and writers have noted the obvious parallels in Hilton's book and passages from Rock's widely-read articles that were published just a couple of years before Hilton put pen to paper.

The Shangri La 'brand' was so strong for tourism that it was actually taken by not one but TWO local towns in southwest China. The ethnic Tibetan town of Zhongdian (Gyalthang in Tibetan) in northwest Yunnan officially renamed itself  as Shangri La in 2001. Confusingly, the village of Riwa  (日瓦乡) at the entrance to Yading National Park in Sichuan also renamed itself as Shangri La in 2009.

In Lijiang, local authorities preserved the former house of Joseph Rock, located in what was once the quiet Naxi village of Nguluko (Yuhu) beyond the city limits on the road to Jade Dragon mountain. It was a modest stone and wood dwelling, a few rooms arranged around a courtyard, similar to most family houses in the area. For many years the residence housed a small museum displaying a few of Rock's personal items such as his plant collecting equipment and items of clothing. One room was recreated as his study, complete with old items of furniture such as his chairs and desk. It was a simple place, he did not live in luxury: Rock had been something of a recluse and wanted little more than a quiet place where he could devote himself to the study and documenting of local plants and flowers, and later to his writing about Naxi culture.

As Rock's articles about his travels were translated into Chinese, they were taken up by the growing number of Chinese trekkers and car tourers who used them from 2010 onwards as a basis for travelling 'off the beaten track'. The hiking route to Yading from Lugu Lake via Muli monastery was dubbed the 'Rock Line' by Chinese trekkers, and the name was adopted by local villages who put up signposts as they discovered the economic benefits of providing food, lodging and guiding services to passing travellers. 

Rock's name was then purloined by an increasing number of local businesses: hotels, shops, restaurants, who wanted to be part of the 'hot' new travel network. And in typical Chinese fashion, there were many copycats in other districts who wanted to jump on the lucrative Rock travel bandwagon. Even in far distant Gansu province, local authorities named a new road to the exotic rocky mountain crags of Zhagana as the 'Rock Road', in an effort to attract the growing number of self driving tourists.

Joseph Rock's travels and his stories also became the basis of a number of travel articles and photo features published online by local governments. Just as tourism operators in the UK highlight their local links to Harry Potter and Wainwright's fell walks, the tourism departments of places like Yading, Gongga Shan and Choni reproduced Rock's articles and photos to showcase the attractions of their local sites and minority culture.

So far, so good. But by 2024 there appeared to be a creeping pushback by some regional authorities against the use of Rock's name and stories for promotional purposes. I heard stories from Chinese friends of articles about Rock being taken offline, and of books and exhibitions relating to Rock being postponed or cancelled. A small group of Chinese academics and amateur scholars who studied Rock's works found that they had to tone down their online chat group on the social media outlet Weibo. They pre-emptively removed the two characters 洛克 representing the name of "Joseph Rock" from the title of their online circle group. 

When discussing Rock's work on Chinese language forums, it was noticeable that some netizens began to question why there was so much interest in a foreign resident of China. The group was accused of 'foreigner worship'. Why, they were asked, did the group not take an interest in the overlooked achievements of Chinese counterparts working in fields of plant collecting, ethnography and photography?

I last visited the Joseph Rock residence near Lijiang in late 2024. By that time the once quiet and run-down farming village had become a tourism hotspot. The streets had been upgraded and gentrified so that they resembled those of tourism towns such as Dali and Yangshuo. Baisha, the nearest local town, was now full of cafes, restaurants, shops selling trinkets and had many boutique Naxi-style guesthouses. The streets thronged with visitors doing day tours from Lijiang, many riding the ubiquitous electric scooters and dressed up in items of 'Naxi' rural clothing. 

I can only imagine what the studious and solitude-loving Joseph Rock would have made of the carnival atmosphere of his former home base. His former house was still open as a museum, and the displays had been extended and were presented in a more professional manner. The residence appeared to be well maintained and in good condition structurally. Nevertheless, the property saw only a handful of visitors when I was there.

Back in Lijiang Old Town I found there was also a Joseph Rock exhibition being hosted in one of the houses tucked down a back alley. It was a small and austere display explaining his works and his links to some of the other plant collectors and ethnographers of the Naxi and Dongba culture.

So in 2026 I am surprised and disappointed to hear that both of these facilities have been closed down on the orders of local authorities. There has been no official explanation as to why these actions have been taken. There have been a handful of posts and reviews on social media sites such as Amap and WeChat, in which Chinese visitors have expressed surprise and frustration at finding the Rock museums to have closed. Some reported in 2025 that the buildings of Rock's residence were still standing and just the signs had been removed and the doors locked. 

But more recent posts in 2026 have expressed concern that the actual buildings have been demolished, and photos posted showing at least part of the property has been levelled. There is confusion in the comments about why this is being done, with some claiming that the closure is temporary and that refurbishment of the old buildings was necessary.

The Rock residence 'before'

When I posted this news on Xiaohongshu (Red Note), with an image suggesting Rock had been 'cancelled', there was a furious response from many Chinese netizens. My initial post questioned whether the Rock museum had been permanently closed. The responses were divided between those who confirmed it, and others who angrily refuted this or sought to justify it as a 'temporary' refurbishment. Several told me it was none of my business and that I had an arrogant attitude, and did not understand China's way of doing things. Others noted that Rock's name had been removed from other places, such as the 'Rock Road' in Gansu now being renamed as the 'Jiangan Route'.

The Rock residence 'after' rectification

When I posted up a follow up lament about promotion of Rock's legacy being banned in China, there was an even greater negative reaction. Many netizens declared that Rock had been an American spy, or that he had come to China to plunder its natural resources and cultural artefacts, in a manner similar to the Silk Road 'tomb raiders' such as Aurel Stein. Some said that it was China's prerogative if they did not want to highlight the activities of foreigners in Chinese history. Some comments were just direct abuse, calling me 'white trash' and such. Reassuringly there were at least a few comments saying that the hysterical anti-foreign accusations were similar to those of the mobs of Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

I will leave it there for now to see what happens. I am no blind hero worshipper when it comes to Joseph Rock. I can see he was a complex, flawed individual and that some of his attitudes and behaviour would now be classed as problematic and unacceptable. He  lived in China at a time when foreigners enjoyed significant privilege and unfair advantages. He was well funded and enjoyed taking some western luxuries such as a personal chef and a portable bath when he went into the field for his extended expeditions. He expressed racist and prejudiced views about Asians that were normal for the period. And yet at the same time he was not a bigot nor an exploiter of his employees or indifferent to their troubles. He expressed affection and gratitude towards his Naxi staff and was renowned for offering medical care to the local villagers he met.

Rock was an unusually obsessive and reclusive man. In modern parlance we might say he was somewhere 'on the spectrum'. He was fixated on the collection, documentation and study of plants, flowers and trees. He shunned human company and had no interest in socialising with either locals or other westerners, unlike his Lijiang fellow expat Patrick Goullart.

Perhaps it was his German-Austrian thoroughness that drove his systematic recording and preservation of thousands of specimens. And conversely perhaps it was his newly-adopted American persona that drove him to dramatise and publicise his travels in print, and to negotiate the shrewd financial deals that brought him a good income from sales of seeds and also generous travel sponsorship grants from various official bodies.

He should be celebrated for being a polymath. An expert botanist, scholar and plant collector who was not averse to going out into the field for months on end to do his work away from civilisation. He later switched his academic and practical talents from plants to ethnic minorities, with his epic work documenting the Naxi and Dongba language and customs. He was an excellent photographer with an eye for composition of both personal portraits and wide landscapes and buildings. He was also a mapmaker, a linguist, a writer of academic textbooks and travel articles, an explorer and organiser of expeditions, and a teacher and mentor.

Rock's house and museum before closure

When judging Rock, he should be seen in the context of his time and compared alongside his contemporaries in China in the early 20th century. He was contemptuous of many western 'Holy Roller' missionaries he encountered living detached from their Chinese 'flocks' in remote mission stations. He was quite unlike the acquisitive western merchants and rent-seeking officials who flocked to the western enclaves of Shanghai and Hong Kong. He was not like the oddball westerners attracted to the 'mystical Orient' nor the mercenary and political types who ingratiated themselves with the warlords. He was conservative by nature but not overtly political, and had little time for either the liberal Edgar Snow-type idealists and their sympathy for communist revolutionaries, nor the panda-hunting Kermit Roosevelt foreign policy 'hawks' who saw China as an exotic safari park and a potential market  for American businesses. 

Rock enjoyed the privileges of being a white foreigner in China at a time when the country was subjugated and hemmed in by foreign powers. There were foreign-run enclaves in Shanghai and a concept of exterritoriality that endowed de facto legal immunity to westerners living in China. Manchuria and ports in the north east were occupied by Japan, while Britain held Hong Kong and the French controlled Indo-China across the border from Yunnan.

By the standards of the day, Rock was a benign, eccentric scholarly figure. He did not seek to occupy, evangelise, politicise or plunder, nor enrich himself. All he wanted was to be left alone to pursue his plant hunting and writing. While he liked to live in grand style in the field, when he returned home he lived a simple life in a modest house with just the basic essentials needed to carry out his work.

It's odd therefore to see Rock abhorred by authorities in a China that supposesdly reveres scholars and respects those who live modestly. But in Xi Jinping's China there is no escape from the rise of ethno-nationalism that has blighted the USA, Europe and Australia. It looks like Rock's legacy has become the victim of the same narrow-minded nationalistic 'my country first' populism that is now being spread by social media across the world.

Kangding then and now: 1929 and 2026

 I've just come back from a three month tour of western China, during which I cycled from Zhongdian (aka 'Shangri La') to Kangding. I'll do a write up of the trip at some point, as much of it passed through areas of interest for Joseph Rock nerds. For the time being, though, I will do an update on Kangding, where I finished my tour and handed over my clapped out bike to the son of my former Tibetan guide, Gong Que.

In Kangding I met up again with Professor Zhu Dan of Sichuan University, who shares my interest in the photographs of Joseph Rock. Due to bad weather we abandoned our plans to revisit Gongga Shan, and instead spent a day trying to locate the places where Joseph Rock took his photos of Kangding town. 

The photos were published in the National Geographic issue of October 1930, in an article entitled Glories of the Minya Konka (link here to pdf copy).  

 

The article describes Rock's trip in the previous year from his base near Lijiang to the mountain we now know as Gongga Shan. When exploring the surrounds of the mountain, Rock based himself in the nearby town of Tatsienlu, also known as Tachienlu or Dartsendo, and now known as Kangding. As part of his article he posted a few photos of the town: one a panorama taken from a hillside, showing the Catholic church, and the others showing the 'Thunderbolt monastery' and the 'north gate' of Kangding.

On our visit last week, we tried to find the place where Rock took his panorama photo. It wasn't easy, because Kangding has expanded greatly since Rock's day and the new developments include a range of high-rise apartments built behind Anjue Si monastery, which now block much of the view from where we believed the photo was taken.

After a bit of trial and error, we found a track on the hillside where we guessed that Rock took the photo. There was a lot of thick bush on the hillside that blocked exploration and a highway and tunnel  further up the hillside which further blocked access.

Using Google Earth, this is where we estimated that Rock took the photo, based on the location of the temple on the opposite hillside on the right of the photo, which still exists.

 

 After scrambling up a minor trail above the path, we took this photo:

 As you can see, the old Catholic church is no longer there. Local people who we later met in the new church (on the other side of the river) said the old church had been demolished in the 1970s, after surviving major fires and an earthquake in the 1950s. The site of the old church is now occupied by the Ganze government offices. There is also now a second church, St Theresa's, in Kangding 'New Town', that is located about 6km up the Yulin valley.

While researching the history of the Catholic church, Zhu Dan found many photos taken by photographer Sun Minjing in 1939. These are published in a book called Xikang: the Vanished Province (定格西康︰科考攝影家鏡頭里的抗戰西方). Here are a few of Sun's photos of Kangding:

 This one was taken lower down the hillside, probably close to Anjue Si, where the high rise apartments are now located.

 The above photo was take closer to where Rock took his photo.

 The above photo was taken from the opposite side of the valley, looking west.

 The above photo was taken from the same location as the Rock photo, but is looking to the south west, and shows Anjue Si monastery. The courtyard on the left is probably for the church. And finally, there is a photo of the interior of the church:

There is very little information online about the Catholic church in Kangding. According to Wikipedia, the former Cathedral of the Sacred Heart (known in Chinese as Zhen Yuan Tang 眞原堂 ('Cathedral of the True Origin (of Everything)'] at Tatsienlu was built by Jean-Baptiste Ouvrard in August 1912.

There are some archive reports (in French) of the Franciscan order, who ran the Diocese of Kangting until kicked out by the Communists after 1949. 

In Kangding we also looked at the small Protestant church tucked down a side street on Guangming Lu, near Anjue temple. 

 It was closed up and looked little like the old church that had been run by the Inland Mission.

 There was some information about the Protestant church in English and Chinese:

Wang Qingling: "Remembering My English Teacher – Xuan Ke"

 [This is a great tribute to the inimitable Xuan Ke, a Naxi cultural ambassador in Lijiang who championed traditional Naxi culture and led the revived Naxi orchestra. Written by Professor Wang Qingling, School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan Normal University. Kunming. It was originally published in Naren Wenyuan in 2023.]

In September 1979, I graduated from the Central Primary School in Dayan Town, Lijiang, and entered the first year of junior high school at Lijiang Regional Middle School. Our classroom was one of the school’s famous eight large classrooms. I remember one day, I saw a group of students surrounding a middle-aged man at the classroom door, so I quickly ran over. The man said, “My name is Xuan Ke, and I’m your English teacher. This is my first class at Lijiang No. 1 Middle School...” This was also the first English class for all of us in the class. In those days, in remote Lijiang, children started learning English from the 26 letters of the alphabet in the first year of junior high.

Mr. Xuan insisted on teaching in English, which was very difficult for us, who had zero English foundation. Mr. Xuan emphasized pronunciation and reading aloud. He didn’t focus on grammar or rote memorization; instead, he focused on cultivating our interest in English. His classes revolved around reading aloud, asking questions, correcting pronunciation, and explaining English culture and scenarios related to the text. Later I realized that Mr. Xuan had already adopted the communicative teaching method, which was popular in China from the mid-1990s onwards, and this was completely different from the grammar-based teaching methods that were prevalent at the time.

Mr. Xuan also paid special attention to our English handwriting; he had beautiful, flowing English handwriting. He would also tell us stories about himself, his family, Lijiang, music, painting, and many other things that seemed unrelated to English lessons. This made many people think that Mr. Xuan was neglecting his duties, but we listened with great interest, looking forward to English classes, and enjoying Mr. Xuan’s humorous and engaging teaching style.

At that time, Mr. Xuan even specially selected a few students to have extra classes on Sunday mornings in the attic on the third floor of his house, and I was fortunate enough to be chosen. There, I heard in detail the story of Locke, as well as Locke’s book “The Ancient Naxi Kingdom of Southwest China,” and also learned about Peter Gould. In the attic, he could speak freely about music, about the stories of the Naxi and Tibetan people, and about the Naxi ancient music he was compiling… Teacher Xuan also taught music appreciation classes.

In the only large classroom in the Lijiang area’s middle school at the time, he lectured students from all grades on European music, on Beethoven, Mozart… He would occasionally interject with jokes. The classroom was packed, students attentively listening to the music he played, captivated by his imaginative interpretations, and listening intently to the legendary stories of these musicians… His lectures in the late 1970s and early 1980s greatly broadened our horizons and enriched our understanding.

Later, when I was studying English at East China Normal University, I returned to Lijiang during a holiday to visit Teacher Xuan. He was holding a baby just a few months old and told me this was his daughter. I was a little incredulous, thinking he was joking. At that time, Teacher Xuan’s son, Xuan Liujin, was already around 10 years old, and Teacher Xuan was nearly 60.

I remember that day in his courtyard, he told me he was conducting a teaching experiment at Huangshan Middle School, teaching English in Naxi. He said that for Naxi students, learning English in Naxi was more direct and convenient. Because the word order of English is very similar to that of Naxi, it’s easier to understand English sentence structures in Naxi. He also said that teaching English in Chinese requires students to go through a triangle of language—from Chinese to Naxi and then back to English—making it more difficult for them; teaching English in Naxi, however, is a straight line, directly from Naxi to English and then back to Naxi.

Later, when I visited him after graduating from university, he told me he had published a paper in the *Journal of Tianjin Conservatory of Music*, proposing a theory that music originated from human fear… Professor Xuan was always forward-thinking and had a strong drive to act.

In that isolated era, in Lijiang, which was still quite isolated at the time, Teacher Xuan told us about the outside world, filling us, as young children, with longing for it. In the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, when everyone thought things from the outside world and foreign culture were superior, he tirelessly promoted Lijiang culture and Naxi ancient music. His contributions to the promotion of Lijiang tourism and Naxi culture are undeniable!

I remember when I first started working, around the Spring Festival of 1990, I took a foreign teacher from my school to Lijiang to listen to Teacher Xuan and his Naxi ancient music performance. At that time, only foreigners attended, just a few scattered listeners. The foreign teacher was very excited, specifically visiting Teacher Xuan and buying many cassette tapes, saying he wanted to give them away. At the time, I thought, “This stuff makes me sleepy, and he wants to give it away!”

Later, Teacher Xuan became famous, and my contact with him decreased. Later still, he asked me to help translate some things, and we started contacting each other more often. Back then, whenever he came to Kunming, he would stay at the Kunming New Era Hotel. He often asked me to accompany him for meals, and the dishes he always ordered were stir-fried pickled vegetables with meat and stir-fried potato shreds. People constantly came to visit him at the hotel, and he enjoyed being surrounded by people, but he didn’t like dining with those who came specifically to see him.

During the years when Professor Xuan was surrounded by admirers, I sometimes visited him at Xuan Ke Manor. He could only squeeze in a few moments to talk to me amidst the constant stream of visitors, but I could clearly feel that his visits were genuine. Sometimes, he would ask me to tally up the amounts he had donated, and he would boast about how he maintained his usual humor in front of important figures.

Sometimes, he would tell me about his family, his worries, his troubles... Later, visitors to Xuanke Manor became increasingly rare, and Professor Xuan longed for our visits even more. I gradually sensed his aging, his loneliness, his helplessness... But he was still the eternally youthful, eternally passionate, and never-say-die Xuanke...

Next project: a 2000km walk linking up all the areas explored by Joseph Rock

I'm just back from the final stage of my 6000 km bike ride along the Yellow River from sea to source. The last 1000km was a bit of housekeeping - retrieving my bike from storage in Chengdu and ferrying it it to the in-law's place in Guilin. I travelled for two weeks through Sichuan, Guizhou (Cishui river via the Maotai valley) and the Duliu river into Guangxi. A nice trip, and my first chance to explore a bit of Guizhou.

For my next trip in retirement I am looking at doing a long distance walk to link up all the places explored by Joseph Rock: namely the Nujiang (Kawakarpo), Yading, Muli, the Yalong river, Gongga Shan and then north into Gansu to visit Zhuoni (Choni) and Zhagana.

It's only a thought bubble at the moment, but much of the 2000 km route looks do-able, and I have visited almost all these areas already at least once, so I know what to expect. The main problem is finding a way to cross the Yalong river between Muli and Jiulong, near to where I recently visited at Bawolong. There is no road on the western side of the river, but I have seen reports of a ferry operating across the river and a new bridge to service the building of the new Mengdigou hydro dam.

Timing wise, it would take about four months and I would  have to wait until spring (March-April) to avoid the bitterly cold weather at high altitudes. I'll be camping along the way and staying in hotels and guesthouses in some areas.

I'm discussing this with my Chinese friends, who may come along for some of the trip. If you have any thoughts or suggestions - especially about routes to cross from Muli to Jiulong, do let me know in the comments!

Return visit to Maidi Gangga 麦地贡嘎 and Mundon 猛董 after 20 years - reuniting with Tibetan friends

I have just revisited the 'lost' mountain of Muti Konka (Chinese: 麦地贡嘎 Maidi Gangga) in Jiulong county (九龙县), Garze, Sichuan, which I first visited in 2004. I wrote a lengthy article about my first trip, describing how I got to visit this remote place only through the help of a local official in Jiulong called Wang Qi, who is of Pumi Tibetan ethnicity. 

Twenty odd years ago he took pity on me, a hapless and disorganised western hiker, and arranged a mini-expedition to take me to his home village of Mundon (猛董, Mengdong), high up in the hills above the Yalong river canyon(雅砻江大峡谷). 

At that time there was only a rough road down the Yangwe Kong valley, which we travelled by Landcruiser to Sanyanlong (三岩龙). From there we had to ride  horses (mules) to get up the steep hills to Mundon and eventually to the lake at the base of Muti Konka.

Not surprisingly, there have been many developments in the region over the last two decades. On my trip back there in October 2025, I found that there is now a good highway into the Sanyanlong valley, and also now a rough 4WD gravel track that leads up into the hills and eventually to Mundon, via the mountain lake.

I travelled courtesy of botanist Professor Zhu Dan of Sichuan university, who organised the trip with his usual skilled driver Jiang Yong, and accompanied by anthropology expert Professor Wang Liang, of Nantong University. 

It took us just over two hours on a smooth tarmac road to get to Sanyanlong, via the Wuxu Hai (伍须海) road - the lake has now been developed as a tourist attraction, with several guesthouses in the village, but the gatehouse to the location appeared to be closed to visitors when we passed.  Because it was dark I did not get to see much of the Druderon Pass and Kangwo Shan mountain this time round, but I got good photos on my first trip.

The village of Sanyanlong is almost the end of the road before the valley runs down to the Yalong River. It is now a bit more developed that the collection of wooden houses that I saw 20 years ago - there are a few concrete buildings and even blue neon decorated street lamps. Last time I had to lodge with locals but now there is a hotel - the 'Mengdong People's Guesthouse' (猛董家人酒店) - although we opted to stay at a more informal simpler homestay place run by a Pumi family, which had four-people rooms. 

The reason for this was that we wanted to keep a low profile in regard to county officials, as my colleagues did not have permission to accompany a foreigner into this area. The ruse did not work because we received a visit from the local cops the next morning after we had finished breakfast, and had to do a bit of explaining as to what we were doing in the valley. It all got sorted amicably after our driver flashed his official-looking badge from the Sichuan government.

We had a late dinner in Sanyanlong and the local people were very friendly, although one bloke was a bit too friendly after having had a bit too much to drink. The locals were mostly Pumi people and they were fascinated to see the photos I had taken twenty years ago - although none remembered seeing me. They recognised my guide/sponsor Wang Qi in the photos and said he had now retired from his official post as head of the education department in Jiulong and had moved to Chengdu. The police we met the next morning also said they knew Wang Qi and even said they would pass on my phone number to him! 

The next morning we got in the Landcruiser and set off to try find the new road/track that according to the map would take us up to the mountain. We missed the turnoff on the first attempt, and ended up driving half the way down to the river, until we met a local bloke who told us - among other things - that there was now a ferry service running on the Yalong river between the Sanyanlong valley and Maidilong and Bawolong. He also put us in the right direction for the mountain road, to which we backtracked about a kilometre to a bridge. The road was good tarmac initially, with a series of switchbacks until it reached a ridge. This then led west to the village of Lawaling (which I visited on my previous trip). 

After opening a gate across the road, we stopped at the village, but there appeared to be almost nobody around. We found one nice old lady who chatted to us and tried to sell us some songrong mushrooms. There was a great view far down into the canyon to the river from her back yard, similar to a photo taken by Joseph Rock. 

Walking further up the road we met a couple of guys sorting potatoes and bits of dried mushroom/fungus, who  told us the road was now good to get up to Muti Konka, the lake called Chang Haizi (长海子), and beyond to Mengdong.

Beyond Lawaling the road was just a gravel track and after an hour of twists and turns and a few false trails we arrived at the lake beneath the mountain. On my 2004 visit this had been an idyllic setting of an alpine lake with with blue water reflecting the white snowy peak of the Muti Konka mountain and its ridgeline. There had been just a single stone hut occupied by a family of yak herders. In 2025 there were now a handful of Chinese sightseers who had also arrived by 4WD. This time the weather was cloudy and it was raining, so we had no views of the mountain, or even of the lake. There were now a couple of concrete buildings at the lake, and some construction was going on to build a bigger structure, which I assumed would be a visitor centre.

After dodging a truck delivering some stone materials, we chatted to a local guy who turned out to be the same bloke who had been here 20 years ago. He was wearing one of the traditional Pumi yak-hair smocks, edged with red wool. He said he remembered me from my 2004 visit and remarked that my article and the publicity around it had led to a surge in visitors to the lake, for which he was grateful!

He took us into his 'kitchen' where we sat down to have some butter tea and yak yoghurt. Then I was introduced to his wife who also remembered me from 2004 and pointed out that she was the one in my photos milking a yak! 

Since it was raining, we remained in the kitchen for an hour or so, chatting about the changes to the area. The couple told me that they now had  a lot of visitors to the lake, who came mostly by 4WD, as there was now a circular circuit road through the mountains, to and from the Jiulong valley road. They said the new construction was for a bigger yak pen, not a guesthouse. We posed for lots of photos and videos and added each other as WeChat friends.

Jiang Yong then drove us up from the lake to Mengdong village, which took about an hour along the new gravel track - a trip we had previously done with horses. It wasn't a great road, but not that bad either. The weather was very cloudy and foggy, and sadly we did not get to see the great clear views over the canyon that I had enjoyed on my previous visit. 

On arriving at Mengdong, we found that it was deserted. The tiny temple was still there, but  the previous five or six buildings appeared to have been demolished, and there was nobody present at the one remaining home. There were a couple of out buildings and a couple of temporary marquee-type tents, bit not a single souls at the hamlet that had previously been home to two or three families, including children. We could only speculate that this was simply too remote a spot for subsistence farming. We'd also learned that the school I had previously visited in Sanyanlong had closed, with local children now educated by boarding at ''good' schools in Jiulong, which were able to attract higher  quality teachers and have better facilities than the basic place that I'd seen in this remote valley.

With little to see and nobody to talk to, we didn't linger for long at Mengdong. It was about 3pm when we got back in the Landcruiser and crawled and twisted back along the gravel track' over the ridge back to Chang Haizi. 

Prof. Zhu Dan, me, Prof. Wang Liang, driver Jiang Yong

We did not stop here on the return trip, but continued on back in the direction of Sanyanlong. We took a couple of wrong turns and had to backtrack until we found the right road, which seemed to be of much poorer quality o the return leg. So it was a relief to regain the tarmac road as we neared Lawaling, and to descend to the Sanyanlong valley and 'speed' back to Jiulong.

No longer worried about the attention of local officials, we checked in to a posh hotel costing 300 yuan a night and had a great hotpot dinner to celebrate our success in getting to the mountain. 

We found the lost monastery of Baron Gompa (八窝龙 寺庙) near the Yalong River (雅砻江) canyon

 I've just returned from an exciting trip to western Sichuan with my friends Professor Zhu Dan (Sichuan University Dept of Botany) and Prof Wang Liang. We visited the Yalong River (雅砻江) canyon for the first time and located the site of the small monastery Baron Gompa that was photographed by Joseph Rock in 1929 for his article about Gongga Shan ('The Glories of the Minya Konka') in National Geographic (click here to view pdf). 

The trip also saw us revisiting places such as the Gongga Shan monastery and the Yulongxi valley, to where I first travelled in 1994 - and to see the many changes that have taken place there. Similarly, we revisited the mountain of Muti Konka and the hilltop hamlet of Mundon in Jiulong county, which I visited on a trip in 2004. Amazingly, I was able to meet up again with the yak herders who hosted me at the remote mountain lake and also the family of the Tibetan official Wang Qi who had guided me to this remote spot 22 years ago. 

Map (looking from west to east) of our route from Jiulong to Bawolong.

It's been a long-held ambition of mine to visit the Yalong River canyon, which was described by Rock as having mile-high cliffs and taking 'five terrible days' to cross, down and up again, on his journey from Muli towards Gongga Shan. His lofty-worded article is full of superlatives about the grandeur of the canyon, and the Yalong river remains a remote and unvisited place because the steep sides and lack of any terraces mean that there is still no road running along some sections of the river south of Xinduqiao. The only way to access the river is via a rough road that snakes over the 4000m high hills from Jiulong.

We began our journey from Jiulong after we had already visited Gongga Shan and Mundon  - more about those trips in later articles (suffice to say that we got glimpses down into the Yalong canyon from near Mundon, where the views were similar to the those photographed by Joseph Rock). 

In a Landcruiser driven by the intrepid Jiang Yong we headed west from Jiulong, initially following the road towards Wuxu Hai (lake), which is now a tourist attraction, although the place appeared to be closed to visitors when we passed by the official entrance gate. The route then took us up into the forested hills along a decent quality road that twisted over two high passes before descending towards the Yalong River: it took us about two hours before we started making the final descent towards the river. 

Sadly, it was a cloudy day, and we only got a hint of a view of the mountain to the south - I'm guessing this was the same Kangwo Shan that Rock described as seeing when he crossed the Druderon Pass. 

We stopped on the switchback road down to Bawolong to ask local people if they knew about the location of the monastery that Rock described as Baron Gompa, 'north of Baurong [Bawolong]', but they could not help. 

We also stopped to snap the great views of the Yalong river far below the road. The river flows at about 2000m altitude, and the descent from the pass was another 2000 metres, confirming Rock's statement that the canyon is at least a mile deep. Looking down into the canyon we could see there was a construction site on one of the few terraces next to the river - presumably related to the building of new dams along the river. 

This was confirmed when we finally hauled in to Bawolong, where there were new accomodation blocks for the construction workforce of the Mengdigou Hydropower station (孟底沟水电站) and dam, which the signs said was expected to be completed in 2030. 

According to the Chinese media, the Mengdigou project has just sealed the river to build the dam, and will combine hydropower and solar power.

With this massive building program on its doorstep, the village of Bawolong was no longer an isolated and quiet Tibetan riverside village. The main street was a surprisingly ordinary looking collection of restaurants, shops and official buildings in the usual concrete style. We stopped for an hour to have some lunch, which we washed down with a few sips of craft beer, after our walkabout revealed that even in this remote spot there was a craft brewery. 

Ironically, after coming all this way, we found that there were few good views of the Yalong River to be had from the village of Bawolong itself - it was too deeply embedded in the canyon. We could see a jetty where a flat-bottomed vehicle ferry was said to run a service down to connect with the Sanyanlong valley. There was no road going south  - the sides of the twisting canyon were simply too steep to allow one.

We therefore got back in the Landcruiser and set off in a north-east direction to see if we could locate the site of the Baron Gompa. We had seen no significant villages or settlement  on the road into Baolong, but there had been one or two houses by the roadside, and we stopped at one of these to ask the local farmer if he know of the site of an old temple. 

He directed us towards to village of Baitai (白台), which was located in the hills above from the road, about five kilometres away. At the turnoff for Baitai, another couple of locals confirmed there had been an old temple in the area and directed us up a rough dirt track beyond Baitai. It was tough going, even for the Landcruiser, and we followed a couple of false trails until we returned to a small side track near the village. 

After twisting up the hill track, we found a flat area that looked like it might be the site. The site was now surrounded by a high fence of wire and sticks, but there were some ruined buildings on the opposite side that looked like the might once have been the monastery. 

Site of the Baron Gompa above Baitai village - this image shows the outlines of the ruined buildings.

Professors Zhu Dan and Wang Liang went to find a way through the fence while I walked around to investigate the remains of the walls. Up close, there was no way to tell if they had once been part of a monastery or perhaps more recent farm buildings - there was so little left of them. Just some packed earth walls and wooden window frames, most of which were overgrown with grass and bushes.

After examining the site from various angles, Prof Zhu Dan declared that it was indeed the site of Baron Gompa. He got us to climb over the fence (there was no gate or door) and after pushing through wasit-level grass we found a corner of the enclosure where the view matched the perspective of Rock's photo of Baron Gompa. We could see the same small hills and slopes, only with the monastery buildings now absent. Similarly, the tall pine and spruce trees in Rock's photo were no longer there.

The local people were unable to tell us anything about the history of the monastery, only that it had not been there for decades. One said there had been two stone lions remaining at the site, but we could not locate them. In his article, Rock says little about the Baron Gompa except that it was a place where his mule train made an overnight camp on his way back from Gongga Shan heading towards Muli and his home near Lijiang. His photo shows his tent pitched alongside one of the buildings. 

His article describes the area thus: "a scenic wonder of the world, this region is 45 days from the nearest railhead. For centuries it may remain a closed land, save to such privileged few as care to crawl like ants through its canyons of tropical heat and passes in blinding snowstorms ...". In the 21st century we became some of the privileged few to have revisited the region.

Mother River: a 5000 kilometre journey through China from the sea to the headwaters of the Yellow River - by Michael Woodhead

At the age of 62, Yorkshire-born Michael Woodhead took early retirement from his job in Sydney to make a journey through China that no outsiders have done before. Taking an electric bike from the Yellow River’s outlet on the Shandong coast, he spent three months following the course of the river up to the headwaters on the Tibetan plateau, some 5000 kilometres away.  

On the way he travelled through the cradle of Chinese civilisation on the North China Plain, across the grasslands of inner Mongolia, through the deserts of Muslim Ningxia and up through the loess landforms of Gansu into the highlands of Qinghai. He visited places frequented by Confucius and Lao Tzu and the ruined cities of lost civilisations such as the Tanguts, wiped out by Genghis Khan. 

Travelling slowly off the beaten track he was able to see the changing face of 21st century China, from the world’s largest solar power park in Qinghai to the craft beer bars set up by young entrepreneurs in the towns of rural Henan.

Reaching the headwaters of the Yellow River at almost 4000 metres altitude amid the swampy grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, he retraces part of the Long March route where modern Chinese engineers are building a high speed rail line and Tibetan nomads are switching from yak herding to glamping sites. 

Being able to speak Mandarin Chinese, Michael was able to meet and chat to many local people and hear their stories about life along the Yellow River in 2025.

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE.  North China Plain, Cradle of Civilisation

1.    Qingdao ist sehr schön                     

2.    Navy day at Weihaiwei              

3.    Delta departure: oil pumps and birdlife            

4.    Hotsprings and Jinan pancakes                

5.    Shandong scholars and sacred mountains            

6.    Kaifeng and the river opposing rhinoceros            

7.    Hanfu and broken spokes in Luoyang            

8.    The road that inspired the Tao Te Ching             

PART TWO. Looping Into Inner Mongolia

9.    Interlude in Xi’an: old capital, new bike            

10.    The missing bridge to Dragon’s Gate                

11.    Into the canyon and the Hukou falls                

12.    An old soldier on the road to Old Ox Bay            

13.    Pedalling the Hetao plain to Baotou             

14.    Punctures on the desert road                 

15.    Into Ningxia and a lost civilisation                

16.    Entering Gansu: loess is more                 

PART THREE. Up To The Headwaters On The Qinghai Plateau

17.    Visa run from Lanzhou                     

18.    Meeting the Mongolian Muslim knifemakers of Jishishan    

19.    Marmots on the closed road through Kanbula        

20.    Solar farms and fake salmon at Longyangxia         

21.    Gonghe cops send me to Qinghai Lake            

22.    Seeking a Plan B in Xining                     

23.    Craft beer in Little Mecca                     

24.    Reaching the First Bend in the rainy season            

25.    Epilogue: To Chengdu across the Long March grasslands

 

Postscript: final thoughts on my Yellow River cycling trip