china explorerscers/images/stories/downloads/cers_1902.pdf · su hlaing myint, cers field biologist...

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY PAGE 1

EXPLORERSChina Exploration and rEsEa rCh soCi Et y

A N E W S L E T T E R T O I N F O R M A N D A C K N O W L E D G E C E R S ’ F R I E N D S A N D S U P P O R T E R S

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Kids sharing a home-made spear gun in crystal clear water of Cagayancillo, an island some two hundred kilometers off Palawan. A Karabao cart heading to the Batak village.Vagabond butterflyfish.Danchen, a Rinpoche, or Living Buddha, with Tibetan monks at Jizu Shan.

3 Chicken Foot Sacred Mountain 6 Batak Hill Tribe – Less Than 300 Remaining13 Tubbataha World Heritage Site and CERS

Zhongdian Center17 Up in the Mountains, Down by the Ocean:

In Search of Reciprocity and Its Further Implications20 Guardians of the Sulu 24 Santa Claus of the Sulu Sea28 Hanging Coffins of Guizhou32 Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow34 CERS in the Field35 News/Media and Lectures36 Thank You + Current Patrons

C H I N A since 1986

V O L U M E 1 9 N O . 2 S U M M E R 2 0 1 7

CHINA EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY

A N E W S L E T T E R T O I N F O R M A N D A C K N O W L E D G E C E R S ' F R I E N D S A N D S U P P O R T E R S

EXPLORERSChina Exploration and rEsEarCh soCiEty

C H I N A

V O L U M E 1 9 N O . 2 S U M M E R 2 0 1 7

With respect to the entire contents of this newsletter, including its photographs:

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2017. @ China Exploration and Research Society.

Please contact CERS for reprint permission.

Founder / presidentWonG hoW Mandirectors:Barry laM, CErs ChairmanChairman, Quanta Computer, taiwan

JaMEs ChEn Managing director, legacy advisors ltd.

hUanG ZhEnG yU Entrepreneur

ChristaBEl lEE Managing director, toppan Vintage limited

daVid MonG Chairman, shun hing Education and Charity Fund

oliVEr MoWrEr silsBy iiiWEllinGton yEE

Billy yUnG Group Chairman, shell Electric holdings ltd.

advisory Council:Cynthia d’anJoU BroWnphilanthropy adviser

EriC s. ChEnVice Chairman, saMpo Corporation

JUdith-ann CorrEntEphilanthropist

danChEn Former Vice-party secretary of tibet Vice-president, China Writer’s Federation

dr WilliaM FUnGExecutive Chairman, li & Fung Group

hans MiChaEl JEBsEnChairman of Jebsen & Co. ltd.

tUdEnG niMatibetan scholar

CErs Field staff:WilliaM BlEisCh, phd, science directorCao ZhonGyU, logistics supporttsErinG drolMa, Education officerli na, Kunming admin. officerliU honG, speleologistEi thantar Myint @ sandra, Country Manager, MyanmarsU hlainG Myint, CErs Field BiologistQiJU Qilin, Zhongdian Centre directorWanG Jian, Kunming directorZhanG Fan, China director

headquarters staff:BrEnda Kan, office ManagerxaViEr lEE, FilmmakertraCy Man, Financial ControllerBErry sin, logistics director

Editor:WilliaM BlEisCh, phddesign and printer: toppan VintaGE liMitEd (852) 2973 8600

HOW TO REACH CERS:Unit 7 & 8, 27/F, tower B, southMark, 11 yip hing street, Wong Chuk hang, hong Kong phone (852) 2555 7776 fax (852) 2555 2661e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.cers.org.hk

Wong How ManFounder/President CERSMay 2017

President’s Message

Unlike clothes and cosmetics, or even cars and boats, selling CERS and our projects is not like entering a beauty contest to win support and funding.

Although the pictures, films or stories that we use to illustrate our work may be beautiful and moving, in the end, it is our results and track record that wins the day.

Over 30 years of passion and dedication to our mission is an asset we value just as much as the legacy of intellectual and tangible properties CERS has amassed. Many of our team members have been with us for over ten years, and not a few for over 20 years – something we can be proud of. Even many of our supporters have stayed with us for over ten years, some over 20 years; growing old, better yet “maturing”, with us together. In my heart, I am both thankful and feel gratified.

Today, CERS has ranged far out of China where we started with our original mission, into many neighboring countries, from mountains and plateaus to valleys and seas, as stories in this issue of the newsletter depict. An old friend from almost 15 years ago during our partnership with Land Rover has stayed tuned with our work and contributed our end piece in this issue.

As with our work, we have carried the same passion, dedication, commitment and logistical skills into exploring and conserving the natural and cultural landscape of Asia. In many places, not only are we conducting worthy projects, we have put together unique and functional operation bases. Likewise, we have carried our message far and wide through lectures to different continents, films shown online or in special channels, and with education programs catering to our next generation.

Nonetheless, I still maintain that CERS is a small and intimate organization. That intimacy, in today’s internet world, is becoming even more precious, connecting us to our friends and supporters, as well as to the world at large, in a personal way. Let us embark on this fourth decade for CERS, an intimate CERS, together. It is a wonderful feeling to be large, yet feeling quite small. But let me also elaborate, large not in size, but in impact – with a rainbow of projects that we have together painted.


“But, but….I’ve been eating chicken feet, my favorite dim sum dish,” I stuttered a bit as I revealed this to Danchen, my close friend. Danchen, a very knowledgeable Rinpoche and retired Vice Party Secretary of Tibet, wrinkled

his forehead a little in disgust. Then he continued to explain to me something I was totally ignorant about, despite having visited the Jizushan, or Chicken Foot Mountain, twice in the past.

I first came here twelve years ago, during the last Year of the Rooster pilgrimage in 2005. Then I came again in 2007, escorting several Hump pilot friends when they were into their 90s. On that trip they saw on the ground, for the first time, the pagoda they had seen from the air uncounted times while flying during World War II. The pagoda was their check point, navigating them to Kunming after passing the high mountains of the Himalayas.

Practically all Han Chinese pilgrims, or tourists like myself, would head straight for the temple and pagoda on the pinnacle of the mountain. In the past it might take a day or two to scale the top. Today a well-paved road followed by a cable car ride and a short hike will take visitors from the bottom of the hill to the 3248 meters top in slightly over an hour.

We may be forgiven for using the pagoda and its adjacent temple as final destination since they are the most distinct objects observed from afar. But for all Tibetan pilgrims, they come here for something else, something quite hidden, deep inside a vertical cliff face of the mountain. It is

TOP TO BOTTOM:Jizu Shan sacred mountain with pagoda on its peak. Close-up of Pagoda and temple of Jizu Shan.Cliff of Huashoumen just below the peak.

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CHICKEN FOOT SACRED MOUNTAIN

A once-every-twelve-year pilgrimageBy Wong How Man

Jizushan, Yunnan


not unusual for a Tibetan pilgrim to bypass the summit altogether.

“Had it not been for Huashoumen, there would be no Jizushan,” Danchen repeated this remark several times during the three days we were together in the mountain. Of course he meant it figuratively rather than literally in geographic terms. The name Jizushan came from the mountain’s physical features, resembling the foot of a chicken with three toes protruding forward and one aft. But the fame of the mountain was derived from an ancient Tibetan belief that Jaiye (Mahakasyapa), one of the ten principal disciples of Buddha Sakyamuni, came here to preach, then took off his monk’s robe and meditated inside a precipitous cliff face of the mountain.

So with this notion Danchen led me the morning after my arrival to this Huashoumen (men meaning gate), some 150 meters below the peak of the mountain. It was only a little after 9am and we ran into many Tibetan pilgrims but few Han Chinese. Among Tibetans, most were monks and nuns in their saffron robes. They came from all regions of the plateau, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.

A few Tibetan ladies were making offerings of yak butter, rubbing it onto the cliff face. There is a small niche at the bottom of the cliff. Inside there was a little water dripping. Tibetans - monks, nuns and lay people - dipped their fingers inside and brought out sacred droplets to rub over their eyes, supposedly most auspicious for their eye sights. Two nuns were trying to collect a few more droplets to take home for friends. I, with deteriorating eye sight, applied droplets generously to my eyes.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Danchen, a Rinpoche and retired Vice Party Secretary of Tibet, chatted with Tibetan monks at Jizu Shan. Rainbow clouds above Huashoumen. Cliff face and clouds at Huashoumen. Sunrise as seen from Jizu Shan. Cliff at Huashoumen. Monks applying sacred water to eyes.


A thin and tall Chinese nun in a gray robe was prostrating continuously in front of the cliff. She was from nearby Dali old town and had been prostrating here everyday for over five years, returning each night to a small hut a bit down the hill. I asked her how the kharta, white ceremonial scarves used by Tibetans as offerings, were put high up on the perpendicular cliff, reaching over 20 meters up on this 40 meters high “gate”. Did they use a ladder or free-climb up there? “No, they simply wrap it with some barley grains or sand and swing the scarf upward. Somehow they would stick to the wall,” she answered with a calm and quiet tone. I am inclined to believe her, given her devotion.

It is said that pilgrims to Jizushan would be lucky if they were to see sacred clouds and other natural phenomena on display. So I too consider myself fortunate in viewing such majestic view while on top of the mountain as well as from Huashuomen.

In describing the sacred gate of Huashuomen, I would borrow the words of Xu Xiake of the late Ming Dynasty during the 17th Century. For us Chinese, Xu has been known as the most important travel writer throughout the centuries. Xu visited Jizushan twice, staying for months each time. His definitive written account, an Almanac on Jizushan, has long been lost. However in his opus work on his life-long travels, there are descriptions of his time in Yunnan, including his visit to Jizushan.

“…the path against the cliff becomes narrower and narrower; looking up shivering one cannot see the top, looking down is like peeking into hell without seeing its bottom. Like a painting of a ten thousand foot wall scroll hanging upon the cliff. Encompassed within this, its difficult to tell where the body belongs…The cliff appears in flight going upward, high with an eave extension, wrapping around downward…The wall face is like closing doors, with rock teeth above…with height of two hundred feet, above that are unmeasurable additional heights… this is Huashoumen.”

But for me, perhaps the most moving words are not from the description of the mountain, nor about all the temples, some 108 in all during the ancient days. It is about a deed that Xu Xiake performed on his long journey to Jizushan. Traveling with Xu were two other persons, his book-carrier boy and his dear friend Monk Jingwen. Meditating and praying for twenty years, Jingwen wrote a copy of the Buddhist Fahua Sutra in red by poking his finger to script it in blood, hoping someday to offer the manuscript at a temple in Jizushan. Together they made the journey from Jiangsu in the coast toward the mountain in Yunnan.

But along the way, they were robbed three times. During the last episode, while in Hunan, Jingwen was critically injured by the robbers and died as a result of the incident. That evening, Xu lost sleep all night and wrote six poems in memory of his dear friend. He carried in the bottom of his

bamboo pack the bone ash remains of Jingwen and traveled for over 5000 li, or 2,500 km, to reach their joint destiny of Jizushan. There he offered up the blood sutra of Jingwen at Xitan temple and buried the ash remains at Wenbi Peak.

Such an act of friendship is immortalized in Jizushan by Xu Xiake, the most famous travel writer of China’s past. Perhaps for our generation as well as future generations, while making pilgrimage to a sacred Buddhist mountain, this story of faithfulness and friendship should also be remembered and become part of our tribute to the spiritual world.

朝遊雞足山，暮訪華首門，日月伴星辰，迦葉在其間。

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Mountains above Batak village. Naked Batak washing clothes. First trial of rafting the Maoyon River. A Batak village house.

BATAK HILL TRIBE – LESS THAN 300 REMAININGBy Wong How Man

Palawan, Philippines

“I dance, but not on fire,” cracked Annaliza as we walked up toward the first Batak house. Obviously previous visitors, perhaps crude and intrusive ones, may have insensitively asked for her to dance, and preferably over

fire. Such may be the common conception that natives are exotic and savages. No wonder with such stereotype image, the Batak are receding deeper and deeper into the jungle.

Our guide Ady from the 100 Caves community-based tourism venture, which CERS has been assisting, has been here in Kayasan village many times since a child. He speaks Batak and some of those in his vil lage, maybe half-day hike away, have intermarried with the Batak. “Twenty years ago, this village has so many houses, a real community,” said Ady. “But today only about ten houses scattered around as most have moved further into the mountains, another half day to one day distance away,” he added.


The Batak are very shy and secluded people. Once outside people began arriving, they choose to move away. In the past, the Batak, who subsist on collecting forest products, hunting and slash and burn farming, only have marginal contacts with neighboring tribes. They have threatened to move even deeper into jungle recesses if a road were ever to be built into their region of abode.

Google the Batak of Palawan and images will show these “exotic” people, both men and women, baring their upper body. And perhaps such images shared from the 1960s and 70s by anthropologists attracted the arrival of curious adventurers and tourists wishing to see the remnant of less than 300 of these Batak people.

My own curiosity is multi-faceted. We are eager to explore the upper reaches of the Maoyon River since CERS is setting up a base near its mouth where it enters into the Sulu Sea. Forever I have had a fascination with river sources. The Maoyon crosses the entire island of

Palawan from west to east, starting from the foothills of Mount Cleopatra, a most beautiful limestone mountain under which the Underground River, a World Heritage Site, is located.

Together with my team, we wanted to explore the entire length of this river, which meanders and effectively cu t s Pa lawan in to two ha lves . The upper sec t ion penetrates the region of the Batak people, a perfect combination for our work on both nature and culture. Maybe we can avail ourselves of opportunities to make some contributions.

Just two months ago, Dr Bleisch and CERS filmmaker Xavier f loated down 21 kilometers of the r iver on a bamboo raft . I t turned out the three rafters were Batak. They built the rickety raft and piloted it down the rapids, which took some seven hours to get to our base. That was our first contact with the Batak. But now I want to take it further and start rafting from higher up the river, perhaps another five kilometers

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upstream. And with a bit of extra effort, I will visit the closest Batak village. After all, they’ll be my boatmen, Captain, First and Second mates.

I asked for a larger and better raft to be built before my arrival. We started by hiking up from 100 Caves, crossing seven streams large and small in getting to the first Batak vil lage. When the going got tough, I moved on to riding in a native buffalo cart which carried my supplies, food, water, and tents. This off-road 4x4 which the locals called Karabao is more than a workhorse, pulling the heavy cart up steep terrain on mud and dirt tracks. While the ride was bumpy, the excitement made up for the discomfort. My coachman devised a simple but functional brake system, a rope tide sideways behind the front legs of the buffalo, thus effectively prohibiting its legs from taking big stride. This is applied by the driver using his two feet to push forward or backward on the attached rope. The former motion would restrict the buffalo’s speed when going downhill, and there’s a handbrake by pulling the buffalo’s tail forward, hurting it enough to make it slow even further. Releasing both the foot and hand brakes would allow the buffalo to go uphill or take normal strides.

When I finally reached the Maoyon River, my Porsche of a bamboo raft stood waiting, with a make-shift table and two benches, even a canopy. It came with kind of

TOP TO BOTTOM:Karabao cart crossing river. How Man traveling to Batak village. Applying hand-brake to Karabao on the march.


a brake on the fore deck as a hold for one foot to avoid slipping on the bamboo while poling the raft forward. It also came with three-speed stick shift, literally, as there were three different lengths of bamboo poles on the side for the Captain to choose from, depending on the depth of the river.

The locat ion was about f ive ki lometres above the confluence of two tributaries of the river. The Batak village of Kayasan was still over an hour hike away. My crew decided to save me the difficult hike, as from here no ox cart can go; they would pole the raft upriver to preserve my legs for the last stretch. With skills and hard work, we negotiated three small rapids, at which points all five people in my party would jump off the raft and push the vessel through. I was senior enough to stay onboard, as I joked that I would prefer going down with our raft if it should sink. In such locations, my Porsche would suddenly become an old VW beetle.

Final ly we reached a bend of the r iver where we moored, and from here we hiked for a half hour toward the nearest Batak vi l lage. First we passed through a small vil lage of the Tagbanua tribe, then pushed through some thick bushes with a tiny footpath into the foothills. There were a couple small streams to cross, but the going was level and easy.

And as we rounded a bend, we encountered the first Batak hut and Annaliza, who greeted us with her

TOP TO BOTTOM:Annaliza with sword by her side. A typical Batak man. Son of Annaliza.

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wise crack. She was divorced and now remarried. Her daughter Liza is 11 years old and the son, a round-headed chubby boy, is 2. Annaliza looked every bit an Amazon with her long machete by her waist. Her house is a short walk from the main village of Kayasan. An independent and brave Batak woman, she set up her home next to the village cemetery.

With her leading, we went into the village, a scattering of perhaps ten houses spread out on the periphery of a plot maybe a few hectares in area, with a rundown basketball court in the center. Most houses now have a corrugated metal roof, the biggest building being the rundown Kayasan Christian Church, donated by a Korean missionary group I was told. The missionaries must be pleased to see that their preaching and prayers are seeing fruit ion as all Batak people are clothed today, a far cry from 30 years ago. Those who did not adopt the new dress code I heard had moved further into the jungle, a half day to full day hike away.

We visited a few houses. Wherever we were, soon the rest of the villagers gathered, adults and children. One woman in a tiny bamboo house was so sick she could hardly get up. But she gave us two woven bamboo stars in a circular ring she had made for Christmas. There was only two to three men in the village during my visit. The rest of them, maybe up to 30, were up in the hills gathering copal. It may take up to a month and a half before they return.

TOP TO BOTTOM:Batak mother and daughter.Batak old lady. Middle-age Batak lady.


The locals cal l i t Almaciga, from the ancient , tal l and endangered Agathis Philippinensus tree. Its wood is flammable and used by the tribes for fire. But its resin, divided into the highest grade, which is white, and lower grades of yellow and dark, is highly prized as furniture varnish, sought by the French, German and even the Japanese. Stories also circulate that the French maybe using it for fragrance as well. Tapping the Almaciga has become a cash crop for the Batak. However each kilogram, collected through hard, tough work, only yields 7 peso for them, whereas in the city it would be worth three times as much for the middle men. By the time it reaches overseas market, it would cost multiples more.

The same forest would produce also rattan cane that the Batak would collect and sell to the market. A third item high on their collecting list is wild bee honey, and of very superior quality. It is said that by changing their lifestyle from subsistence to collecting for the market, the Batak are receiving some cash to purchase rice, clothes and other small i tems, while reducing time and effort in food collecting and hunting. Thus in real returns, the new preoccupation has disrupted their former dietary balance. They have to work much harder than before, compromising their calorie intake, and as a result their reproduction rate has gone down while infant mortality went up, diminishing their health and numbers, an irony of going higher in the civilization scale.

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TOP TO BOTTOM:Campsite during rafting trip on Maoyon River. Upgraded bamboo raft with canopy. Through a rapid with three-speed stick shift.


My first visit with the Batak is necessary short as we had to hike back to our raft and spending the night camping by the river. That evening, I sat around our campfire watching the fireflies dancing with the stars and the Milky Way. Another type of flies was dancing too. Niknik, a kind of blood-sucking sand mites, were having a feast, compliment of yours truly. But I knew my team would return, perhaps even with a few more scholars to observe and devise what we may be able to do in this region. After all, the Batak village is connected through the Maoyon like a vein to our new base at the mouth of the River.

Rafting back to our base the next day took nine hours, at t imes through rapids, and at other t imes poling through flat stretches of the river. The best moments were when we rafted through some under cover of the jungle, sighting one green parrot, two monkeys, three Palawan Hornbills, and five snakes, the last of which were al l seen overhead on trees as we went under cautiously.

The Batak has a story about why snakes always like to stay on trees overhanging the river. The snake looks down at the river like a mirror to check its own size, so it knows how large a prey it can devour. I hope the story is true, as then I have little reason to worry, because with my gaining of weight and size, I am now too large to fit the snake’s appetite!

TOP TO BOTTOM:A Palawan Hornbill in the shade.Banded snake on tree over river.


I watched the reef go by as it rose vertically 20 meters above me and dropped 90 meters below me into the blackness. Suddenly, I realized I was completely alone in the blue. The strong current had pulled me around a corner in the

wall. I could no longer see my dive buddy or the rest of the team, and for a second, a wave of panic swept over me. It was big, big ocean for a tiny person to be alone in, 30 meters below the surface of the sea.

The currents at Tubbataha were strong and it was easy to get swept ahead of the group if they stopped to check out something along the wall. And there was plenty to stop for – a White-tipped Reef Shark or an enormous Marble Stingray resting on a ledge, a parade of young Grey Reef Sharks, a Green Turtle swimming along the top of the wall, a school of cobalt blue Yellow-tailed Trevally or Pyramidal Butterflyfish descending the wall head first.

As the other divers came into view around the corner, I relaxed and again enjoyed the experience of drifting along the wall of Tubbataha. I was so glad to be out again in the middle of the Sulu Sea in the Philippines. I had already spent a week aboard the HM Explorer 2, with Howman and CERS Philippines Project Manager Joceline Condesa in the lead, exploring remote islands that lie far east of Palawan – Cagayan Cillo and Cavili. We returned to port together, but after the CERS team had all left for Hong Kong, I made the long

TUBBATAHA WORLD HERITAGE SITE AND CERS ZHONGDIAN CENTERby William Bleisch, Ph.D

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TOP TO BOTTOM:Divers on the wall.Crinoid and diver.


crossing again to visit Tubbataha Reefs National Park. This time I was aboard the M/Y Sakura, a live-aboard trimaran equipped for a dozen scuba divers. My mates included a gas well engineer from Australia, two IT engineers from Switzerland, a marketing executive from Shanghai, two Canadian interns studying environmental s c i ence , and th ree Canad ian Eng l i sh t eache r s on vacation from their jobs at an international school in Abu Dabi. The only thing we all shared in common was an Advanced Open-Water scuba certification and a passion for the life of the coral reefs. We dove 15 dives together, most of them to 30 meters depth, several of them at dusk or at night, and all of them drifting along “the wall,” Tubbataha’s most important feature. Above the waves, there was little to see here; just a small sand spit with a few gnarled trees used by roosting boobies and frigate birds. Looking down, the dim outlines of the coral flats that fringe two huge lagoons could be seen.

It was the wall that lay outside and below these atolls and its untrammeled reef life that had made Tubbataha a world famous destination for scuba divers. Dropping over 100 meters nearly vertically from the reef flats above, the wall supported an explosion of life with a diversity nearly unmatched anywhere else on earth1. Huge sea fans and enormous barrel sponges stretched out horizontally from its surface. Enormous schools of trevally, Pyramidal Butterflyfish, and Pink-tailed Triggerf ish swam along with their bel l ies hugging

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Vagabond Butterflyfish.White-spotted Pufferfish n Cleaner Wrasse.White-spotted Pufferfish.Anchor rope damaging coral at Cavili.Yellow Boxfish subadult.

1As a result of its outstanding universal value, Tubbataha is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site. According to the UNESCO website; “It protects an area of almost 100,000 hectares of high quality marine habitats … The reefs of the property support 374 species of corals, almost 90% of all coral species in the Philippines. The reefs and seas of the property also support eleven species of cetaceans, eleven species of sharks, and an estimated 479 species of fish, including the iconic and threatened Napoleon wrasse.”


the face of the wall and their dorsal f ins pointing out ver t ica l ly as i f gravi ty was i r re levant . I t was disorienting, as if the entire scene had been shifted by 90 degrees, and indeed, I almost shifted some of my pictures when I first saw them, thinking for a moment that I had taken them on the reef flats above.

Despite an unseasonable low pressure weather system tha t had brought h igh winds , b ig waves and low visibility, it was still a fantastic experience. It was quite different from the snorkeling I had done on the surface with the CERS team at Cavili Island, about 100 k i lometers to the nor theas t of Tubbataha . At Cavili, where CERS has begun working with the local community, the fringing reef surrounds a small island with about 600 inhabitants, who grow seaweed and fish for a living. The reef there was also colorful and diverse, but the species were different. Among the most common species were Spot-tailed, Vagabond and Red-finned Butterflyfish and Lined Bristletooth Surgeonfish. Because fishing is allowed at Cavili, there were few large fish, although I did see a colorful Coronation Garoupa and a Longfin Garoupa and, dimly in the distance, what looked like a Giant Garoupa.

The reef at Cavili also showed the unmistakable signs of damage from anchors and anchor ropes, and perhaps from dynamite fishing in the past. Yet Cavili had one great advantage for visitors – a freshwater spring on the island that gushed sweet clear water. I could happily spend hours snorkeling on Cavili’s reef flats and free diving its drop-off, and I did when the CERS team went to the island to interview the villagers. It was a joy

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to float among the corals and fish without the heavy scuba equipment, and without safety issues heavy on my mind. As exciting as Tubbataha was, I came away with even more appreciation for the more relaxed and intimate charms of Cavili.

Four days later, and I find myself in Zhong Dian on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, a place that could hardly be more different from 30 meters underwater in the Sulu Sea. As the plane landed this morning, I could see the snow stil l accumulated on the tops of the mountains surrounding the valley. The flight attendant announced that the temperature was 3 degrees C above freezing, a far cry from the 33 degrees that I left behind in Tubbataha. But these two places share some key th ings in common. Both are recognized as World Heritage Natural Sites, registered with the UNESCO commission because of their outstanding universal value for biodiversity and demonstration of evolutionary processes. And both are under threat by dangers generated far beyond their borders. The impacts of anthropogenic global climate change have already been felt at both si tes, changing the t iming of the seasons and spawning a series of record-breaking high temperatures. Just last week the headlines reported that record sea temperatures had caused devastating coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef for the second year in a row. The trip to Tubbataha and Cavili increased my commitment to help protect these sites and to fight the climate deniers and hucksters who are trying to protect fossilized industries by obscuring inconvenient truths with “alternative facts” and misguided faith. The reefs of the Sulu Sea and the mountain forests of Shangri-la are too precious to give up without a fight.

TOP TO BOTTOM:Pink-tail Triggerfish.A Giant Moray Sticks its neck out at night.Spot-tailed and Red-finned Butterflyfish at Cavili.


TOP TO BOTTOM:Sun set taken at Cawili, almost the end of our sea odyssey.Sun set and dried clams. One can almost sense the saltiness through the picture.Sun rise at the middle of the ocean.

UP IN THE MOUNTAINS, DOWN BY THE OCEAN: IN SEARCH OF RECIPROCITY AND ITS FURTHER IMPLICATIONSBy Astor Wong

Just an hour or so before dusk, as I was enchanted by the sky dyed with mesmerizing shades of rosy pink and orange, a small fishing boat came by our banca outrigger and the f i shermen handed us two cut t le f i sh . To our surprise, they left without asking for any type of payment.

It was only after an extended period of time that the fisherman sailed back, requesting some fresh water from us to continue their journey. At first glance, one would consider this as an act of barter - exchanging resources for resources. However, I posit that this was an exemplification of ‘general reciprocity’: the fishermen had no expectation of receiving immediate return for their fish, but only came by later, with the confidence that we would provide to them after their expression of goodwill - through the ‘cuttlefish ambassador,’ which ended up in our stomachs later that evening.

Reciprocity is one of the most discussed subjects in anthropology - one of the ‘universal’ patterns that can be observed among hunter-and-gatherers societ ies . From a ut i l i tar ian perspect ive, group sharing may act as a preventive measure to ensure survival of the community against all odds through natural disasters like drought. Nonetheless, there is more to reciprocity than a practical survival mechanism; in non-market economies, gift exchange is not only a means of acquiring resources, but more importantly, a moral code that maintains the order of the society. To gift-giving societies, it is not the gifts or resources themselves that are emphasized during the exchange but the moral bonding that forms through the process. In short, reciprocity centers upon the relationship between those who engage in the exchange, and through the formation of such relationships, the order of the society remains coherent.

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In retrospect, fishermen in the Palawan region show traits of reciprocal exchange. The incident described above is but one of many examples of upholding a reciprocal relationship among people at sea. Refusing a request of help from fellow fishermen, be that fishing supplies, food or water, is almost unheard of. Despite being clearly aware of that, in this still-vast ocean they may never encounter each other again. Thus the favor may not be repaid indefinitely, but fishermen are still motivated to give each other a hand. I believe, akin to hunter-gatherer food sharing systems, Palawan fishermen put faith in the reciprocal system instead of the particular individual fisherman that they aid; they share without expectation of immediate return, as they are convinced that such reciprocal practice is a moral code in the region, thus insuring them that if assistance is needed one day, they would be offered help as well.

Myths or rumors bear social significance in reinforcing social systems like that of reciprocal exchange. During the interview with the fishing crew, we were told that there was an incident two years ago that left the captain of a ship dead, after he refused the request of food from another ship, loaded with Muslim pirates. The credibility of the story remains unclear, as different versions of myths circulate; yet the moral behind the story is obvious – fishermen should always share with one another. Regardless of race and background, be that Muslim, Malaysian or locals, fishermen would not hesitate to give help if they are capable of it. Together they uphold a reciprocal system that mutually benefits

fishermen in face of the relentless currents and waves.

On the other hand, reciprocity is also common among m o u n t a i n p e o p l e , t h e B a t a k t h a t w e v i s i t e d a n d their neighbors, the Tagbanua, both descendants of indigenous people who used to practice hunting and gather ing for subsis tence. For ins tance, the Batak engage in inter-household food sharing that safeguards supply of food for everyone during low season. What intrigues me, however, is the fact that they extend the courtesy of reciprocity to not only humans, but also to nature, including both the environment and spirits. For the Tagbanua, they bel ieve that energy in the physical, social and spiritual world must be balanced through reciproci ty; one cannot el ici t energy from another source without paying back. While the physical nature provides to them with the guidance of spirits, the Tagbanua reciprocate through offering rites and ‘taking care’ of the environment. Under this framework o f mora l be l i e f , sus ta inab le ha rves t ing s t ra teg ies have been formulated and dest ruct ive exploi ta t ion of resources is condemned, as the indigenous group does not want to upset the spirits. Evaluated by WWF, their subsistence strategy was indeed considered to be remarkably sustainable, that is, until the ‘invasion’ of capitalist system.

From the Tagbanua’s eco-friendly subsistence strategy we can see the eminent role that ideology plays in the operation of a sustainable system; I believe that the work of natural conservation in Palawan can be

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Joceline’s bunker boat with local fishermen that sailed out for tuna fishing.Imported products in the Roxas market, where we bought supplies for the Batak visit.Happy faces in Cawili village – made me feel like a wicked witch as I used way too many candies as bribe to get them smiling at me. Captivating eyes of a Cawilian girl. Children of Cawili. Kid sitting on dried seaweed; most of the villagers at Cawili earn a living through seaweed plantation.


amplified with the promotion of reciprocal ideology. One of the major focuses for this fieldtrip was to assess the sustainability of fishing practices in the Palawan region – the extent to which the fishermen respect marine protected areas, measures against over-fishing, regulation and legal enforcement, etc. The interviews wi th loca l f i shermen and the v i l l age ch ie f o f Cavi l i I s land shed light on the fact that the locals are in fact knowledgeable about environmental conservation, such as in ability to identify endangered species, knowing the reserve area, and organizing monthly patrols. However, when the fishermen were asked why it is important to conserve the environment, they often resorted to the law, identifying what is legal and what is not, or to personal gain, for instance how poison damages the corals and leads to mass death of fish, which result in less fish catch in the future.

Offering a moral ideology on the significance of environmental conservation, in a ‘language’ that is comprehensible to the locals, may give them a sense of purpose and thus increase their effort in natural conservation. As discussed above, Palawan fishermen are famil iar with the concept of reciproci ty. I t is , therefore, worth considering efforts to strengthen fishermen’s awareness o f env i ronmenta l p ro tec t ion th rough p romot ing the idea o f ‘repaying’ the environment in terms of controlled fishing and other conservative measures, as the ocean has generously provided them with fish with which they make a living. In my opinion, a moral imperative is much more effective than legal enforcement when it comes to behavioral change. Fishermen may go the extra mile in natural conservation if the concept is understood through the perspective of reciprocity.


GUARDIANS OF THE SULU By Jane Chu

It’s barely 5 am. I count the hours. We have been cruising westwards for more than 14 hours on the HM Explorer 2, our haven for the past seven days. I reckon we are nearing Palawan. At

least, I hope so. The waves had awakened me every other hour, tilting the HM Explorer 2 at precarious angles and reminding me that I was at their mercy for the night. I’m comforted by the knowledge that our accompanying bangka is standing guard at a short distance away. I decide to just stay awake. In any case, since arriving in the Philippines three weeks ago, my definition of ‘an early start to the day’ has adjusted itself from 9 am to 5:30 am.

I wonder what it must be like to live beneath these tempestuous torrents. The marine life must be going through the same turmoil. The spinner dolphins that commemorated our first sunset on-board with a spectacular display of their surfing skills must be making extra efforts to come up for air. Yesterday at Cawili

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Sunset views from CawiliAstor and I on board the HM Explorer 2.Children of Cawili. Locals receiving the Holy Communion on Sunday. Scallops drying in the sun. Sundry store. Cawili from afar. Seaweed plantations.


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Island, I learnt that late March is historically a period of serenity at sea, with the Sulu becoming a balmy and brilliant azure. While some regional variations are to be expected, tidal turbulence is said to be unusual at this time of the year.

The Sulu Sea is unique in the truest sense of the word. Bordered by the Visayas and Mindanao to the east and Palawan to the west, its constant upwelling of deep nutrient-rich waters to the surface stimulates productivity and harbours a hotbed of marine biodiversity. Inhabiting these waters are sharks, cetaceans, turtles, manta rays, dugongs, saltwater crocodiles and water monitors, and over 2,000 species of marine fish including the Napoleon wrasse, giant bumphead parrot-fish, needlefish and barracuda. According to WWF, the Sulu reefs are lined by more than 450 species of hard corals—a remarkable indication of coral diversity when compared with the Caribbean’s 50 species. The Tubbataha Reef, inscribed by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1993, lies isolated in the middle of the Sulu as a mark of its magnificence as one of the most diverse marine systems in the world.

As well as its aquatic residents, the Sulu houses human inhabitants on its numerous islands. We arrived at Cawili Island three days ago to the heartening giggles of a group of five to ten-year-olds, who waded through waist-high water in the reef to help push our water taxi of a


bangka to shore. Stepping onto terra firma was very much like waking up from a dream. I was hit by a lurch of land-sickness. As we walked towards the village centre, I was hit again, equally hard—this time by the lightness of Cawili and its merry residents.

I had imagined that living on an island days from civilization, vulnerable to storms and with limited electricity would breed a certain harshness in people. I had expected to see men, women and children alike consumed with tasks related to securing food and survival. Yet I found myself in a dainty village, with a well marking its entrance, sandy roads lined by neat wooden huts and the occasional solar panel, seaweed and scallops drying in the sun and offers of fresh coconut wine as refreshment. This was not what I had pictured.

According to the locals, the first ten families arrived from Cagayancillo in 1968, after being given land on Cawili by the Philippines government as part of a poverty alleviation effort. Later, more families and friends from Cagayancillo joined the initial settlers, and today, over 600 people from 140 families reside on this remote island. Most men go fishing overnight, and help their families with collecting sea cucumbers and planting, drying and packaging seaweed during the day. An elementary school, best known in the municipality for producing outstanding volleyball players, accommodates the 100 children on the island who would continue their education in Cagayancillo and Puerto Princesa. On Sundays, families attend church, compete in basketball tournaments, sing karaoke and gather around the only five televisions on the island to watch their favourite movies in Tagalog, English, Mandarin and Korean. The biggest festival of the year, the Fiesta of Saint Isidore (the Catholic patron saint of farmers), is celebrated with a three-day event consisting of cockfighting, Zumba dancing, singing contests, volleyball tournaments between the married and the single, children climbing-for-candy competitions, the exchanging of superstitions and special meals of spaghetti and roasted pork. The people here make the place.

“But we don’t just live on Cawili. We protect the island and the seas surrounding it. We are the guardians of this place,” said our guide Wilfredo Dusong, with a touch of pride.

Wilfredo, 57, was working in Iloilo in the Visayas when he received news that his father had gone missing while fishing alone in the Sulu. He and his siblings promptly returned to assist with the search, but to no avail. With the help of witness accounts provided by friends on other islands, they came to believe that their father’s spirit had been thieved by a beautiful fairy. Wilfredo has since stayed at Cawili to inherit the land owned by his father, who was one of the ten initial settlers of the island.

“For a living, I plant seaweed and coconut trees. I also go fishing with the other men just outside of the Marine Protected Area. And when we’re at sea, we take turns to patrol the protected area.”

I had heard a bit about the Marine Protected Area (MPA) the day before, from my conversation with Nison Abados, mayor of Cawili, who had come on board the HM Explorer 2 when we were still anchored at Cagayancillo. The mayor was paying a visit to the bigger island to attend a seminar. The MPA, he explained, constitutes 60.7 hectares of the waters around Cawili. It’s a no-take zone, meaning that while divers and snorkellers may still enjoy the corals for a 20-peso permit, no fishing or anchoring are allowed. People who are caught conducting illegal activities within the MPA would have their boats and nets confiscated and be fined 2500 pesos. Serious cases would be dealt with in court in Cagayancillo. When the MPA was established in 2000 with the help of Conservation International, the fishermen were enraged. Nison, having studied marine biology for a year in college, went on a trip to observe the operation of MPAs in Cebu and Batangas, and returned to formally educate the people of Cawili of the significance of protecting the marine ecosystem. It was the concept of reciprocity that identified with people the most—if they’re good to the ocean, she


will return with gifts of corals and more fish. It took six years to rid people of all their doubts and engage them wholeheartedly in safeguarding the MPA.

“Everyone in Cawili knows where the boundaries of the MPA are, and what they can and cannot do within it. It’s working, because when I go diving, I see more fish than before,” Wilfredo continued. “The sea is returning the favour because fishing has been good business. We’ve caught more swordfish, barracudas, lapu lapu (groupers) and tangigues (mackerels). All outside of the MPA, of course!”

I took the chance to ask Wilfredo about fishing activities further out in the Sulu. The people of Cawili, he said, are well-acquainted with those species that are endangered or illegal to catch, such as turtles, sharks and dolphins. If a turtle turns up as by-catch, they’d bring it to Cagayancillo for a small financial reward and to allow experts to tag it for scientific tracking. They also fish using hooks and lines in order to cause minimal damage. But he’s seen unscrupulous fishermen from Cebu practising dynamite fishing in the area. While these fishers were eventually fined and had their belongings confiscated, the damage they’ve afflicted means that natural recovery of the reef will be slow and difficult, affecting fish species wealth and quantity.

Pope Francis, in his encyclical on the environment, wrote, “The depletion of fishing reserves especially hurts small fishing communities without the means to replace those resources… and rises in the sea level mainly affect impoverished coastal populations who have nowhere else to go.” I proceeded to ask a last question about Cawili’s approach to combating climate change and what Wilfredo thought about the choppy waters we were experiencing at this unexpected time of the year. His answer caught me off guard.

“The name ‘Cawali’ means ‘to stay here for a long time’. Global warming will not affect us because the corals around here will protect this mysterious island. As long as we’re good to the corals, we will be safe from harm.”

I had a sudden urge to recount to Wilfredo the hard facts and the hazards that a warming Earth can pose to coastal communities like Cawili. But I stopped short of it. Partly because his steadfast answer had already dismissed an abridged version of my recount which I gave while explaining my question, and partly because I was humbled. These people, and people like them on other islands, are the true guardians of the Sulu. Just as us city dwellers’ proclaimed love of the ocean often translates to a mere enjoyment of its view and coolness, these people are taking the extra step: one that not only assures the well-being of these beautiful reefs and marine life, but safeguards a bountiful future for their inheritors.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:Wilfredo’s mother with her cooking pot as a remembrance of her husband.Cawili’s water source.Dried seaweed to be shipped abroad.Village Hut.Bannerfish spotted in the MPA.Coral diversity around Cawili.


“ X, Happy is here!” CERS Philippines Project Manager Joceline shouts out loudly. I finally get the chance to meet Happy, the man Joceline often praises and feels happy about. In his sixties, Happy is a strongly built old man with a healthy

tanned skin tone and beard growing on his chin and cheek. He effortlessly paddles his fishing kayak approaching us with speed. “Are you able to speak Hong Kong Cantonese?” I greet him with an excited loud voice and a big smile. A typical Cantonese gesture to greet someone you never expected, especially for me, in the middle of exotic Sulu Sea. “Of course! I am a Hong Kong boy from Shau Kei Wan.” He shouts back.

It is 12 days to Christmas Eve. The CERS research boat HM2 has just completed a 26 hour, 268 km eastbound voyage from Palawan Honda Bay to Cagayancillo Island, home town of Joceline. We have planned this trip over a year to achieve multiple tasks that include filming the Island’s Annual Children’s Day Parade when over 300 children dress up beautifully, sing loudly and dance and march across the town. It is a kind of tradition unique to fisher folk culture that I feel resembles the “Tai Ping Ching Chiu - 太平清醮 ” of Hong Kong but is far less known by the outside world. We are also documenting the changing life of local fishing families in which most adults inevitably leave their own seas to work overseas. Last but not least, we have to test the newly acquired drone camera for capturing aerial views of the CERS research boat HM2 sailing into unknown territory.

The first two tasks are accomplished with flying colours, but the third turns into a dull nightmare. Take off from the

deck of the boat goes smoothly, and I maneuver the drone by remote control to fly around the boat filming. After the first 4 of the supposedly 10 minutes flying time allowed by a fully charged battery, I notice the power level is dropping rapidly. As a precaution, I turn around the drone to fly back to Xiao Cao, my co-pilot on this mission. He is trying hard to keep his balance on the boat’s galley roof-top above the stern, the best spot on the boat for launching and landing the drone. He is ready to grab the drone instead of me landing it. We have practiced this many times on land.

Suddenly, as the drone approaches, the remote-controller releases a series of beeping sound. “ I have a bad feeling about this!” I tell Xiao Cao.

Xiao Cao reaches out to his utmost reach at the roof edge. Just a few inches away from Xiao Cao’s wide open fingers, the drone stops its forward motion and stops in air for a second or two to calculate its path to go … HOME! HOME is a self-saving protocol designed to overcome all troubles, be it the loss of a control signal, bad weather conditions and, in this case, a low battery. It allows the drone to automatically return to its GPS recorded lift-off location. Such a good feature does no good for me at all. I knew I never wanted it to go HOME automatically. If our boat was anchored and the GPS coordinates of HOME remained unchanged, the drone would have been grabbed easily. Our boat, however, is moving forward after the lift-off, breaking waves for filming’s sake, so I have planned to grab-land it. But this stubborn hungry flying-octopus has made up its mind earlier than I had predicted.

The final moment of seeing the drone flying away is

SANTA CLAUS OF THE SULU SEABy Xavier Lee

Palawan, Philippines


absolutely horrific. At the most desperate moment, the idea of kicking Xiao Cao off the stern to catch the drone in mid-air did flash through my head. I didn’t. Perhaps I should have.

Once auto-pilot is engaged, the system overrides all manual control and flies the drone high up to find its return path. The problem is, its GPS guided destination HOME is now the open waters one kilometer behind us.

The Drone is capsizes and drowns. The home-made foam attached to its base just prevented it from sinking, but didn’t keep it upright. A nearby fisherman on a kayak helps to salvage the wreckage and returns it with a big smile.

Immediately I retrieve the SD memory card from its heart. There is smoke leaking out from the dead octopus body. The smell of burning is strong. The short-circuited camera and CPU board soaked by salty sea water are bleeding out green slimy liquid. Vital signs seem to be failing. At 5:30pm, I declare the drone is dead.

I crashed the drone into open waters on its very first ocean launch. The drone went out of control, or better to say I failed to control properly the 4 propellers, which ran extra fast to counteract a strong crosswind. I blame my inexperience. I finally realize that understanding the inspiration of three respected centenarian WWII pilots and spending time to learn from them last year does not make me a pilot. SAD.

My sorrow lasts for the rest of the week, until the moment Happy arrives. His look and laughter match amazingly

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:Children spear-fishing in Cagayancillo Island.Aerial view of CERS Palawan Research Base.Adding home-made floatation to the short-lived drone.Harvesting sea-weed.


the image of Santa Claus from my childhood dream. The calm sea is as smooth as a snow mountain and his kayak rides as fast as the reindeer sleigh. I can see him travelling with a big bag full of stuff. I fantasize. Quietly, I make a wish to this Santa Claus for a new drone for Christmas.

To celebrate the rarest chance of meeting and pleasing this Hong Kong man in the middle of nowhere, I invite him to our boat for lunch. “Here is a gift for you!” Happy stretches his arm deep into his big bag. I am delighted to see something resembling the shape of a drone. It is a drone look-alike home-made from dried salted grouper fish. Smells good!

Happy’s home is 40 some kilometers south of Cagayancillo in Cawilli island and then 5km beyond on La Rinna Atoll. This beautiful white sand paradise used to house a village of more than 100 families until it begun to sink some 40 years ago. Now completely submerged, the remaining 15 fishing families live on dilapidated timber chalets surrounded by seawater. The whole village is protected from huge waves by a kilometer long stretch of shallow coral reef.

It took merely 40 years for La Rinna Island to completely submerge. The scenario of a sinking island is not unique. It is happening to every island at the same time as sea levels rise. CERS, being a small NGO, is no match for the force of nature and the power needed to change the human world. But our strength is more than sufficient to build a permanent research base in Palawan. Getting to meet and learn from the locals, however short and brief the chance, is a step forward. Well, at least we have started.

Villagers in La Rinna grow seaweed to supplement income, particularly during the three months long fishing moratorium. According to Happy, villagers can harvest the seaweed 4 times every year for a total of roughly 500kg. The wholesale price for a kilogram of good quality seaweed is set to be 20 peso. For him, he prefers to buy fresh fish from locals at a price of around 150 peso per kg and sell it to Manila for 300 after it is dried and salted.

“Of course! We are still catching fish during the ban. It’s alright for personal consumption,

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Village of La Rinna Island completely surrounded by water.Santa Claus is coming to town.Happy finding a gift to the CERS team.A dried salted grouper fish.Happy on board HME.Drying seaweed on chalet balcony.A dog guarding its property, above and underwater.


otherwise how can we survive!” At age 64, Happy who lives here alone, declares his right to the sea. He retired from commercial fishing 10 years ago and began his small dried fish business. “I have four children. My eldest son is now a ship’s engineer in Manila earning 100,000 peso a month (US$ 2,000),” Happy proudly announces.

“Of all the places in the world, why here?” I ask curiously. Happy is the fifth son of nine siblings in his family in Hong Kong and never had a chance to go to school. As an illiterate boy who knew nothing other than catching fish, he was often bullied and cheated. At the age of 15, he became determined to regain his pride and prove to the family that he could make a living in the farthest place away from home. Indeed, some 50 years ago, 1450km south of Shau Kei Wan, he discovered his new home by boat.

“Palawanyo have good heart. Here you don’t see Mafia or troublesome guys who always ask to borrow money but never pay back.” I assume that is one of his major reasons to find peace in trouble-free Palawan. It has been 13 years since he last visited Shau Kei Wan. A true wanderer and fisherman making a catch wherever possible. His Filipino wife and Palawan-born children have never met his Shau Kei Wan family.

“Why do I care? I am nearly there!” - a common Cantonese saying implying “going to die” that Happy enjoys repeating loudly. “In Hong Kong, my Chinese name is Chan Ah Peng 陳阿餅. In Palawan, Ah Peng sounds like Happy, that’s why I am happy here.”

Shau Kei Wan, one of the oldest fishing villages in Hong Kong where most families used to live on a boat, has now been made famous by a private housing estate named Grand Promenade 嘉亨灣. The cost of its 71st floor high penthouse has reached a record-breaking 30 million Hong Kong (US$ 3.8m or 193 million peso). To buy one, the whole village of La Rinna Island would have to grow and sell seaweed for another 1266 years. Hong Kong is definitely not a place for Happy to be happy. Instead, on all the underwater land in Palawan that he can wander around, he could build his own valley - Happy Valley.


“Look up above your head, here are a few of the hanging coffins,” said the boat driver casually without turning his head, addressing a dozen or so tourists who were sharing the same motor launch as us. Visitors come here for the 20-minute boat

ride along a most beautiful stretch of the Getu River with limestone hills rising on both sides of the gorge.

My small team came mainly to inspect the coffins. But at this precarious location where the coffins were suspended in mid-air, the boat would not stop for us. Everyone was on way to a nearby Miao village. Most would take the return trip within a couple hours. Whereas for us, we intend to stay in the village to pursue our own agenda.

Katie Hunt, a CNN journalist based in Hong Kong, recently showed me a few images of coffins inside a cave from southwestern Guizhou. I wanted to go at once to have a look. This topic has been one of our ongoing studies since

CERS’s inception 30 years ago. My team and I had made many visits to various hanging coffin sites, including preserving one of the least known and oldest hanging coffin locations.

I had never heard of such burial sites within Guizhou Province. So this new information got me excited. I adjusted my calendar and left for Guizhou two weeks after Chinese New Year. We arrived at Getu River south of the county town of Ziyun, an area inhabited by the Miao and Buyi minorities.

The village was called Gebuncun, but now simply known as Da He Miao Jai or Big River Miao Village. “Bun” is a character rarely seen, thus hardly anyone knew how to pronounce the word. It looks rather simple, a dot inside the word for a water well. I was told, most graphically, that it is pronounced exactly like the sound and echo produced when a stone is dropped into a well, bung. Getu, the name of the river, is likewise graphic. The river here is cut off on both ends by two huge

HANGING COFFINS OF GUIZHOUby Wong How Man

Getu River, Guizhou

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Stacked coffins. Newly installed hanging coffins. Profile of coffins. More coffins. Skull exposed.


and precipitous limestone hills, each with a gigantic cave rising close to a hundred meters above the water. The river comes from inside one cave and, on the other end, enters into the other cave; thus the word Ge, meaning divided. Tu means ‘protruding’ or ‘special’, referring to the river appearing in between the two hills.

For me what is Tu, or so special about this place, was the hanging coffins. We stayed at a modest and clean traditional Miao lodging house. Wang Xiao-er, meaning Wang Number Two, is the Miao owner. Hu Yixiang, his most jolly wife and a Buyi nationality from a nearby village, was home to greet us and acted as our cook. I asked her about visiting the coffins I had just seen high above us inside the gorge as we sailed through.

“Those were put up there just over a year ago,” came her surprising answer. “Too many tourists are coming on weekends and holidays and the small river is cluttered with limited boats available. The company operating this tourist site find it more efficient to only allow tourist boats to come as far as our village, before turning back,” added Hu.

“The real coffin site is further up, another 15 minutes or more to where the river came out of the cave. But to satisfy these tourists’ curiosity about the coffins, a great selling point for the visit, the operator decided to fabricate some new ones along the way,” Hu explained. The plot seems to have worked as these new coffins certainly look quite real and dramatic from afar, and should satiate the appetite of any normal tourist.

Not so for me. I am hell-bent on seeing the heaven-bound bodies in the real coffins. A plan was soon made for a local Miao man to take us upriver to the real site with his private boat the next morning. In the meantime, it was getting late and we retired after a wonderful meal cooked by Hu. That evening a rather loud and huge banquet with sumptuous meal, drinking and card games was underway at our neighbor’s house.

The following morning, after a brisk breakfast, we were on our way. Wu Xiaoming, 40 years old, was our boat driver/guide. He came from Rongle, another Miao village a short distance up the river. These days, tourists turn back at the lower village and the upper reaches can only be reached by local boats that travel up to a floating bamboo bridge. From here we changed to an even smaller boat to continue with our journey.

Despite the scenery being most beautiful, I was eager to get to the

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coffins site, which was only another two kilometres further upriver. As we rounded a corner, a huge cave under a majestic limestone cliff rising hundreds of meters was right in front of us. The spectacle was awe inspiring. The Getu river disappeared inside the cave where a huge rock blocked its channel like a gate.

We docked our boat by a makeshift platform. High above us, perhaps thirty to fifty meters higher, were layers and stacks of wooden coffins. They rested at various locations in this huge cave, with a section of the coffins jutting out into mid-air. Unlike other coffin sites we studied with coffins suspended in mid-air, here the coffins were quite securely anchored, resting on solid rock.

Climbing up, at times on my hands and knees as if prostrating upward, I aimed for the lowest coffin site. Soon I was right up next to the coffins. While some were still intact, many were quite old and falling apart. Through broken sections of the wooden boards, I could peek inside the coffins, seeing bones and some disintegrating clothing. At one coffin, even a full skull was exposed to view. There were also paper money showing, offerings from recent visitors to the site.


I climbed further and was soon at the elevated entrance to a huge cave. There were maybe a dozen coffins at this last spot. Scattered on the ground around were broken pieces of coffin boards, and here and there were bones and small ceramic pieces. Wu revealed to us that there used to be many more coffins, perhaps hundreds. But he said an accidental fire by villagers destroyed most of them.

Old folks told stories of how their ancestors used these coffins as temporary resting place such that they could one day be moved back to their historical home further east in China. How true such legends are remains to be verified.

“When I was still a kid, maybe ten or twelve years old, some archaeologists came here to study these coffins. I remember they numbered the coffins to over 380 sets. Today at most only thirty remain after the fire,” Wu recounted. He further speculated that some coffins might have been stolen entirely because grave thieves may believe there are valuable relics inside.

Seeing the entire place left in disarray and a mess, I believe no organized study or protection has been accorded to this burial site. After lingering for an hour, I descended to the river and we started our journey back to the village. We reached Da He Miao Za at noon, just in time to hear fireworks being set off into the air. A major celebration of some sort was just underway. A lot of Miao people were around, coming from nearby and distant villages. They were all gathering in the yard of our neighbor’s home, the same place where the evening before there was a big party late into the night. Group of ten or twelve of these men would sit around a low hotpot having a meal. Women who were helping in the open air kitchen would eat standing up. At two of these hotpot groups, some of the men were playing the Suola, a kind of high-pitched wind instrument like an oboe, to the beat of a small drum. These impromptu orchestras would take turn playing the music.

I nosed around and suddenly saw that at the edge of the party stood a stone grave with lit candles, incense and offering of rice wine. On further inquiry, it turned out that this is the funeral “celebration” of a deceased woman in the village. What is so extraordinary is that this big banquet for relatives and villagers was 15 years overdue. The one son and one daughter

buried their mother summarily upon her death, then went away to work and save up enough money before finally returning home to host a proper funeral.

At one point, a line of a dozen or so women walked up to the grave and set down their flower bouquets. They knelt down at the grave to begin crying. I could tell that perhaps only two of the ladies were crying for real, while the others simply covered their faces with handkerchiefs in a mock cry to eulogize the deceased.

I was asked to join in the meal, but politely declined, as I felt a bit out of place. Suddenly, I realized that perhaps having a long-delayed funeral may be just an allegory for the hanging coffins nearby, as these coffins lay in peace for the moment, perhaps for generations or centuries, before they would one day be returned to their ancestral home.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:Huge cave above Getu River at coffin site.Banquet during funeral. Miao old man at coffin site. Landscape of coffin site. Gebuncun village.


I nstigated during a luncheon with Wong How Man, Sin Berry and Bill Begg in Chinatown, London, April 30th 2017.

Little did I realise when I landed in Beijing in January 2003, that Jaguar Land Rover in China was to follow a similar path to that of the little acorn as it matures into the beautiful oak tree – and whilst it would take the oak some 200 years to reach maturity, Jaguar Land Rover would achieve th is wi th cons iderable rapidity as part of China’s great economic development.It was a cold winter’s January day as I flew alone into Beijing from the lovely climes of Dubai, having been based there for 4 years, running Land Rover’s operations for the Middle East, Sub Saharan Africa and Pakistan. My new assignment was that of a pioneer, to find out what was going on in China, to test the waters as to what opportunities China might hold for the future, and to sell some cars if at all possible. This was no comprehensive, well thought-out and funded corporate plan but rather a case of “one man and his dog” being parachuted in, except in this case there wasn’t even a dog.

So how do you introduce a car brand to a marketplace where most people have never heard of the brand nor recognise the brand logo, where you have no staff to

MIGHTY OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROWby Bill Begg

Solihull, UK

assist and no dealers to sell and service your product? Well, you have to start to get to know people whilst facing a language barrier, and the best business tool for this purpose in China is Ganbei (干杯). As a Scotsman well versed in uisge-beatha or the “water of life”, the switch to Moutai baijiu did not present a significant cha l lenge , and my c i rc le o f f r i ends and bus iness acquaintances grew quickly. Daytime activity of course focussed on preparing and implementing an action plan as to how ‘JLR’ could legally be allowed to sell our cars, who we would appoint as dealers, how we would market the products, and so on. With few resources of our own, support on all these points was garnished from our parent company, at that time Ford and sister company Volvo, both of whom went through the many legislative and governmental hoops on JLR’s behalf to get us started.

I s t i l l needed ma jo r a s s i s t ance on the Sa les and Marketing front and, in due course, I successful ly managed to co-opt the services of young, energetic bil ingual local managers from our newly appointed importers and marketing agency. They became in effect de facto JLR team members and brand ambassadors, and because they were all new to the brands, I had to find a way of really instilling into them what the brands were genuinely all about. In Land Rover’s case, Wong


CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:Bill Begg with How Man and Land Rover.Bill and his Land Rover team in Shangri-la. Bill playing his Scottish bagpipe. Bill the violinist entertains Tibetan dancers.

How Man and CERS were the perfect vehicle for me.

When I first met How Man, it was immediately clear to me that CERS was a real, living example of what the Land Rover Brand represented and offered a very similar proposition in terms of going ‘Above and Beyond’ - caring for and preserving the environment, heritage and culture. Some people are driven to go above and beyond the ordinary , to chal lenge the expected, to push the impossible, to adventure into the unknown and to reach new heights – this description applies to both Land Rover and CERS. My new Team members embraced CERS, their staff and their objectives. As a result of this and with my own input, the Team quickly and deeply understood the Land Rover brand. I am sure their blood turned Land Rover green as a result – they all in turn had a major impact on Land Rover’s development and growth. Our relationship with CERS was cemented when I held one of my General Managers’ meetings at CERS’s excellent facil i ty in Zhondian/Shangri la, courtesy of How Man – a great and most memorable weekend.

With only 3 of us on the JLR payroll and with help from our co-opted friends, we managed to sell 435 Land Rovers in our first year – pretty good from a standing start in a market that hadn’t really ever heard of the Land Rover brand before and in a country where we had to obtain legal approval prior to launch. We introduced Jaguar in year two, whilst Land Rover’s sales grew to 750. We were going in the right direction. Having started from such humble beginnings, China is now a major market for JLR - in excess of 100,000 vehicles are being sold annually - managed by a JLR China staff of 400+ persons.

Here’s to little acorns – Ganbei! (干杯!).


C E R S I N T H E F I E L D

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:CERS team shuttling to beach. Cao on karabao cart. Luggage on sedan chair up Jizu Shan. Team rafting Maoyon River. CERS team ready to hike to distant mountain cave. At Guizhou coffin site. Dr Bleisch underwater.


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CERS IN THE MEDIA AND LECTURES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:CERS team at Irrawaddy source. Group visiting Zhongdian Center. A group from Choate visited CERS sites inZhongdian. “Seven Golden Flowers” visited CERS recently in Shek O. Makoto & Shinobu Ando from Japan, visited CERS in Hong Kong.

l HM delivered a lecture to stu-dents and teachers of Cheltenham Ladies College (CLC) in the UK.

l A lecture, including recent CERS projects in Palawan, was delivered by HM at the Manila House, a newly established club to bring together

business, scholars and artists. Vince Perez, former Minister of Energy of the Philippines made the introduction.

l HM delivered a lecture at the Hong Kong University Graduate Association College (HKUGA).

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Lecture at Cheltenham Ladies College, UK. HM speaking at HKUGA.Vince Perez introduces HM at Manila House.

n A CERS team led by Wong How Man reached the source of the Irrawaddy River in southeastern Tibet on May 26, 2017. This is the fifth river source CERS has reached and defined, after the Yangtze (2005), Mekong (2007), Yellow River (2008) and Salween (2011). A full report will follow in our next newsletter.

n A group of friends and guests from the U.S., Japan and the Philippines visited CERS Zhongdian Center.

n A CERS group made a pilgrimage to

Jijushan (Chicken Foot Mountain) during this special year of pilgrimage for the Year of the Chicken.

n Lung Ying-tai, former Minister of Culture of Taiwan and a friend of HM and CERS, visited the CERS Burmese Cat sanctuary and project site at Inle Lake.

n Makoto and Shinobu Ando, professional photographer and environmental guide from Japan, visited CERS in Hong Kong and Zhongdian.

n A group of students from Choate visited CERS sites in Zhongdian Yunnan in April.

n Teachers and other associates of the Hong Kong University Graduate Associate College (HKUGA) visited our Zhongdian Center and nearby sites.

n “Seven Golden Flowers”, Alice, Anna, Bonnie, Cecilia, Elaine, Susan, Sylvia visited CERS in Yunnan in 2004, and recently in Shek O.


T H A N K Y O U T H A N K Y O U

A subscription to this newsletter is US$100 for three issues. All proceeds support CERS projects.

Please contact us directly if you are interested in signing up. See the bottom of page two for contact details.

The production of China Explorers is made possible through the generous contributions of Toppan Vintage Limited

CERS’ MISSION:The mission of the China Exploration and Research

Society is to enrich the understanding of our cultural and natural heritage.

Hong KongGigi Ma ArnouxDr Joseph ChanJames ChenChoy So YukWilliam E. ConnorWilliam FungVictor HsuHans Michael JebsenRick KroosChristabel & Ricky LauVic LeeAfonso MaAlbert MaPatrick MaDavid Mong

Daniel Ng’s FamilyDr William SoJames & Mary TienBetty TsuiPatrick WangConrad WongDora Wu Sonny YauWellington & Virginia YeeBilly Yung

OverseasEric ChenBetsy CohenJudith Ann CorrenteIngrid Ehrenberg & Joe Chan

Henrietta & Richard ForeEster GoelkelZhengyu HuangBarry LamThomas PritzkerSerge PunOliver SilsbyChote Sophonpanich

CorporateBull Capital PartnersCathay Pacific DragonairFirst Myanmar Investment (FMI)Shun Hing Group

CURRENT PATRONSl l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

l l l l l l l l l l

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n Sir David Tang graciously hosted a dinner on behalf of CERS at the China Club for Princess Kesang Choden Wangchuk of Bhutan and Princess Pema Abrahams of Sikkim. Also attending the dinner were the Duchess of York and many CERS friends.

n Several patrons renewed their support for 2017: Betsy Cohen made a substantial additional funding to facilitate our documentary film series, Judith Ann Corrente, Hans Michael Jebsen, Rick Kroos, Vic Lee, Gigi Ma, The Moritz Foundation, Thomas Pritzker, Wellington & Virginia Yee.

n The Shun Hing Education & Charity Fund and CERS Director David Mong made continued their major

funding to CERS for 2017.

n Billy Yung, CERS Director, donated a new 7-passenger van to CERS.

n Dora Wu supports CERS trip to the UK for lecture and research activities.

n Martin Ma donated a Chinese antique classic table for our use at the Shek O 1939 Exhibit House.

n Dragonair provided some complimentary tickets for CERS use to Kunming and Taiwan, and Cathay Pacific provided some long-haul complimentary tickets.

LEFT TO RIGHT: A Chinese antique classic table. Princess Kesang Choden Wangchuk of Bhutan, Princess Pema Abrahams of Sikkim, the Duchess of York, Sir David Tang and How Man at dinner. A new 7-passenger van to CERS.

china explorerscers/images/stories/downloads/cers_1902.pdf · su hlaing myint, cers field biologist...

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