Exploring China
Life on the Edge: Exploration in modern day China
Daniel Allen
Growing up to tales such as Robinson Crusoe and The Jungle Book, the urge to explore can usually be traced back to our early years.
Indeed, children weaned on such ripping yarns may be forgiven for assuming adulthood is one long adrenaline rush that swings wildly between snake-infested jungles, deserted islands and snowy peaks.
Unfortunately, modern life is increasingly sedentary, routine and safety-conscious. For many of us, the biggest adventure of the day is crossing the road or getting our jacket caught in the subway door. The desire to conform and seek comfort and convenience subverts the need to explore, to actually put our bodies in harm's way and deprive ourselves of warmth, food, rest and companionship.
Whether you were born with a die-hard adventurous streak, or look on exploration as a means of enlivening an otherwise humdrum existence, "getting out there" now requires a wide range of personal qualities. Exploration has come a long way since the days of David Livingstone and Ernest Shackleton, and often means more than simply "conquering nature" through masochistic feats of endurance.
As British explorer Benedict Allen once said, "To me, exploration isn't about overcoming geographical obstacles and planting flags. It's not about going where no one's gone before in order to leave your mark, but about the opposite of that - about making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself up to whatever's there, and letting the place leave its mark on you."
Here are four examples of modern day explorers who have certainly let China put its mark on them.
Steve Schwankert
American Steve Schwankert, owner of Gongti-based diving outfit Sinoscuba, is Beijing's answer to a modern day Jacques Cousteau. A natural water baby, Schwankert made his first dive in 1980 at the age of 10, and was already PADI-certified by the time he was 13. Eventually he became "very bored of looking at pretty fish", and now organizes and takes part in various diving expeditions in and around China.
Looking back on his formative years, Schwankert recalls, "I was always attracted to the water - I started watching diving programmes on TV when I was three. The only problem was, I didn't want to get my hair wet. That changed when my parents bought me a mask. After that, I didn't care what happened to my hair any more!"
Schwankert endorses the opinion that exploration is no longer the sole preserve of rich eccentrics with a stiff upper lip, commenting, "The exploration game isn't just for people with pith helmets any more. Exploration in the strict sense is about applied field science - going out into the field - whether that's the ocean, desert, jungle or even space - and seeking to answer a question or series of questions. But that can mean simply going out to the local park to count how many worms live in a square meter of grass."
In these days of Google Earth, the Discovery Channel, and even Lonely Planet, some would-be explorers could be forgiven for wishing they'd been born in an earlier age. Schwankert smiles and disagrees with the sentiment. "China is still an explorer's paradise," he says. "We've seen so little of what's in the lakes and off the coast. For a diver, this place is crawling with possibilities for adventure!"
Schwankert's first real exploration in China came two years ago in Zhejiang Province. When the Chinese government decided to build a hydroelectric dam in the area in 1959, an entire Ming Dynasty town, which later became known as "Lion City", was forever buried under the rising waters. Lion City was re-discovered by divers in 2001, remarkably well-preserved in the frigid murky waters of Qiandaohu, or "Thousand Island Lake".
Challenging conditions - silty bottom, low light, a water temperature of 12˚C, and a minimum depth of 28m - means viewing Lion City is a privilege limited to experienced divers. Schwankert recalls the trip as if it were yesterday. "Lion City is a walled, Ming Dynasty town that was home to 6000 people. There's a 7.8-meter tall imperial tablet there - I've never seen anything even close to it here in Beijing. To see something like that, to swim through the city's north gate, that's once in a lifetime stuff," he enthuses.
This year Schwankert has dived in Lake Khovsgol in Western Mongolia, finding a previously unknown 2-meter long fish, and recording a sonar trace of another six-meter long creature that may just have been the Central Asian version of Nessie. In 2009 he's hoping to start looking for the wreck of a World War II ship that's sitting off the Taiwanese coast.
What with all this adventure on top of running a full-time diving outfit and writing his first book, how does this extrovert American find the energy to keep going? Schwankert explains, "Diving is the passion that drives me. It gives you access to the two-thirds of the world that's covered by water. You see 10 times more animals and plants on a coral reef dive than you do on a nature walk. Diving is relaxing and fun, and for kids, it builds confidence and reinforces their math and science skills. Besides, how else can you pet a shark in Beijing?"
Dr. Daniel Taylor
Daniel Taylor's childhood reads like something out of a Boy's Own comic. His grandparents, who were doctors, moved to India 100 years ago, and his grandfather was the first American to visit Tibet in 1927. Both his parents were explorers, and he spent his adolescence roaming the Indian jungle and scrambling around the Indian, Nepali and Bhutanese Himalaya.
Taylor's love affair with Tibet began with the region's opening up in the early 1980s. Growing up in the Himalaya, Taylor had become fascinated by the legend of the Abominable Snowman or "Yeti", and he spent several years in and around Tibet looking to prove or disprove its existence. Despite several near-death experiences involving glaciers and bridges, Taylor's research eventually culminated in his first book, Something Hidden Behind the Ranges, which was published in 1983.
Despite his more traditional explorer's pedigree, Taylor's views on exploration have changed over the years. He explains, "An explorer is defined by The Explorer's Club and others as "one who goes where no one has gone before." There are few such places left in the world. While I've been privileged to make 14 first ascents of Himalayan peaks and 3 first river descents, what I discovered in doing this is that the real satisfaction is not being the first, but the intellectual figuring out of something new."
It was this realization that led Taylor to shift his focus from a man-against-nature to a more conservation-minded approach to exploration. He comments, "With the decline of geographical firsts, to get the same experience of exploration - going where no one has gone before - I decided to embark on a new approach to Himalayan nature conservation. Over the last 25 years my team and I have helped create nature preserves where the people who live inside them can be their custodians. It's been very exciting and gratifying to help create over a dozen national parks in Nepal, China, and India."
Thanks in a large part to Taylor's efforts, 42% of Tibet is now protected as national parkland - the Mount Everest National Nature Preserve which he lobbied hard to establish in 1985 still serves as a role model. Efforts at sustainable forestry within the Preserve are now forming the blueprint for a much larger project to reforest the headwaters of the Yangtze.
Future Generations, the NGO which Taylor founded in 1992, and of which he is president, now runs sustainability projects in Tibet, India, Afghanistan and Peru. Taylor has also recently published a book on creating sustainable communities called " Just and Lasting Change" . He explains, "I've been to Tibet 39 times in my life so far. Tibet is the perfect place for exploration, both of yourself and the environment. Devoting part of my life to preserving this environment has proved far more satisfying than conquering it."
Dr. Bill Bleisch
American Bill Bleisch became hooked on exploration as a kid growing up in small town Illinois. He explains, "Between my grade school and my home there was a huge jungle, a primeval forest into which few children dared to go. I spent nearly every afternoon in there. When I went back years later I actually discovered it was no more than a back-yard wood lot, but the damage had already been done. I was determined to be another Charles Darwin."
Bleisch first moved to China in 1989, and has worked on research and conservation in the country for twenty years. He heads the China program for Flora and Fauna International, a UK-based conservation group with over 100 years of history, and also works extensively for the China Exploration & Research Society (CERS), where he is currently the Science Director.
"I suppose people would consider me to be an explorer", he says, "because I have gone to places where I had to dress in odd-looking field clothes, carry various scientific instruments, face a bit of danger, and spend a large proportion of my time lost. Some of these places had probably never been visited by a Caucasian before, but that has always struck me as a silly criterion for exploration."
He continues, "Exploration to me simply means following your curiosity wherever it takes you. I think every child begins as an explorer. Some of us have it quickly shaken out of us by life's hard knocks. Some of us never grow out of it, whether they're in the wilds of Tibet, looking through a microscope, walking the streets of Beijing, or researching in a library."
Bleisch says his best moments as an explorer in China have been witnessing sights rarely seen by others. "My visits to the remote calving grounds of the Tibetan antelope were very special, with thousands of doe antelope giving birth within the space of a few days," he explains. "I was also lucky enough to join a Chinese team in Fanjing Mountain Nature Reserve, where we did the first long-term field study of the endangered Guizhou golden monkey. My most recent highlight was in the karst hills on the Sino-Vietnamese border, where I was invited to participate in the first trans-boundary survey of the critically endangered Cao Vit gibbon, one of the world's rarest apes."
Despite his numerous expeditions it's clear that the urge to explore is still strong in Bleisch, and he has some advice for those of a younger generation thinking of indulging a similar passion. "The key thing is you need to be fascinated with new places and have a high degree of curiosity," he says. "Get out there while you're young. Unfortunately I don't think I'm an explorer any more. I've been forced to settle down, and am struggling to live with that. In fact, I don't know how long I will be able to put up with it. I don't look good in a suit, and I fidget far too much for office work."
Michael Aldrich
Although his interest in China now spans more than 30 years, American Michael Aldrich certainly falls into the category of "new age" explorers. A practicing lawyer in Beijing, he is also a renowned expert on East Asian humanities, and has devoted much of his time over the last decade to uncovering and researching the classical architecture of Beijing and Hong Kong.
Talking of his passion, Aldrich comments, "I don't subscribe to the 19th century notion of exploration as filling in the "white spaces" on the map or goggled mountain climbers swinging precariously off cliff faces. For me, exploration is a more immediate and personal activity. It's a search to understand the world of people surrounding me and appreciating the ongoing relevance of the past."
For Beijing expats juggling full-time jobs and families, Aldrich is the perfect example of how it's possible to get into exploration without handing in your notice and buying a camper van. He explains, "You don't have to trek through the wilds of Central Asia to be an explorer. As Beijingers, we live in a city with a tremendous wealth of history, culture, custom and folklore. A stroll down a hutong, with a perceptive eye and the right background materials, can open up mesmerizing connections with Beijing's past. It's almost as if there's a Harry Potter world waiting to be discovered once we Muggles open our eyes and see!"
China Exploration & Research Society (CERS)
The Hong Kong-based CERS is the brainchild of well-known Chinese explorer How Man Wong, who has spent over 30 years documenting the culture and geography of China's remotest frontiers. The charitable society, which was founded in 1986, runs a wide range of projects dedicated to conserving wildlife, archeological sites, and the culture of China's ethnic minorities, and has recently constructed a research center in Yunnan's Shangri-la region.
Among its high-profile projects the CERS has been working for years to protect China's rare black-necked crane, and has just started a campaign to help the snub-nosed monkey in Tibet. It has also been involved with rescuing fragile Buddhist murals and preserving the culture and architecture of the matrilineal Mosuo people in Yunnan. The society's most famous moment in exploration was when CERS project members discovered a new source of the Yangtze River in 1985.
How Man Wong began exploring China in 1974. During the 1980s, with the support of National Geographic magazine, he made six major expeditions within China. He has won countless awards, most recently being described in Time magazine as "China's most accomplished explorer" and honored as one of their 25 "Asian Heroes". He has published a number of books including: Exploring the Yangtze, China's Longest River (1989), Ethnic Peoples of China (1994) and From Manchuria to Tibet (1998).
For more information about supporting and working with the CERS, visit the society's website at www.cers.org.hk.
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