Travel Notes | Xishuangbanna and the Tropical Rainforest

The place names, road names and even the names of some buildings in Xishuangbanna are all translated from Dai transliterations. If you understand the history of Banna, you won't be confused by these strange names.

The history of Xishuangbanna generally begins with the rise of Menglu in the 7th century AD. "勐" is a Chinese character translated from Dai transliteration, which means "place, city-state, country". "Menglu" means "the place where the Dai people live", and the Dai people are the ancestors of today's Dai people. At that time, Menglu was divided into 12 states, and "Xishuang" means "twelve" in Dai language. In 1180 AD, the leader of the Dai nationality unified Xishuang State and established the Mengli Kingdom, with its capital in Jinglan (now Jinghong). He became the first Zhaopianling (owner of a vast land) in the history of Xishuangbanna, and was also commonly known as the Dai King. In Dai language, the word "jing" in Jinghong means city, and the word "man" in Manting means village. These words are very common.

In the Qing Dynasty, the central government established the Xuanwei Envoy Department in Mengli, which was still hereditary. In 1581, the then Xuanwei envoy merged 12 Banna (Banna means "thousand", and Banna means "a thousand fields"), and Xishuangbanna got its name from this. In 1953, the country established Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and decided to keep the name. In the late 1960s, more than 50,000 educated youths came to the farms in Xishuangbanna Reclamation Area from all over the country and became rubber workers in the Production and Construction Corps. Among them were Wang Xiaobo, Chen Kaige and Acheng, the author of "The King of Chess". Among the educated youths, the largest number were from Shanghai.

During the reform and opening up in the 1980s, Xishuangbanna took the lead in tourism development, and tourism has always been a pillar industry. But what really changed the lives of ordinary people was rubber. In 1994, international raw rubber prices soared, nearly tenfold in 10 years. Driven by government promotion and profit, almost all land within reach was turned into rubber forests. The price of getting rid of poverty and becoming rich is a sharp reduction of 400,000 hectares of tropical rainforest area, soil erosion, ecological imbalance and successive droughts. The contradiction between development and environmental destruction is exactly the same as the water and air pollution in the Mainland.

What I want to say is about the rainforest and elephants. When I drove to the area around Jinghong, I passed by the monotonous rubber forests all over the mountains and plains. I was shocked and at the same time felt a deep sadness in my heart.

In the book "Rainforest Elf", the home of two little girls, Linda and Wanda (their names were given by their father, a botanist, after two varieties of orchids he loved), "Mekong Villa", is It is built on a hillside beside the Lancang River.

The hillside was originally covered with rubber forests. Even though it was right on the Lancang River, the land was still extremely dry because the rubber trees drained all the water from the land. They cut down the rubber trees and planted new ones. As the tree grows, many small animals come to it. They live in a forest house and grow up with trees, flowers, and small animals.

Later they moved to a bigger mountain so they could have baby elephants and white-footed buffalo to play with, swing on the vines and sing to the rainforest. They planted many kinds of seeds and had all kinds of trees. "But some people only like rubber trees and set fire to our mountain in order to plant only rubber trees. Mom and Dad were so sad that they cried..."

The rainforest is home to many animals, including elephants. Elephants are the largest land animals and are very smart and spiritual. Because the rainforest is gone, their home is gone, and they are homeless like people.

"The place where we were born is next to a river called Lancang River. "Cang" means elephant, and Lancang River is where millions of elephants breed. A long time ago, there were many, many elephants, all in groups. But now they are all gone, and the rainforest is gone. There are only people, only rubber forests.

We went to Wild Elephant Valley to see elephants. There are some wild elephants, and most of the time they are invisible to humans. There are also some elephants that are bought for elephant shows. Those who train elephants use long and pointed iron hooks to hook the elephant's ears. They can hook the elephant wherever they want it to move and stab the elephant. We took bananas and wanted to give them to the elephant, but when we saw the elephant asking for bananas, the elephant tamer stabbed the elephant because someone was giving him a dollar. We told them, "Please, uncle, give it to him!" But they ignored it because they only wanted money and would go wherever there was money. The elephant knows what it wants. We all cried...we loved the elephants so much. "

"All the land is occupied by rubber trees and banana trees. Every time we have to go far away to see what the original rain forest looks like. There are mountains next to the city, all green, but not at all. It's beautiful because they are all rubber trees. They are planted in rows and circles. From the plane, they look like big fingerprints. They are all the same color. The original forest is not like this, they are of various colors. There are so many kinds of green that I can’t even count them. Bananas are planted on the flat land near the city. My mother said that there used to be ancient rice fields, and now many large bananas are planted next to the road. They use a lot of pesticides and it’s very smelly, and they wrap the bananas in blue plastic bags, and the used plastic bags are thrown around, which is very ugly. These big bananas are specially grown for supermarkets and sold to people in big cities. food.

Rubber is grown in the mountains, bananas are grown in the mountains, bananas are grown in the mountains, bananas are grown in the mountains, rubber, bananas, bananas and rubber. It seems like a tongue twister...

There are obviously so many kinds of trees that can be planted, why only these two? I really can’t figure it out! Our home is still the prettiest. "

Beautiful Xishuangbanna should not be like this. If humans continue like this, not only destroying the elephant’s home, they will destroy their own home sooner or later. But if you think about it carefully, after all, the local people are the biggest victims, and they don't want their homes to become so miserable.

Because Yunnan is located on the edge of China, and many counties in the province are separated by mountains and rivers, its development rate lags far behind that of inland coastal areas. The survival of local people is a primary concern. Tourism cannot solve the problem. The natural idea is to rely on the mountains and make use of the local natural environment. How to find a development method that does not damage the environment and improve all aspects of social conditions must be driven and supported by the mainland.

Just like the mainland's educational resources were transferred to Kunming during the Anti-Japanese War, the newly built Southwest Associated University gathered masters and famous people. In addition to many celebrities at the time, there were dozens of academicians at home and abroad who later became academicians. Although the Southwest Associated University lasted only eight years, its long-term impact on local culture, education and other development is immeasurable.

If there is development driven by the mainland, local people can have a good life, natural resources can be protected, and both locals and mainlanders can enjoy a beautiful environment. I hope to see the day when Xishuangbanna truly changes.