travel news review

18 May '99
Tornadoes have swept through south-western Guangdong causing widespread destruction. The tornadoes killed 13 people and injured more than 50. The tornadoes struck the towns of Qinge, Wenshan and Benlixu during the weekend, and heavy rains since have caused further damage to houses and crops. Qinge village was nearly demolished by the tornado. Travellers should keep an eye on the weather for the next week or so, and think about postponing travel to these areas while the clean-up continues.

18 May '99
The International Horticultural expo has now opened in Kunming, China's 'City of Flowers'. The exposition runs for six months, and is held in a 218 hectare flower-filled site. Over 20,000 people attended the grand opening, and one million are expected to visit the expo overall. The event has already placed pressure on the city's accommodation facilities. Now it seems it is beginning to impact upon local menus. The city has banned the advertising of dog meat in restaurant in case Western visitors are offended by the practice. Dog meat restaurants around the expo site are required to take down potentially off-putting placards. Kunming has also undertaken clean up projects to reduce pollution around the city.

.

18 May '99
A Panda theme park will be built in the south-western Chinese province of Sichuan, if all goes to plan. The planned theme park is aimed at attracting tourists, and will cost more than US$70 million. It would allow pandas to live in their natural habitat, and would be built around the existing Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base, which is the world's biggest panda breeding facility. Giant pandas are an endangered species - only 1000 are left in the wild. This is mainly due to the destruction of their natural habitat and the danger of poaching.

28 April '99
Visitors to Kunming in May will have to sleep in massage parlours if the city's hotels and guesthouses are all booked out. Kunming is hosting the 1999 International Horticultural Exposition, and an unexpectedly huge increase in visitor numbers has been predicted. The event will involve 68 different countries and 26 international organisations. While hotels, resorts and guesthouses in Kunming can accommodate 70,000 guests a day, officials have asked owners of massage parlours to report the number of beds they have available, in case extra sleeping arrangements become necessary. School classrooms may also be leased out to provide accommodation for Expo visitors. If you aren't a big fan of flowers this may not be the best time to visit Kunming. If, on the other hand, you're interested to see the inside of a Chinese brothel, now's your chance.

19 April '99
An ancient tooth is expected to bring tens of thousands of tourists to Hong Kong next month. The sacred tooth is said to be that of Buddha, and is a Chinese national treasure. The arrival of the tooth in Hong Kong will coincide with Buddha's 2,543rd birthday on May 22 - a national holiday in Hong Kong. In Beijing it was not for public viewing, however it will be on display in the Hong Kong Coliseum from May 22 to 28. It is believed the tooth will bring good luck and stability to Hong Kong. According to legend, three of the Buddha's teeth were found; the other two being in Sri Lanka and Taiwan..

6 April '99
What has the central Chinese government got to do with the price of fish? Quite a lot. A summer fishing ban imposed by government will cause fish prices in Hong Kong to increase by 20-30 percent. The ban will force importers to fly in fish from other areas. The World Wide Fund for Nature has backed the ban, which aims to restore fish supplies to the over-fished areas of the South China Sea. Hong Kong is a huge market for fish: it consumes three times as much fish per capita as the average country.

22 March '99
The governer of China's troubled Xinjiang region has admitted that violent 'separatist' incidents have occurred in the province over the last decade. But he maintained that there was a proportionately small number of violent incidents, given that 8 million Muslim Uighur people live in the region. Officially, 40 % of the population is estimated to be of the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur ethnic group (the rest now being predominantly Han Chinese). Uighur separatist movements, calling for independence for Xinjiang, have met strong resistance from the Chinese Government. Anti-Chinese separatist riots in early 1997 prompted a swift crackdown from Chinese forces, leaving an estimated nine people dead and nearly 200 injured.

22 March '99
Too many tourists have been breathing on China's 2000 year old Terracotta Warriors. Nine kinds of mould have been identified in the pit in Xi'an containing the 7000 terracotta soldiers, buried there to guard Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor. Environmental experts, now monitoring decay and pollution in several of China's biggest tourist sites, attributed the mould to rapidly increasing tourist numbers over the last decade, which have lead to rising indoor temperatures and humidity.

22 February '99
China's remote Qinghai province has a new tourist attraction, the site where China detonated its first nuclear bomb. Qinghai lies on the north eastern border with Tibet, and since 1949 has served as a sort of Chinese Siberia where common criminals and political prisoners have been incarcerated, and bombs have been tested. A small museum, documenting China's nuclear testing programme will be opened at the site. It is hoped the site will attract travellers passing through the province on their way to Tibet.

16 February '99
It has been estimated that a proposed tunnel linking China and Taiwan would cost six times more than the massive Three Gorges dam currently under construction on the Yangzi River. Authorities are looking at a tunnel costing US$173 billion to construct the shortest possible route between the two countries. The idea of a tunnel was first suggested in November last year and there are currently four possible routes the tunnel could take; the shortest being 144km (89mi) from Pingtan Island in China to Taiwan's capital, Taipei. A tunnel between the two countries would allow China to keep a closer eye on Taiwan, which is, according to China, one of its provinces.

8 February '99
If you have a thing about flower festivals, Hangzhou in eastern China is hosting the 1999 World Flower Expo. The Expo, which sounds bigger than Ben Hur, opens on 10 March and will be held in two parks near the well known West Lake in the centre of the city. More than 1.5 million flowers will be on display in the parks for more than two months, covering an area of more than 40 hectares (99 acres) with blooms from around the world.

13 January '99
The birthplace of Confucius is to be commemorated with a 'Confucian Plaza' in the town of Qufu. The plaza will feature sculptures, gardens and a memorial hall. While Qufu is already a major tourist destination in China, tourism authorities believe the new plaza will attract more than 1.5 million visitors each year. While much of the family mansion and temples of Confucius were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, almost 200 ancient building and temples remain. Qufu is in eastern Shandong province.

14 December '98
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised that the large earthquakes which struck Ninglang and Yanyuan counties of Yunnan Province in south-west China caused widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. Travellers are advised to avoid visiting the affected areas while relief efforts are underway.

6 January '99
Any plans by Richard Branson to try again may have to be revised as flying his balloon, or any balloon, over China has been given the thumbs down by the Chinese government. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has banned round-the-world hot-air balloons passing over China until further notice. Richard Branson was permitted to land in China on his last attempt to circumnavigate the world as air strikes in Iraq prevented him from sticking to his original route. But the Chinese government has said that no more balloons will be allowed into China.

14 December '98
The Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Summer Palace is located north-west of Beijing's city centre. It was laid out in the 12th century and has slowly been restored over the past few years. The Temple of Heaven, also in Beijing, was used in the past by emperors to pray to their gods.

9 December '98
Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, has banned car drivers from sounding their horns. With more than 300,000 cars on the street, it all became too much for residents who complained - very loudly in order to be heard - about the constant horn blowing. Buses in the city have had their horns removed and taxi horns have also been disabled.

4 December '98
To enjoy the best in life, according to an ancient Chinese saying, one has to be 'born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou and die in Liuzhou'. Today the saying is more like, 'if an alien landed in China, in Beijing it would be sent to the museum, in Shanghai it would be used for medical research, in Guangzhou it would be cooked in plum sauce'. The southern Chinese city's reputation as one of the best places in China to stuff your face has recently come under criticism from law makers in Beijing who believe eating habits of the Cantonese, particularly their propensity for eating rare and endangered animals, is an embarrassment to the rest of forward looking China. While prosecutions against traders of wild and endangered animals are increasing, unfortunately black market trading continues in Guangdong.

20 November '98
A number of earthquakes last week in south-west China have caused major damage to homes and buildings. Most of the earthquake damage occurred in Yunan and Sichuan provinces and it has been estimated that more than 4500 people have been injured. The situation has been exacerbated by freezing temperatures and a shortage of food.

20 November '98
Jujube trees in the city of Xinsheng in Henan Province are being promoted as the province's next big tourist attraction. Tourists can now visit the Ancient Jujube Tree Reserve, where trees have been growing for more than 8000 years. Many of the trees in the reserve are at least 100 years old, and at least one tree, which still bears fruit, is reported to be 600 years old. Jujubes, also know as Chinese dates, can be eaten raw or cooked and juice from the fruit is used in making small sweets, the original jujube.

16 November '98
Two historic sites in the town of Dongxing that mark two periods of Chinese-Vietnamese relations have been restored and opened to tourists. Both the sites are on the Chinese side of the Chinese-Vietnamese border. One site is a border marker, originally erected in 1890 by the Chinese and French governments and the other site is the Ho Chi Minh Pavilion, re-named after the North Vietnamese leader visited Dongxing in 1960.

2 November '98
The White Pagoda Temple in Beijing has re-opened following more than a year of restoration work. The temple, northwest of the Forbidden City, dates back to 1271 when it was built under instruction from Kublai Khan. The temple was placed under heritage protection in 1961 as a site of cultural and religious significance.

28 October '98
The Shanghai Tourism festival will take place over the next month. The annual festival is a major tourist event in China and involves festivities such as parties, trade-fairs, exhibitions and performances.

27 October '98
Chinese archaeologists have recently discovered a 1400-year-old mythical Buddhist tomb in Shanxi province, possibly the first of 31. The tombs were thought to be fictional until a chest, containing the remains of what is believed to be a saintly monk, was found underneath a pagoda in Zhouzi county. Ancient manuscripts mention 31 pagodas built across the empire of Emperor Yang Jian of the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618), each housing a set of a saint's remains.

20 October '98
A Buddhist temple in south China has registered its name as a trademark to secure its financial interests. Demonstrating the diversity of Chinese business acumen, the Sanping Temple in Pinghe County, Fujian, has registered a trademark to merchandise its goods and services. The Sanping Temple is a popular tourist spot and the trademark can be used in tourism-generated business. A revival of Buddhism and other faiths is occurring throughout China in response to a growing tolerance of religion.

Movie theatres and karaoke lounges may well have outdone the Beijing Opera in filling seats. The Zheng Yi Ci Opera House, Beijing's oldest, has now closed. After two centuries as the capital's premier theatre, the final curtain call has been and gone following a court order in a lengthy property dispute. The government did not consider Zheng Yi Ci to be a protected historic site, and the city education bureau has acquired the theatre and plans to use it as a community centre for culture and the arts.

9 October '98
The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, has announced plans for a new semi-wild habitat for the giant panda. The new panda area, the seventh semi-wild panda habitat in China, will be completed by early next year. The new habitat has all a panda could ever ask for - water, trees, lots of bamboo to eat and places to sleep. The Chinese government administers 16 nature reserves which have been created especially for panda conservation. The chances of travellers viewing giant pandas in the wild are fairly remote, but as there are only about 1000 pandas left in China, maybe this non-interaction with humans is not such a bad thing. The research base, which is about 12km (7mi) north of the city is a good place to view pandas - about 10 to 12 live there.

5 October '98
A recent survey by the US publisher Readers Digest has revealed unsurprisingly that Indian and Chinese drivers in are the worst in Asia. In India there are around 155 road deaths daily - around 70,000 in the last year - which is an astonishing total in relation to the number of vehicles on the road. In China, more than 75,000 people died in road accidents last year. Both India and China blame truck and bus congestion on the roads and the equal congestion in vehicles for the high number of deaths.

28 September '98
Beijing authorities are planning to open a new museum under the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City, so called because it was off limits to commoners for 500 years, has the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. The new museum will house Chinese arts and crafts, including gold ornaments, paintings, calligraphy and jade ware. Currently the Forbidden City, or the Palace Museum as Beijing authorities call the place, is open daily from 8.30am until 5pm.

7 September '98
Puccini's Turandot, one of the world's most popular operas, is to be performed for the first time in Beijing this Saturday. More than 30,000 opera lovers are expected to attend the opera, said to be based on an early Chinese fairy tale and set in China's fabled Forbidden City. The opera will run until 13 September, and while most tickets have already been sold to overseas tour groups, there are still tickets available for foreigners - cheaper tickets are available for locals.

7 September '98
Authorities are convinced Beijing can only become one of the world's great cities if locals get off their bikes and into their cars. Despite chronic traffic jams and worsening air quality in the city, authorities are continuing to favor cars over bicycles. Bicycle lanes in the city are fast disappearing, entire neighborhoods are disappearing to make way for new roads and public transport services continue to be neglected.

31 August '98
Flooding continues in central and northeast China with no end in sight to the flooding. Over the past week parts of Tibet and Mongolia have also been affected by flooding. In the provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan more than 3,000 people have died in the floods and an estimated 5 million houses have been destroyed. The situation is particularly grim for those in the northeast who are trying to cope with both the floods and the early onset of winter and its accompanying frost and subzero temperatures.

12 August '98
Constant rain in central China continues, causing massive flooding in the provinces of Hubei, Henan and Jiangxi. The Yangtze River is not expected to subside for some weeks as more rain has been predicted for the north of China. More than 2000 people have already died in the floods and millions have been made homeless. Most of the blame for the floods has been attributed to increased deforestation and badly neglected dikes along the Yangtze.

28 July '98
New condom vending machines in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen have been so popular with consumers that there are plans to install the machines in other Chinese cities. Authorities in Shenzhen have installed 30 machines on the cityÆs streets and plan to have 800 machines installed by the end of the year. The popularity of the vending machines has been attributed both to the cost - the condoms are subsidised - and the stocking of the machines with imported condoms.

Continual rain over the past two weeks has devastated much of central China and authorities have warned the worst is yet to come. The central province of Hunan is the worst affected with the flooded Yangtze River still to hit its flood peak. More than 1200 people have died as a result of the flooding this summer - most have either been drowned or buried under collapsed buildings. Weather forecasters have predicted more rain in northern Hunan province over the next few days.

22 July '98
The world's largest statue of Buddha, located at the confluence of the Dadu and Min Rivers in Sichuan Province, is now in the care of a team of international experts attempting to preserve the statue from environmental and human damage. The Grand Buddha, which is 71m (234ft) high, may collapse altogether because of soil erosion. The carving of the statue was commenced during the Tang Dynasty in 713AD by a Buddhist monk and was finished about 90 years later.

8 July '98
World Environment Day in China was observed this year by the Chinese government banning plastic food containers on trains to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. On these trains, Chinese takeaway must be in paper, bamboo or straw boxes. Before the banning of plastic takeway containers on these rail lines, Chinese authorities estimated about 80,000 containers were being used and discarded each day. In a recent letter some travellers in China told us about the reported 'white dragons', long white lines that were showing up on US satellite photos. The white dragons turned out to be streams of plastic container litter tossed from the train windows.

22 June '98
Tourism in the province of Liaoning, in northeastern China is the proverbial good news/bad news. The good news is that not many other travellers go there, the bad news is that there isn’t much to see there besides some fairly ugly industrial landscapes. One such city, Benxi, however cleaned up its act and has now commenced a vigorous tourism campaign. Benxi, once so polluted by smog from the city’s factories and manufacturing plants that it couldn’t be seen in satellite photos, has spent the last seven years, and US$58 million, improving the air quality in the city in a bid to attract tourists to the region.

According to a survey of Chinese travellers, China Eastern, Xiamen and Shenzen airlines are China’s most popular domestic airlines. And the same survey revealed the international airports in Shanghai, Xiamen and Guilan are China’s best airports.

20 May '98
Direct flights to the Zhangjiajie Scenic Area in Hunan Province from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan will be available in early 1999. Customs facilities will be available to international travellers arriving at Zhangjiajie City. The scenic area is the first such declared nature area in China and is home to three of the Hunan ProvinceÆs minority peoples - the Tujia, Miao and Bai - many of whom continue to speak their own languages and maintain their traditional culture.

29 April '98
Avon wonÆt be calling in China anymore following a ban on all direct marketing in the country. The Chinese government ordered the ban following suspicion that direct marketing companies operating in China are fronts for secret societies and covert business dealings. The government also believed the idea of independent distributor networks and their motivational meetings were un-Chinese and disruptive to the normal economic order in China. Direct marketing companies, including Avon and Amway, enjoyed huge success in China before their recent ban.

15 April '98
The Chinese are starting to travel the world. They are becoming a major tourist force in South-East Asia, which has seen a downturn in visitors from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The Chinese government has recently relaxed restrictions on overseas travel, granting millions of its citizens tourist visas and the ability to travel freely. Thailand is the number one destination for Chinese, with Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines next. Australia has also been approved for travel.

China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) has launched a new strategy to increase the number of tourists to the country. The strategy will focus on special all-inclusive fare and accommodation packages in ChinaÆs 10 most popular cities; Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Xian, Hangzhou, Tianjin and Dalian.

8 April '98
Poor indoor air quality in the northern port city of Tianjin has suffocated at least 16 people. The deaths were caused by a combination of smoke from domestic coal-burning stoves, sudden temperature shifts and a low barometric reading. This combination of factors caused carbon monoxide from the stoves to escape into homes, and not up the chimney as it is supposed to. Such problems have been reported in Tianjin in the past but authorities have stated that the recent deaths are unusual. Cold weather notwithstanding, weÆd be sleeping with the window open.

25 February '98
Tourism revenue in China increased by 18.4% last year, the biggest percentage increase in the world. According to the World Tourism Organisation, receipts from foreign visitors were more than $12 billion. Hong Kong, which returned to China mid-year, suffered a decrease in tourist revenues of 11% in 1997.

Developing markets and an effort to further boost tourism have prompted China to open more foreign air routes. The increase from 106 to 124 international routes will enable China to be more accessible to the rest of the world, with flights being extended to 62 cities in 32 countries. There are already 18 newly opened air routes including links to Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Korea and Macau. To coincide with the opening of more foreign air routes, China now has 10 airlines. Civil Aviation aims to complement this new service with competitive prices, improved in-flight service and improved air routes to shorten flight times.

The safety of China Airlines has been questioned recently, following the devastating plane crash at Taipei airport which killed 196 passengers and seven others. Particularly in question is the airbus A300-600s which was involved in the Taipei disaster and the 1994 Nagoya catastrophe. The remaining fleet of airbus A300-600s are now grounded for safety checks until their airworthiness is guaranteed.

18 February '98
A recent explosion in a bus in Wuhan has been said to be a bomb planted by ‘lawless elements’, according to the Guangzhou Daily. The explosion killed 16 people and injured 30, but officials have said little about the incident. Chinese sources say hotels, airports and stations in Beijing and Xinjiang have been told to remain alert against potential attacks from Muslim separatists. The Ministry of Public Security has called for heightened vigilance in the capital and in Xinjiang, the home of the Uighur minority, whose militants seek independence. These measures of caution are to be maintained during the lead up to the annual session of parliament in March.

28 January'98
It has rained almost every day in Shanghai since mid-November last year, causing major disruption to city life and agricultural production. Temperatures in the city are also between 2 and 3°C higher this winter, but levels of sunshine in the city have been well below normal. Many crops look like failing this year, with many fields ruined by too much water and other crops growing out of season. The unusual wet spell has been caused in part by the absence of strong south-moving cold fronts and the El Niño.