Dr. Mark Nan Tu

I lived in the America where leisure travel means driving. As the Chevy

A bulletin in Macau advertising Sauna service

KeYuan South China architecture

Yue Opera in KeYuan tea house

The Yellow Flag mountain park is so beautiful that it is used as place for wedding photography

Dongguan, a prosperous city in China is located 40 km east of GuangZhou and 70km west of ShenZhen in the Pearl Delta. It is where the Chinese economic miracle takes place. People of all walk of like swarm into the city pursuing their fortunes and in hope for a better life.

Tourist Attractions:
KeYuan:
Keyuan Garden, one of the four most famous gardens in Guangdong Province was built in 1850 in Daoguang reign of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). With the characteristics of a small coverage and exquisite layout, KeYuan has artistically combined residence, living room, pavilion, courtyard with flower garden and study, together in a land area of 2,204 square meters. The style imitates the ancient gardens of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, but yet KeYuan has rich South China architectural characteristics. Interlocked-structure and winding pathway, this secluded spot is known as gem of Lingnan (southern China) landscape gardens.
Yellow Flag Mountain:
Yellow Flag Mountain is situated in the center of the city. It attracts the visitors with its beautiful natural environment and historical Taoist temples. The main entrance is free and the fee for the temple is 5 RMB. The mountain is a perfect spot for leisure hiking. On top of the mountain, one can enjoy a panoramic view of the DongGuang city in the clear days.
The Human Naval Battler Museum and the WeiYuan Battery
The Humen Naval Battle Museum is located at the east end of the Human Bridge. The main hall is made up of four exhibit halls. Hall No.1 and No.2 are in the themes of ‘the Naval Battles in the Opium War’. With a series of paintings and small-sized but vivid models, the display visualizes the course of the sea war during the Opium War.
Not far from the Humen Naval Battle Museum is the site of WeiYuan battery. It is the best preserved historical battlefield in China. Through the display of the cannons and the remains of the stone structure, one can easily imagine the battle that took place 150 years ago.
The two attractions are situated in a beautiful seafront setting with the Human Bridge as the backdrop. The bridge is a truly engineering marvel that spans over the Pearl River at the exact spot where the Opium war defense line lied. The bridge clear demonstrated the ambition of the Chinese people and economic power of the country and serves as the best memorial to those who fought and died in the battery below.

Food:
The prosperity in DongGuang can be seen from its various restaurants in the city. From the food stand in the walking street to the dinning halls in 5 star hotels, DongGuang people like to eat. A visitor can find any type of food in China.

Night life and entertainment:
One can relax in the bar district which is in the east side of the city. This part of the city is populated with the grand villas, natural parks and golf courses. The bars usually get busy from 10pm and the wine and dine stretch well into the night. The walking street

The path way which leads to the starting point of the hiking trail

The leaves are turning red

Close ups of the red leaves

I took a business trip back to Beijing during the weekend. I over heard from the radio that the maple leaves in the Fragrance Hill are turning red. The annual Red Leaf festival is on. I had some time on Saturday and decided to visit the Fragrance Hill and take pictures.

We arrived around 3 pm in the afternoon. I knew a lesser known path. To avoid the usual jam in the touristy spots, we took this path. This path started at the Fragrance Hill south road and leads to the JinShan cemetery at the middle of the mountain. There is a packing lot at the JinShan cemetery. From there, we hiked to the top of the hill. The trail is build with stone steps and is a rather easy climb. We saw leaves of the vicinity trees turn red. We took pictures of the trees and leaves along the trail.

When we reached the top of the mountain, we could see the panoramic view of the Beijing. The city is covered with a dust (gaze) cap. The visibility is rather low. We walked along the mountain range and we can see more red leaves. We met some tourists but not nearly as much as those in the Fragrance Hill Park. We could see the top of the Fragrance Hill

The entrance. The two Chinese characters means large.

Ralph is a German and a former CEO for mobile.de which was later acquired by eBay. He is also an investor and advisor to our company.
He came to visit our GuangZhou office. Since this is his first visit to China, we are planning to impress him. So we took him to the YuMing village (fisherman

The West Street at night

A flute seller in the West Street

There is an old Chinese saying: The scenery in Guilin is the best in the world. But the scenery in YangShuo is even better than Guilin.

Yangshuo is 4 hours by boat and 1 hour by bus from Guilin. The famous Li river connects the two cities. The surrounding countryside is incredibly beautiful and peaceful. The landscape along the Li river is sometimes referred as the 100 li (50 km) of pictorial painting. It is dotted with Karst peaks and the Li river winds its way around them.

Yangshuo is located in GuangXi province and very close to Vietnam; It is a perfect place for weekend getaway for Chinese and the last stop in China before heading for Southeast Asia for international travelers. Many travelers find Yangshuo a worthy escape from the evils of the modern world.

Yangshuo is a laid back small town. Yet, the local tourism is surprisingly well developed with excellent choice for hotels, restaurant, and cafes. Most of the commercial activities are concentrated in a short street called the West Street.

We went for a visit to Guilin and Yangshuo during the national holiday. We flew off from GuangZhou to Guilin and spend the first night in Guilin. We then took the Li river tour, a 4 hour boat ride upstream from Guilin to YangShuo. The tour traveled through some of the most pictorial water ways along the Li river. It is definite a highlight from the whole Yangshuo experience.

We booked the Macro Polo hotel which is in the center of the West Street. The National Day holiday (golden travel week) brought many tourists. The price for our room was significantly inflated. We paid some serious money for the room which offers the best view in the West street. The West street is bustling with backpackers, travel groups and globetrotters. The noise of the disco downstairs lasted well into the late night.

We moved to the Morning Breeze hostel the second day. It is a nice little guest house on the edge of the city. It offers quite retreat, friendly staff and free bike rent. We stayed in the hostel for the next three days. We had to pay over 200RMB/night for a room that normally should cost no more than 80RMB. We spend one day in the ShiWaiTaoYuan or Shangri-La, a small village 20 km out sided the city. We also watched the night show of impression. ShanJie Liu, directed by the renowned Chinese director ZhangYiMou.

The best way to experience YangShuo is on a bike. We took bikes from our hostel and rode to the country side. It was truly an unforgettable experience. We rode on a less known track and went through some remote villages. The villagers and their cows, the local ethnic buildings are mixed with the lush vegetations in the mountains, the endless rice fields, and the tranquil rivers. The distant local folk song just added more flavor and left us an ever lasting impression.

Yangshuo is filled with restaurants which offer variety of food. We had a very good western style dinner in the Red Star caf

I recently signed a rental contract. Besides signing with my signature, I was asked to inprint my finger print.

Finger print as a signature has a long history in China. In ancient times, many people are illiterate and thus unable to the sign their names. The finger print becomes the replacement for signature. In Chinese, there is a word called QianZi HuaYa. It means sign with your finger print (rather than your signature).

The finger print as signature was almost distinct after 1949. Upon recently, we see a revival of using finger print to sign documents such as the real estate purchases and the leasing agreements. The finger print signature offers better identification and is easy to use (although a bit messy). Most importantly, it was a common practice in China for thousands of years.

Finger print as signature was rather rare in western world. In 1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico, used his own thumb print on a document to prevent forgery. This is the first known use of fingerprints in the United States. However, usingfigure print as a replacement of signature has never been popular in the western countries.

The finger print does offer more security than the signature. The signatures are easily forged .However, the finger print is unique for each person. Through trained eyes, the finger print offers more security than the signature.

The finger print as an identification has been used in many security products. I use the technology daily as my Lenove (IBM) notebook computer and our office all use finger print lock system.

National Day holiday in China is 7 days. Hundreds of millions of Chinese simultaneously take on the road which creates the biggest jam for the transportation network, bus stations, train stations, airports, bike routes and even walkways. The last day of the 7 day holiday is the most traveled. I happened to be one of the people that contributed to the congestion in that day.

I was traveling from ShenZhen to GuangZhou. I took the bus and arrived at the GuangZhou bus station at around 4 pm. There were so much people and I had to wait 20 minutes patiently in line for the taxi.

As soon as I got in front of the taxi, a man and a woman came up from the other direction and wanted to get into my taxi. They did not wait in line. I was very angry. So I shouted to the man: Hey, get in line. This is my taxi. The man shout back in Chinese: Fxxk u, I have never waited in line in my life. The woman wanted to open the door. I was furious and hold the door. The man was continuously yelling and threatening to hit me with his fist.

I have heard a lot about the problems in the GuangZhou bus station. Many of my friends warmed me of not getting into any trouble in that place. Judging from his size and strength, I can easily take on him. I was not going to back down.

What happened next shocked me.

A security guard jumped over the fence with a swift move punched the guy right in the face with two other security guards followed. The man started to yell back but he was not going to fight rather just created a lot of noise. Bulking dog never bites. While all the attention was focused on the security guards and the guy, the woman was trying to stop the fight by pushing the security guards back.

The yelling back and forth lasted about 30 seconds and the man took off with the woman. I saw them went to different directions. The woman disappeared quickly and there were a few other women waiting for her at the corner of the street. The man had another man waiting for him also at the street corner. They were continuously yelling and shouting while walked away

When we all thought that the whole episode was over, one of the security guard searched in his pants and shouted: My cell phone is gone. Where is my cell phone?

All of the security guards started to chase the two men. I checked the pockets in my pants: my wallet and the cell phone are still there. Thank god!

LongJi (or Dragon Backbone in Chinese) is famous for its large scale terrace field. The field dated back 600 years. The legend goes like this. An evil emperor wanted to extinct the Yao minority. The emperor ordered the Yao people to move into the reservation which is located deep in the mountains. He thought that they could not survive. However, Yao people build the rice field using the limited space offered by the mountainous terrace. Year after year, generation after generation, the Yao people expanded the field and it becomes the terrace farm as we see today. They lived happily surrounded by the beautiful mountains and the green terrace field.

LongJi terrace is located in the LongShen County, some 87km out of Guilin in GuangXi province. My tour bus took over two hours to negotiate the twist and turns and finally arrived as the foot of the LongJi mountain. From there, we changed to a smaller bus which took us to the middle of the mountain. We hiked the last mile by foot.

Besides the spectacular fields and impressive local village buildings, I had a rare opportunity to photograph the local Yao women combing their hair. This is not ordinary hair. The village down the mountain was certified by the Guinness World Records as the longest hair village in the world.

When I was climbing the stairs, I was followed by the five local Yao women. I later realized that they had no reason to climb to the top. Their sole objective is to offer me the opportunity to photograph them. They wanted 50 Yuan and allow me to photograph the entire process of combing their hair. I negotiated down to 30 Yuan and told them that I can not photograph all 5 of them, but can offer 30 Yuan to photograph 3 out of 5. However, they told me that they would do it for 30 Yuan.

5 of them put the basket down which they carried at the back. They let their impressive long and thick hair down. Then I noticed that they actually had two bunches of hair. The local Yao people only cut their hair once in their life time when they reach puberty at age of 16-18. They saved their cut hair and put them up together with the new hair.

I continuously pushed my shutter and recorded the whole process. I noticed that one of the women had a dark blue cloth over her hair while the others do not. She is unmarried. I told myself. One of the women told me that she was already 50. I looked at her long and thick hair and joked with her that she looked like only in her 30s. I must admit that their healthy hair make all of them look at least 10 year younger than their age.

After the show, I asked for permission to take a picture of me with the group. I gave them 100 Yuan and asked for 50 Yuan back. I wanted them to have an easy calculation. I thanked them and wished them luck. I scontinued my hike towards the top of the mountain. All but one of the women went down the mountain whom I later met in the market selling local made silver decorations.

I visited Guilin with my parents when I was very young. But I was too young to remember much. The only impression left was the Li river and elephant mountain. I spend the 2007 national holiday in Guilin and Yangshuo. I