China Visited

China VisitedAuthor(s): Eric H. BrownSource: Area, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1978), pp. 1-3Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001265 .

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area Institute of British Geographers 1978

Volume 10 Number 1

China visited On Monday 1 August 1977 a group of five British geomorphologists had their first sight of landforms in China from a Swissair DC8 flying at approximately 8000 m as it changed course due north for Peking over Wuhan. Clearly visible below were two huge meander loops of the Yangzte, their necks severed by

man-made cutoffs and in the distance the river threaded its tortuous course between and through extensive lakes. The view remained unrecorded on film as the use of a camera in China's air space is forbidden, in marked contrast to the complete freedom we later had to take photographs on the ground.

Marjorie Sweeting, Ken Gregory, Eddie Derbyshire, David Stoddart and myself were able to go to China thanks largely to Marjorie's initiative. For many years she had wished to add the karst of south-west China to her collection of limestone experiences and the Royal Society through the British National

Committee for Geography were persuaded to sponsor the visit so that contacts with geography and geographers in China, which since the revolution in 1949 had been tenuous, could be renewed officially. The Great Britain-China Centre in London were most encouraging and proved invaluable in establishing and developing the necessary contacts with our hosts, the Academica Sinica, in Peking.

We spent a week in Peking, approximately half of it in academic sessions from 8 till 12 and 2 till 6 (the standard academic working day in China) listening to and giving papers on various aspects of geomorphology. All were translated

most admirably by Mrs Chang a technical interpreter attached to our party. First day impressions of Peking include a bicycle rush hour starting at

circa 5 a.m., the sound of many motor horns but the visible presence of few cars, rows of temporary huts along tree-lined avenues intended to house resi dents from nearby blocks of flats at times of earthquakes, enormous piles of spring onions, summer heat, monsoon rain and flooded streets.

We visited the University of Peking and talked with members of the Revo lutionary Committee and teaching staff of the Geography and Geology depart

ment. The department has a total of 205 staff, 130 of whom are teachers and 482 students divided between seven specialities, Geomechanics, Geochemistry, Palaeontology and stratigraphy, Seismology, Geomorphology, Physical geography and Economic geography. There are 17 teachers and 49 students in geomorphology on a 31 year long course. Students first follow courses in English,

Mathematics, Chemistry and Politics, then in Geology, Geomorphology, Quaternary geology, Sedimentary environments, Airphoto interpretation, Remote sensing, Hydrogeology, Engineering geology, Thematic and Theoretical geomorphology. One-third of their time is spent in the field and student-staff contact hours are 6 hours per day, 6 days per week. No degrees are awarded and since the Cultural Revolution there have been no postgraduate students but they are again being registered this year. Students enter the university on the recommendation of the community after spending 2 years in the country, a

1



2 China visited

factory or in the army raising their social performance but direct entry from middle school is now beginning again. Staff from time to time also spend 6 months to 1 year engaged in physical labour in accordance with the general belief that education and productive labour must be combined.

Research is carried out primarily in the Institutes of the Academy of Sciences. The Geographical Institute was founded in 1953 and its work is carried out in seven departments, Integrated Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Meteor ology, Hydrology, Cartography, Environmental Protection and Economic Geography (mainly agricultural). A Remote Sensing group has recently been established. There are six other Institutes of Geography elsewhere in China including that at Lanchow in north-west China which studies Glaciology,

Cryopedology and Deserts. At the Institute of Geology, where there are nine divisions, we were intro

duced to karst studies being carried out in the Engineering geology division and the work in the laboratory of spore and pollen studies in the Neotectonics division where the relationships between uplift history, climate and vegetation in the Himalayas were being investigated.

As an official delegation we were transported in a fleet of very comfortable chauffeur-driven grey cars, accompanied by numbers of interpreters all anxious to practice their English. We mastered the art of chopsticks very quickly, took to Chinese beer like Peking ducks to the oven, failed to appreciate Chinese

wine (the grape variety) did our best to respond to endless toasts in Moutai, the Chinese spirit, and consumed endless delightfully served cups of jasmine tea.

A superb dinner given in our honour by the Vice-President of the Academy in the Peking restaurant famed for its duck was the highlight of our gastronomic experiences but the taste of pepper beef, turtle, cocks combs, Yellow River fish,

monstrous prawns and sea food soup, cooked and served in water melons, remain vividly in the mind if no longer, alas, on the palate.

We were able to visit Choukoutien, the site of Peking Man as we had requested and were taken to the Great Wall, the Ming tombs and the Imperial and Summer Palaces. All are quite splendid parts of China's national heritage but one shudders to think of the problems of conservation which will arise if the present trickle of tourists, Chinese and international, should, as it well might, become a flood.

From Peking we flew to Xian in Shensi province to see the loess plateau and study problems of soil erosion at the Wugun Institute of Soil and Water Conser vation. Unfortunately we did not succeed in obtaining samples of in-situ loess but stood goggle-eyed at the sight of sections more than 10 m high in

which palaeosol was piled upon palaeosol like layered milk chocolate cake but we were separated from them by a 15 m wide irrigation channel!

Downstream at Chengchow we were the guests of the Yellow River Water Conservancy and Electric Power Commission and were able to see what a sediment concentration of 279 kg/m3 looks like in the world's dirtiest river and

appreciate the problems of flood control and water management. At Wuhan on the Yangzte, where we stayed in a downtown hotel, the red bearded, bass voiced editor of the IBG's Transactions excited a great deal of local curiosity during a

lunch time stroll through the narrow crowded streets. We learnt of the detailed studies of channel development following completion of the artificial cutoffs

we had first spotted from the air which have reduced the length of one reach of the Yangzte from 240 to 160 km, and spent a relaxing afternoon in warm



China visited 3

rain on a pleasure craft on one of the huge lakes occupying actively subsiding tectonic basins in the middle course of the Yangzte.

An overnight journey by train in a ' soft' class sleeper as opposed to sitting on 'hard' class seats took us to the scenic delights of Kweilin in Kwangsi province surely the most fantastic karst terrain in the world. Collectively we

must have the world's largest collection of photographs of needle and tower karst. It is readily apparent why this beautiful landscape should have been the inspiration for so much Chinese art. We had academic discussions with members of the Kwangsi Hydrological Engineering Team and with Dr Chen Chi-ping from the Institute in Peking, a karst geomorphologist who was our most efficient travelling guide throughout China. A 5 hour boat trip down the Likiang to

Yangshol was a kaleidoscope of river terraces, resurgences, red water tributaries, cormorant fishing, floating san-pan homes and small boys collecting lichens from rocky cliffs set against a back-cloth of pinnacle karst wreathed in wisps of cloud after heavy rain.

Our brief stay in Canton enabled us to see the work of the Institute for the study of the South China Seas established in 1959, which includes coastal processes and geomorphology, and the Botanic Gardens. We also completed our perusal of the three major rivers of China by a quick inspection of the Si Kiang (Pearl River). After giving a celebratory banquet to Mrs Chang and

Mr Chen, some small recompense for their exhaustive exertions on our behalf but a derisory repayment for the seven banquets at which we had been the guests, we crossed the border, walking over the covered rail bridge into the New Territories of Hong Kong to experience what must be one of the, if not the sharpest culture contrast in the world. Two days in Hong Kong reintro duced us to many things, not least the ready availability of topographic maps, conspicuous by their absence in China. We hope to be able to welcome Chinese colleagues on an exchange visit to the UK in the not too distant future. It will be impossible to repay the welcome and hospitality we received in China but we must try.

Eric H. Brown University College London

BSRSA Annual Conference 1978

Call for papers

The Tenth Annual Conference of the British Section of the Regional Science Associ ation will be held at University College London on 31 August and 1 September 1978. Anyone who would like to present a paper at this Conference is invited to submit an abstract approximately 300 words in length to P. W. J. Batey, Secretary BSRSA,

Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool, P.O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, England (Tel: 051-709 6022 Ex. 2540), not later than 14 April 1978. Papers can be on any subject within the general field of urban and regional analysis. Abstracts will be considered at a meeting of the British Section's Committee early in May 1978 and authors will be informed of the Committee's decision shortly afterwards. As in previous years, a selection of papers from the Annual Conference will be published in the London Papers in Regional Science series.



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China Visited