Facts and Details

OROQEN, HENZHEN AND EWENKI

Reindeer in northeast China The minorities of northern China are closely related to indigenous ethnic groups found in Mongolia, Central Asia, Siberia, and the Russian Far East. Most have traditionally been shamanist, nomadic animal herders, living a basic life in harsh conditions in areas with few people, and migrating over large distances. Those towards the south herded sheep, horses and cattle. Those towards the north herded reindeer. Some were also fishermen, trappers and hunters. Few had written languages.

Minorities found in northern Chinese include the Daur, Dongxiang, Ewenki, Hezhen, Koreans, Manchu, Mongols, Oroqen, Oryat, Tu, Russians, Xibe, and Yugar. The Ewenki are former reindeer herders. The Hezhen and Oroqen are former forest hunters. Tha Manhcu were founders of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last dynasty. The Mongols were the founders of Yuan Dynasty, one of China’s greatest dynasties.

Good Websites and Sources: Nationalities in Northeast China kepu.net.cn ; Hezhe CRI English /english.cri.cn ; China VistaChina Vista ; Evenki Evenks eki.ee/books ; Wikipedia article on Evenks Wikipedia Oroqen Orochen Foundation orochenfoundation.org ; Joshua Project joshuaproject.net ; Oroqen PDF file msdchina.org ; Reindeer People donsmaps.com ; Links in this Website: MINORITIES IN NORTHERN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; MUSLIM MINORITIES IN NORTHERN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China

Sources on Individual on Ethnic Minorities in China: (click the ethnic group you want) Ethnic China (very good site with good academic articles) ethnic-china.com ; Cultural China (site with nice photos) cultural-china.com ; China Travel chinatravel.com ; Wikipedia List of Ethnic Minorities in China Wikipedia ; Travel China Guide travelchinaguide.com ; China.org (government source) china.org.cn ; OMF international (a Christian group) omf.org ; People’s Daily (government source) peopledaily.com.cn ; Ethnic Publishing House (government source)e56.com.cn ; Paul Noll site` paulnoll.com ; China Highlights (on some groups) China Highlights

Sources on Ethnic Minorities in China: Book on Chinese Minorities stanford.edu ; Chinese Government Law on Minorities china.org.cn ; Minority Rights minorityrights.org ; Minority Travel: China Trekking (click under Minority Towns) China Trekking ; Wikipedia article Wikipedia ; New York Times Interactive Map nytimes.com ; Ethnic Groups in China (Chinese government site) chinaethnicgroups.com

Ewenki

(Northern Heilongjiang Province and Eastern Inner Mongolia)

The Ewenki are a small ethnic minority that live in northern Heilongjiang Province and eastern Inner Mongolia. Closely related to the Tungus, Evenski and Yakut in Siberia and more distantly related to Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, they are a Turkic people who originated from the Lake Baikal region of Russia. They speak Tungus-Manchu languages, look like Mongolians and have traditionally herded reindeer, traded furs and hunted and fished. Many Ewenki migrated to northern China from the Lena River Valley in Siberia beginning in the mid 17th century. Reindeer were used mainly to haul tepees and bedrolls on long expeditions to hunt for moose, bear and wild boar.

There are about 30,000 Ewenki in China. A 1990 census counted 26,000 of them. In China, they have traditionally been grouped with the Oroqens and Dauers, who were collected referred to as the “Sulun Tribes,” and have been ruled by Manchus, Russians, Japanese and Chinese. Since the Communists have come to power many have given up their traditional ways. Few herd reindeer anymore.

Most Ewenki are engaged in farming, farm-herding or animal husbandry. A few live as their ancestors did, as roving hunters and reindeer herders, in the forests around the Greater Xingan Mountains.

Ewenki Religion

Some Ewenki have adopted Tibetan Buddhism but most are animists, worshiping many natural elements, including a wind god, mountain god and fire god. Bears and some birds are revered and prayed to for good weather and hunting. The swan is an important totemic animal. Bears are sacred animals protected by hunting taboos. Traditionally, whenevery the Ewenki aet bear meat they conducted the same rituals they did for their own dead.

Ancestor worship was also practiced and shaman were consulted for spiritual matters and health problems. The shaman could be men or women. Usually the became shaman after a long illness and accepted no payment for their services.

In the old days, the Ewenki practiced wind burial, in which the bones of the dead were hung in a hollow tree suspended on tree stumps. Under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, they have mostly abandoned that custom and now practice mostly earth burials.

See Evenski, Minorities, Russia.

Ewenki Nomads

In the old days, nomadic Ewenki lived in xianrenzhu, conical teepee-like tents covered by animal hides and birch bark, herded reindeer and hunted for elk, rose deer and squirrels in groups of four or five hunters with shotguns and dogs. Food was shared equally, with the hunter who made the kill customarily taking the least desirable part. Special care was taken to make sure the sick, aged and disabled were provided for. Reindeer provided a means of transport for belongings. Hunters sometimes rode them or were pulled by them on ski boards

The few Ewenki that still practice nomadism live in yurts (circular felt tents) or 10-foot-square canvas tents and keep themselves warm and cook from a fire, whose smoke escapes from hole in the canvas. They sleep on low beds, primarily eat reindeer flesh and organs and spend their day doing chores like cooking, milking the herd, gathering berries, making cream, looking for strays, watching out for wolves, doing embroidery and washing clothes.

Nomadic Ewenki live in nomadic units called nimals, comprised of several nuclear families, and migrated primarily between winter woods and summer pastures for reindeer.. The migration southward for the winter takes place after the reindeer mating season.

Ewenki Life

Clans have traditionally acted independently of one another since the last tribal Ewenki chief died in 1761. Each clan is headed by a chief, who presides over meetings and settles disputes and otherwise acts like any other member of the clan. Blood feuds have often occurred between clans, which often recruited new members to increase their strength.

Possessions have traditionally been shared with the understanding that anybody could take what they wanted when they needed it and would pay it back when they were able. For honored guests, a reindeer is slaughtered with a slit to the throat. The pelt is peeled back, the organs are removed, blood is drained and the meat is cut into four-inch cubes.

Most marriages are love matches although sometime arranged marriage occur, in some cases between girls of 17 or 18 and boys of 7 or 9. Under the terms of Ewinki elopement a couple sets up a felt tent with a xianrenzhu, beside it. In the middle of the night the girls sneaks out off her tent and rides off with her lover. The couple sleeps together in the xianrenzhu. The marriage is formalized when an elderly women rearranges the brides eight pigtails into two. Most newlywed set up their households with the groom’s clan.

The Ewenkis make wide variety of household utensils from birch bark. They also make a large variety of products from animal skins. They have traditionally carved wooden sculptures and toys for trade. Sports like lassoing and horse racing are often connected with nomadic life.

Ewenki in the 19th Century

Describing Tungus in the 1820s, the explorer John Bell wrote: "They have no homes where they remain for any time, but range throughout the woods and long rivers for pleasure; and, wherever they come, they erect a few spars, in clinging to one another at the top; these they cover with pieces of boiled birch bark, sewed together, leaving, a hole at the top to let out smoke.

"They can not bear to sleep in a warm room, but retire to their huts and lie about the fire on skins of wild bears. It is surprising that these creatures can suffer the very piercing cold of these parts,"

"They are very civil and tractable, and like to smoke tobacco and drink brandy...I have seen many of the men with oval figures, like wreaths, on their foreheads and chins...These are made, in their infancy, by pricking the parts with needles and rubbing them with charcoal...They have many shamans among them, I was told of others, whose abilities for fortune-telling far exceeded those of the shaman."

"The women dressed in a fur-gown, reaching below the knee, and tied about the waist with a girdle...made of deer skins, having their hair curiously stitched down and ornamented...The dress of the men consists of a short jacket with narrow sleeves made of deer skin, having the fur outward; trousers and hoses of the same kind of skin...They have besides a piece of fur, that covers the breasts and stomach, which is hung about the neck with a string of leather."

"Their arms are a bow and several sorts of arrows, according to the different kinds of game they intend to hunt...In winter, the season for hunting wild beasts, they travel on what are called snow shoes...They have a different kind of shoe for ascending hills, with the skins of seal glued to the boards, having the hair inclined backwards which prevents them from sliding on there shoes...When a Tungsu goes hunting into the woods, he carries with him no provisions, but depends entirely on what he has to catch."

See Russia

Ewenki and the Modern World

Most Ewenki are involved in animal husbandry or agriculture. They herd horses, oxen and goats and grow wheat, sorghum, rye, oats and buckwheat. Some sell reindeer antlers to Koreans and Chinese for use in Asian medicines.

Under the Communists, some Evenski were settled in villages; others were allowed to practice their herding ways. Most dream of practicing some form of traditional reindeer herding and hunting while enjoying modern conveniences such as hot showers, cell phones, decent incomes and televisions.

Some Ewenki that belong to the Aolu Guya Ewenkii tribe in the Greater Hinggan Mountains in Inner Mongolia still live the nomadic life. One elderly woman named Suo Maliya lives with five other nomads and owns a herd of 300 reindeer. The nomads are regarded as the last of their kind. The reindeer are valued at $735 a piece which makes their herd worth $219,000.

In the mid 2000s, most of the members of Suo’s tribe—about 231 people—were resettled in a village 50-square meter houses with modern conveniences such as cable television, toilets and central heating. Many make their living by selling antler products, some of them marketed online. The villagers are allowed to maintain herds of reindeer in five designated hunting grounds.

Some younger Ewenki have shown an interest in reindeer herding but most aren’t interested.

Resettling the Ewenki

Jonathan Kaiman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “The Ewenki are among hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders from the country’s northern hinterlands who have themselves been herded into permanent settlements. Government officials say their aim is to provide new opportunities for the nomads while protecting the environment from overgrazing and hunting. In some cases, relocations are a consequence of governmentbacked initiatives to excavate mines on herders’ grazing land, critics say. Officials say they are promoting diversity by bringing nomadic minorities into mainstream society, but the relocations are strictly carried out only on the government’s terms. [Source: Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2011]

According to a 2007 report by Human Rights Watch on the resettlement of Tibetan herders, such relocations “often result in greater impoverishment, and — for those forced to resettle — dislocation and marginalization in the new communities.” “When changes happen to an ethnic group in this way, so quickly, this can be very painful,” said Bai Lan, a professor at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.

In 2003, one group of 200 Ewenki was forcibly relocated from their encampment to a “resettlement site” 120 miles away, on the outskirts of Genhe, a dilapidated riverside city. Government officials confiscated their hunting rifles and urged them to leave their herd of reindeer behind. Before they were resettled reindeer were used mainly to haul tepees and bedrolls on long expeditions to hunt for moose, bear and wild boar. Economic necessity has transformed them from beasts of burden into money makers: The herders now make a modest living selling their antlers for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

Ewenki Resettlement Site

Jonathan Kaiman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “The resettlement site, called Aoluguya, Ewenki for “grove of poplars,” has a different set of problems. The product of a multimilliondollar investment by the Genhe city government, the site looks more like a theme park than a community. Road signs describe it as a “Reindeer-herding Tribe Culture Tourism Zone.” Its perimeter is decorated with giant models of tepees, the Ewenkis’ traditional abode. [Source: Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2011]

The government commissioned a Finnish consulting firm to design the site in the image of a Scandinavian hamlet. Its residents live in rows of freshly varnished lodges with frontyards and vaulted roofs. The homes’ interiors are spartan; most contain nothing more than a few beds, a stove and a television. “They wanted to attract foreigners, but the foreigners never come,” said Ao Rongbu, 63, a former herder who remains in the settlement because of a heart condition.

Aoluguya is plagued by poverty and alcoholism. Its residents survive by selling handicrafts during the summer, mainly knickknacks carved from reindeer antlers. “There’s nothing interesting about Aoluguya. There are no trees. There are no reindeer,” said He Xie, Suo’s 47-year-old son, slurring his words after a day of drinking.

Loss of Ewenki Culture

Jonathan Kaiman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Much of Ewenki culture has been lost. The children are taught only Mandarin in school, and most can no longer speak their parents’ unwritten language, which is in danger of disappearing. [Source: Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2011]

Many of the reindeer at the resettlement site starved to death in their first few weeks for lack of a type of lichen that grows only in the woods. “What upsets me is that, in the future, who will take care of the deer?” said Ma Rusha, a 55-yearold herder. “Young people are afraid that they’ll run into black bears and wolves. They’re not willing to stay here.”

The nomadic herders seem to enjoy some modern comforts. A few years ago, the government provided a pair of solar panels and ATV, enabling them to watch state broadcasts. Suo does not understand Mandarin, but the rest of the herders gather each night to drink liquor and watch the news. In the morning, they discuss international affairs as they fetch water from the stream. The herders have opinions about figures such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the late Libyan ruler Moammar Kadafi. They are also huge NBA fans.

Lichen for the reindeer has been growing scarce in the area surrounding the encampment, and the group will have to move soon to feed its herd. “Wherever there is food for the deer, that’s where we’ll go,” said Ma Lindong. As always, he said, they will bring the TV and the solar panels with them.

Ewenki Old-Timer Clings to Life Guided by Reindeer

Jonathan Kaiman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Once her tribe’s best reindeer herder, Maliya Suo, a last link to the traditional Ewenki language and way of life, lives in an encampment in the woods in northeastern China. In her old age, Suo is taking on an even tougher adversary: the Chinese government. A member of the nomadic Ewenki community that lives primarily in China’s Inner Mongolia region, Suo has resisted the government’s effort to resettle her in the world of buildings, money and cars. [Source: Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2011]

Suo, wanting no part of modern urban life, soon moved back to the woods, where she has been ever since. “The city doesn’t smell good,” said Suo, whose deep-set eyes are cloudy and who wears an old wool vest and a pink-and-beige patterned head scarf. She doesn’t speak much, and when she does it’s in a pained warble. Yet her manner conveys a matriarchal authority.

After Suo insisted on leaving the resettlement site, several family members said they had no choice but to follow because she was too old to live alone; exactly how old, nobody seems to know. “We go into the mountains because Maliya Suo is in the mountains,” said Zhang Dan, a 37-year-old craftsman. “Nobody is willing to move her.” Suo, who is thought to be over 90, is the last link to the traditional Ewenki language and way of life. She spends much of her time sitting on her bed or on the ground in the tent, munching on pine nuts and tending the fire.

Suo, whose husband was a talented hunter 12 years her elder, had seven children. Only two are still alive. Her eldest daughter, the first member of the tribe to attend college, drowned while drunkenly washing clothes in a shallow stream. A son died when his bladder burst after a drinking competition. Another son was shot dead in the woods, and two died of illness. Suo’s husband, whom she regularly accompanied on hunting trips, drank himself to death, family members said.

In the old days, her main responsibility was to strap the game her husband killed onto the backs of reindeer and guide them back to camp. Now she looks after the members of the tribe who live with her in the woods.

Ewenki Encampment

Jonathan Kaiman wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “The encampment where Suo lives, in a patch of sparse forest in the Greater Hinggan mountain range, is an assemblage of four wedding party-style tents near a shallow stream. There are no power lines or cellphone service. Nothing lies between the encampment and the border with Siberia except a 50-mile swath of birch trees and frozen ponds. Suo and four others live there, along with a herd of 400 reindeer, most of them owned collectively by those at the resettlement site. [Source: Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2011]

The interior of Suo’s tent remains dark during even during the day and smells strongly of wood smoke. Old rags and fresh meat hang side by side in the tent from lines strung across its metal frame. Plastic trinkets mingle with animal bones on a crude wooden shelf in the corner

Day-to-day life at the encampment, which is packed up and moved every few months, is guided by simple survival. The herders spend many of their waking hours chopping firewood in preparation for the winter, when the temperature can reach 40 degrees below zero and snow piles up waist-high.

The herders subsist on reindeer milk, a staple of the Ewenki diet, and whatever game they can find in the woods, supplemented by garlic and cabbage from the city. Squirrel is a special treat, and occasionally one of the hunting dogs nabs a roe deer; the herders immediately eat its liver raw and save the rest for later.“We’ve always depended on our hunting for survival,” said Ma Lindong, 45, a herder who is married to one of Suo’s nieces. “If we don’t have that, then what else do we have?”

Hezhen

(Northern Heilongjiang Province)

The Hezhen are one of China’s smallest minorities. A 1990 census counted 4,200 of them, up from 1,500 in 1982. They live mostly in the Three-River Plain area in northern Heilongjiang, where the Songhia, Heilongjiang and Ussuri rivers come together. There used to be many more of them but 80 to 90 percent of them died under the Japanese occupation of Manchuria when they were resettled and forced to work in mines and railroads.

The Hezhen are also known as the Fishskin Tatars, Gold, Hezhe, Nabei, Nanai, Nanaio, Sushen, Wild Nuchen and Yupibu. Related to the Nanai in Russia, they speak an Altaic language and no longer practice the shaman and healing ceremonies the once did. The Chinese called them the “Fish Skin Tribe” because their traditional clothes, hats and shoes were made of fish skin.

The Hezhen have traditionally been a hunting and fishing people. Their homeland is occupied by rivers and marshes and is filled with wild animals and fish. They enjoy eating raw fish served with vinegar sauce, salmon, carp and huso sturgeon (a fish that can weigh over 1,200 pounds and reach lengths of 10 feet), also known as yellow croakers. Traditionally, they used dogsleds and birchbark canoes and made clothes from fish skins and deer hides with embroidered floral designs. They traded dried fish, furs and deer antlers.

In imperial China, they were recruited into the army and used in river patrols. Under the Communists they returned to their former home areas and were organized into fishing cooperatives. They also practiced some agriculture, and raised deer for antlers and martens for fur and engaged in traditional hunting.

Oroqen

(Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia Provinces in northeast China)

The Oroqen is a small ethnic group scattered over a large area of Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia in northeast China. Up until the last couple of decades many of the Oroqen were hunters, reindeer herders and forest nomads, similar to reindeer tribes found in Siberia. Most are settled now. Oroqen can mean both “mountain people” and “reindeer herder.” In 1951 there were just 2,251 Oroqen. A 2000 census counted 8,196.

The Oroqen speak an Altaic language similar to Mongolian and the languages spoken by people native to Siberia. They lived north of the Amur River in Siberia themselves until they migrated into China to escape czarist Russian plunderers and then lived in the pine and birch forests the Greater and Lesser Xingan Mountains in Heilongjiang Province and eastern Inner Mongolia. The Chinese divided them into two groups: the Horse-Riding Oroqen and the Foot Oroqen.

The Oroqen settled in imperial China and provided the Qing court with furs. They retreated into the forest again when the Japanese controlled Manchuria. The Japanese introduced opium to the region and used the Oroqen as guinea pigs in bacterial experiments. At the end of World War II only around 1,000 Oroqen were left. Many continued to practice their nomadic ways until the 1950s when the Chinese government encouraged them to settle down in houses built by the government. Most now live on the Oroqen Autonomous Banner of the Hulun Buir League, Inner Mongolia.

Oroqen Under Communism

The Oroqen remained relatively untouched by the modern world until the Communists came to power in 1949.

In 1951. Oroqen leaders negotiated the formation of the Oroqen Autonomous Banner, a type o administrative division that that dates back to the Manchu period, encompassing 23,000 square miles in Inner Mongolia near the Russian border. On why they agreed, a leader named Baiyaertu later told Time, “There were so many of them and so few of us. What could we do?”

At the Oroqen Museum in Alihe a display card reads: “Before liberation Oroqen went to the edge of extinction” and with the help of the Communist Party the “Oroqen are marching towards the magnificent future,”

To help the Oroqen, the Chinese government provides free housing, farming assistance and education.

Book: The Oroqens—China's Nomadic Hunters by Qiu Pu (Foreign Language Press, Beijing 1983).

Oroqen Religion

Orochen female shaman The Oroqen were mostly animists. They worshiped many natural elements, including a wind god, mountain god and fire god. Bears, tigers, wolves and other animals were revered and were often addressed and treated as if they were family members or ancestors. During major holidays and festivals offerings were of meat made to important gods.

Ancestor worship was also practiced and shaman were consulted for spiritual matters and health problems. In the old days, the Oroqen practiced wind burial, in which the bones of the dead were hung in hollow trees suspended on tree stumps. If the coffin did not fall to the ground in three years a special ritual was conducted so the sins of the dead would be cleansed and he or she could ascend to heaven and become a star.

The Oroqen have traditionally had many taboos. It was considered a taboo to kill bears for example. Some important ceremonies revolved around placating disturbed bear spirits. If a bear is killed in self defense its bones had to be spread on a structure made willow branches to ask for forgiveness.

There were also taboos regarding women and hunting. Special boxes associated with hunting gods were not to be touched by women. Women were not supposed to walk behind tents and had to give birth in a special tent. Specific plans were never made for a hunt because it was widely believe they prey were able to sense such plans.

Oroqen Life

Orochen tents (Orochen are similar to the Oroqen)
Traditionally the Oroqen lived in teepee-like tents, known as xianrenzhu, or sierranju, which are supported by thirty long poles and covered with birch bark in the summer and deerskin in the winter. At the center was a fireplace used for cooking and warmth. Xianrenzhu were usually set up by a river in a single line or an arch by a mountain slope. By the 1950s, most Oroqen had moved to brick and tile houses provided by the Chinese government.

Birch bark is also used to make baskets, tools, utensils and canoes, and deerskins is used to make boots, clothes and sleeping bags. Oroqen women made beautiful boxes, bowls and basins from birch bark and were known for their skilled needlework.

woman and reindeer Marriages have traditionally been arranged. Before the wedding officially took place the couple slept together in the house of the bride’s parents to mark the sanctifying of the marriage contract and gift-giving ceremonies. After the wedding the couple went to live with the groom’s clan. Divorce was uncommon. Widows were required to wait three years until they remarried.

In the old days life was hard. Shortages of food were a concern. Many Oroqen made their living by hunting, raising and herding reindeer, whose embryos, penises, tails and antlers are used in Chinese medicine. Many Oroqen still subsist off of fish, reindeer meat and wild plants. Meat is often preserved by smoking or drying. Raw reindeer liver is considered a delicacy. Fermented mare's milk is a popular alcoholic drink. It is not clear how much the Oroqen have been affected by modern life and many of the their old traditions remain.

Oroqen Hunting

Hunter's camp Oroqen hunters relied on dogs and shotguns and used horses obtained from the Manchus and Mongols. They hunted year round, going after furs in the winter, deer with antlers in May and June and deer for venison and male organs in September. Hunters wore animal skins clothes and wore hats made from the head of a deer or other animals.

Hunters traditionally worked in groups of four or five. Meat was shared equally, with special care taken to make sure the sick, aged and disabled were provided for. The hunters usually cooked and ate the internal organs and head together. Women sometimes hunted and fished but usually they were responsible for drying the meat and tanning hides.

The Oroqen no longer rely on hunting but hunters south of the Amur River still brave -30°F temperatures in the winter to track deer and moose. The winter was often the best time to hunt because animals could be easily located by following their tracks.

Ab 83-year-old former Oroqen leader named Baiyaertu told Time magazine in 2008. “Hunting is good. It’s good for the body. After you came back with something, you feel really happy...In the past there was no road, no railroad. There were no Han people. There was nobody here. You could see deer, roe deer, everything. Now there are people here, and the animals have all gone.”

Because of a scarcity of game the Chinese government outlawed hunting in the Oroqen banner in 1996. While some hunt in Heilongjiang Province where hunting is allowed and poach in the mountains hunting as a way of life has vanished.

Oroqen, Assimilation and Modern Life

Oroqen hunting traditions are dying. Many of those who even remember them are very old.

Baiyaertu’s son Bai Ying, who has workers a cultural researcher in Beijing told Time, “They can’t adjust to the rhythm of modern life. They can’t farm, so they drink every day.”

There days many Oroqen children speak only Mandarin and the Oroqen are a minority in their own banner. Of the 300,000 people that live their 90 percent are Han Chinese. Many others are Mongolians.

On assimilation, Hing Chao, chairman of the Hong Kong-based Orochen Foundation, told Time. “They are assimilated, yes, but they are not integrated into the mainstream of society.”

Oryat

The Oryat are now a small minority that live in the Altai area of China and Russia. See Kazakhstan.

Image Sources: Nolls China website, Donsmaps, University of Washinton, San Francisco Museum, CNTO

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Page Top

© 2008 Jeffrey Hays

Last updated April 2010