WikiPortallus: Kunming.html

Kunming is the political, economic, communications and cultural center of Yunnan, and is the seat of the provincial government. It is also home to several universities, museums, galleries and other important economic, cultural, and educational institutions. The headquarters of many of Yunnan's large businesses are in Kunming as well. It was important during World War II as a Chinese military center, American air base, and transport terminus for the Burma Road. Located in the middle of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Kunming is located at an altitude of 1,900 m above sea level and at a latitude just north of the Tropic of Cancer. It covers an area of 21,501 km² and its urban area covers 6,200 km². Kunming has an estimated population of 5,740,000 including 3,055,000 in the urban area and is located at the northern edge of the large Lake Dian, surrounded by temples and lake-and-limestone hill landscapes.

Kunming consists of an old, previously walled city, a modern commercial district, residential and university areas. The city has an astronomical observatory, and its institutions of higher learning include Yunnan University, Yunnan Normal University, Yunnan Minorities University and a medical college. On the outskirts is a famed bronze temple, dating from the Ming dynasty. Kunming was formerly called Yunnanfu (云南府; literally meaning "Yunnan Capital") until the 1920s.

It is the leading transportation hub (air, road, rail) in SW China, with a rail connection to Vietnam and road links to Burma and Laos. Kunming currently has a new international airport under development, which is slated to be the fourth largest international airport in China. Situated in a fertile plain 640 km southwest of Chongqing, Kunming is an important trading center between the far west and central and south China. It is one of China's largest producers of copper. Copper is smelted with nearby hydroelectric power. Coal is mined, and the city has a few iron and steel complexes. Other manufactures include phosphorus, chemicals, machinery, textiles, paper, and cement. Although it was often the seat of kings in ancient times, Kunming's modern prosperity dates only from 1910, when the railroad from Hanoi was built. The city has continued to develop rapidly under China's modernization efforts. Kunming's streets have widened while office buildings and housing projects develop at a fast pace. Kunming has been designated a special tourism center and as such sports a proliferation of high-rises and luxury hotels.

From 2005 to 2010, the city of Kunming plans to nearly double in size, in terms of both population (to eight million people) and area, and it hopes to be one of the trade, transport, financial and cultural centers of Southeast Asia. Kunming's transport links to Southeast Asia and elsewhere, particularly its air links, are steadily expanding, with direct routes already existing to all major Chinese cities, most major Southeast Asian cities and some major cities in Japan and South Korea.

Key development issues for Kunming include a local educated and talent pool that is less sophisticated than larger Chinese cities and the need for increased transport links.²

Name

Its present name "Kunming" was the sound of the title of an ethnic group residing in southwest China in ancient times. This group lived a nomadic life in west Yunnan and moved to settle in the area around the Dianchi Lake during the period from the Han to the Tang dynasties. At the outset of the Yuan Dynasty, the administration "Kunming Two Thousand Households" was established near the lake and the title of the group was first used to designate the place, a tradition which has lasted up to now.

History

Early history

Early settlements in the area date back to Neolithic times but it was not until the fourth century BCE that the Dian Kingdom took shape on the site of present-day Kunming.

Historically the domain of Yunnan's earliest inhabitants and first civilization, Kunming long profited from its position on the caravan roads through to South-East Asia, India and Tibet. Early townships in the southern edge of Lake Dianchi (outside the contemporary city perimeter) can be dated back to 279 BCE, although they have been long lost to history. The first settlements were formed by a general of the Chu Kingdom near to Lake Dianchi.

The city of Kunzhou, which was just southeast of what is now known as Kunming, was established in 109 CE at the time of the Han Dynasty and during the reign of Emperor Wudi.

The Han Dynasty (205 BCE - 220 CE), seeking control over the Southern Silk Road running to Burma and India, brought much of Yunnan into China's orbit, though subsequent dynasties could do little to tame what was then a remote and wild borderland.

Nanzhao Kingdom and Yuan Dynasty

Founded in 765 CE, Kunming was known to the Chinese as Tuodong (拓东) city in the independent state of Nanzhao during the 8th and 9th centuries.

This changed when Tuodong came under the control of the Chinese central government with the Yuan (Mongol) invasion of the southwest in 1252-1253. In 1276 it was founded by the Mongol rulers as Kunming County and became the provincial capital of Yunnan. The city grew as a trading center between the southwest and the rest of China.

It is considered by scholars to have been the city of Yachi Fu (Duck Pond Town) where people had used cowries as cash and ate their meat raw, as described by the 13th-century Venetian traveler Marco Polo who traveled to the area and wrote about his fascination of the place.

Old Kunming quarter, containing the narrow and curved Sister Buildings (姊妹楼) behind the Victory Monument on Guanghua Jie, located across the street to the north of the old Bird and Flower Market.

Ming and Qing dynasties

In the 1300s, Kunming was retaken as the Ming Dynasty defeated the Mongols, which built a wall surrounding present-day Kunming. Ming General Wu Sangui defeated Manchu invaders 300 years later and held the city until his death in 1678, long after the rest of China had fallen under Manchu rule.

During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, it was the seat of the superior prefecture of Yunnan.

The area was first dubbed Kunming in the period towards the decline of the Yuan Dynasty and later still in 1832, the beginnings of a real city were acknowledged within the city walls and significant structures within their confines. Founding of the city can, therefore be said to have been a predominantly 19th century affair. It was also in this century that the city grew to become the major market and transport centre for the region.

Kunming suffered at the hands of rebel leader Du Wenxiu, the Sultan of Dali, who attacked and besieged the city several times between 1858 and 1868. Little of the city's wealth survived the 1856 Panthay Rebellion, when most of the Buddhist sites in the capital were razed. Decades later Kunming began to be influenced by the West, especially from the French Empire. In the 1890s, an uprising against working conditions on the Kunming-Haiphong rail line saw 300,000 laborers executed after France shipped in weapons to suppress the revolt. The meter-gauge rail line, only completed by around 1911, was designed by the French so that they could tap Yunnan's mineral resources for their colonies in Indochina.

Kunming was a communications center in early times and a junction of two major trading routes, one westward via Dali and Tengyue into Myanmar, the other southward through Mengzi to the Red River in Indochina. Eastward, a difficult mountain route led to Guiyang in Guizhou province and thence to Hunan province. To the northeast was a well-established trade trail to Yibin in Sichuan province on the Yangtze River. But these trails were all extremely difficult, passable only by mule trains or pack-carrying porters.

Modern history

Kunming reverted to county status in 1912, under the name Kunming, and became a municipality in 1935.

The opening of the Kunming area began in earnest with the completion in 1906-1910 of the railway to Haiphong in north Vietnam (part of French Indochina). Kunming became a treaty port opening to foreign trade in 1908 and soon became a commercial center. In the 1930s its importance grew still further when the first highways were built, linking Kunming with Chongqing in Sichuan and Guiyang in Guizhou to the east. Kunming's rail link to Hanoi was cut during World War II, restored in 1957, cut again in 1979, and reopened in 1996.

Kunming was transformed into a modern city as a result of the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 when the invading Japanese forces caused a great number of east-coast Chinese refugees, some of whom were wealthy, to flood into the southwest of China. They brought with them dismantled industrial plants, which were then re-erected beyond the range of Japanese bombers. In addition, a number of universities and institutes of higher education were evacuated there (see National Southwestern Associated University). The increased money and expertise quickly established Kunming as an industrial and manufacturing base for the wartime government in Chongqing (then part of Sichuan province). These influences saw the city move towards more modern attitudes and gradually it began to resemble other major Chinese cities with thriving industrial areas and large scale residential districts.

During the Second World War, the city of Kunming was prepared as a National Redoubt in case the temporary capital in Chongqing fell, an elaborate system of underground caves to serve as offices, barracks and factories was prepared but never utilised. Kunming was to have served again in this role during the ensuing Chinese Civil War, but the Nationalist garrison turned coat and joined the Communists. Instead Taiwan would become the last redoubt and home of the Chinese Nationalist government, a role it fulfills to this day.³

When the Japanese occupied French Indochina in 1940, the links of Kunming with the west, both via the newly constructed Burma Road and by air, grew increasingly vital as Allied forces provided essential support by importing materials from the British-colony Burma. By this time, Kunming acted as an Allied military command center, which grouped the Chinese, American, British and French forces together for operations in Southeast Asia, including China, India and Burma. The Office of Strategic Services' Service Unit Detachment 101 (predecessor to the 1st Special Forces Group) was also headquartered in Kunming and whose mission was to divert and disrupt Japanese combat operations in Burma.⁴

Later on in the war, Kunming was targeted by the Imperial Japanese Air Force during their bombing campaigns, and when the Burma Road was lost to the Japanese, the American Volunteer Group, known as the "Flying Tigers", used Kunming as a base in 1941 and 1942 to fly in supplies over the Himalayas from British bases in India in defiance of Japanese assaults. They also were tasked with defending China's lifeline to the outside world, the Burma Road and the Ledo Road, which had Kunming as a northern terminus. See Battle of Yunnan-Burma Road.

Industry became important in Kunming during World War II. The large state-owned Central Machine Works was transferred there from Hunan, while the manufacture of electrical products, copper, cement, steel, paper, and textiles expanded. A university was set up in 1922. Until 1952, Kunming was a walled city. The city government in 1952 ordered hundreds of young people to tear down the wall and use its bricks to make a new road running north-south. To show its appreciation for the young people that demolished the east wall, the city government named the new street after them. Their existence still echoes today in place names like Xiao Ximen (小西门, 'Lesser west gate') and Beimen Jie (北门街, 'North gate Street'). There are also less obvious connections to the wall, such as Qingnian Lu (青年路, 'Youth Road'), which was once Kunming's east wall.

After 1949 Kunming developed rapidly into an industrial metropolis, second only to Chongqing in the southwest. A Minorities' Institute was set up in the 1950s to promote mutual understanding and access to university education among Yunnan's multiethnic population. The city consolidated its position as a supply depot during the Vietnam War and subsequent border clashes. Until Mao Zedong's death, Kunming was still generally thought in much of the rest of the country as a remote frontier settlement and so it acted as a place up to then for the government to exile people who had fallen politically out of favor, especially during the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s and 1990s, the city center was rebuilt, with Swiss help, in its current 'modern' style to impress visitors attending the 1999 World Horticultural Exposition.⁵

An old wooden house and a modern skyscraper in the background.

Since the economic reforms of mid-1980s, Kunming has also enjoyed increased tourism and foreign investment. Neighboring nations such as Thailand trace their ancestries back to Yunnan and have proved particularly willing to channel funds into Kunming. The city has become ever more developed and accessible as a result. Several Thai Chinese banks have offices in Kunming, for example, Kasikorn Bank and Krung Thai Bank. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand has visited Kunming many times to study Chinese culture and promote friendly relations.

On July 2005, the second Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit was held in Kunming, with government leaders from China, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam participating. There, China agreed to lend its neighbors more than $1 billion for a series of projects. China was then promoting GMS cooperation as a first step toward building an eventual China-ASEAN Free Trade Area.

Infrastructure improvements have been underway to improve links between Kunming and Southeast Asia in time for the 2010 China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, which would have a population of approximately 1.8 billion. The FTA is expected to make Kunming a trade and financial center for Southeast Asia. In addition to physical improvements to enhance Kunming's trade with Southeast Asia, the central and provincial governments have made financial preparations to assist the city's emergence. At the end of 2004, the central government approved Kunming to be one of the 18 mainland cities in which foreign banks could conduct business in renminbi.

Kunming's second and current building spree in and around Kunming can be compared to the years leading up to 1999, when Kunming held its first major international event, the World Horticultural Expo. It was primarily during 1997 and 1998 that much of the city's roads, bridges and high rises were built.

The World Horticultural Expo was widely regarded as a public relations success for Kunming, which seemed to exceed almost all expectations. Today the after-effects of the Expo are apparent in more than just the physical improvements to the city - it was the Expo that made the outside world take notice of Kunming, which was relatively unknown at the time.

Emblem

The emblem of the city of Kunming is composed of a golden horse and a green rooster. It was designed according to a popular legend about Dianchi Lake. On the eastern bank of Dianchi Lake stands the Jinma (Golden Horse) Hill; and on the lake's western bank stands the Biji (Green Rooster) Hill. The two hills form a pass of strategic importance in the city. In folklore, a golden horse ran out of the sun while a green rooster flew out of the moon. Wherever the horse and rooster appeared, lush trees grew and flowers bloomed, signaling prosperity. They eventually settled on the banks of Dianchi Lake and protected the people of Kunming.

Geography and climate

Kunming is located in east-central Yunnan province. It is located between north latitude 24°23´ and 26°22´N, and east longitude 102°10´and 103°40´E, with a total area of 21,600 square km. Its widest stretch from the east to the west amounts to 140 km and its largest expansion from the north to the south amounts to 220 km.

Situated in a fertile lake basin on the northern shore of the Lake Dian and surrounded by mountains to the north, west, and east, Kunming has always played a pivotal role in the communications of southwestern China. Lake Dian, titled as "the Pearl of the Plateau", is the sixth largest fresh water lake in China, is the largest lake in Yunnan and has an area of approximately 340 square kilometers.

Located at an elevation of 1,890 m on the Yungui Plateau with low latitude and high elevation, Kunming has one of the mildest climates in China, characterised by short, cool dry winters with mild days and crisp nights, and long, warm and humid summers, but much less hot than the lowlands.

Controlled by a temperate plateau monsoon climate, average highs are 15 C in winter and 24 C in summer. With its perpetual spring-like weather which provides the ideal climate for plants and flowers, Kunming is known as the "City of Eternal Spring". The city is covered with blossoms and lush vegetation all the year round.⁷

The period from May to October is the rainy season and the rest of the year is dry. The city has a mean annual rainfall of 1,000 mm, with an annual sunshine period of 2,250 hours and an annual frost-free period of 230 days.

Kunming's highest point is Mazong Ridge of the Jiaozi Mountain in Luquan with an elevation of 4,247 m, and its lowest point is the joint of the Xiaojiang River and the Jinsha River in Dongchuan District, with an elevation of 695 m. Its downtown area is 1,891 m above sea level.

About 96 km (60 miles) southeast of the city is the Stone Forest, a karst formation developed as a tourist attraction consisting of rock caves, arches, and pavilions. It is part of the larger karst-based landscape of the area.

Natural resources

Mineral resources include phosphorus, salt, magnesium, titanium, coal, quartz sand, clay, silica, copper. Phosphorus and salt mines are the most plentiful. Proven reserves of phosphorus mine is 2,277 million tons. Kunyang Phosphorus Mine is one of the three major phosphorus mines in the country. Rock salt reserves are 1,222 million tons and mirabilite reserves are 1,908 million tons. Dongchuan is a major copper production base.

Environment and horticulture

Kunming has 2,585 hectares of lawns, trees and flowers averaging 4.96 square meters per capita. The green space rate is 21.7%. The city's smoke control area is 115 square kilometers and noise control area 87 square kilometers.

Kunming is a significant horticultural center in China, providing products such as grain, wheat, horsebeans, corn, potato and fruit such as peaches, apples, oranges, grapes and chestnuts. Kunming is world-famous for its flowers and flower-growing exports. More than 400 types of flowers are commonly grown in Kunming. The camellia, yulan magnolica, azalea, fairy primrose, lily and orchid are known as the six famous flowers of the city.

Camellia was confirmed by the Standing Committee of the Municipal NPC of Kunming as its city flower in 1983.

Environmental court

Wildlife

Over the past 17 years, several hundred thousands of Siberian seagulls have flown south to the city every winter, forming a unique migratory route.

Paleontology

Among Chinese fossils that were discovered in 2002 was an important new invertebrate animal species from Early Cambrian deposits at Chengjiang near Kunming. Didazoon haoae represented an entirely new phylum of metazoans (multicellular animals), the phylum Vetulicolia. The specimen had a series of gill slits, which suggested that this new group illustrates an early stage in the diversification of the deuterostomes, one of the major animal divisions. Other deuterostome groups are the chordates (which includes the vertebrates), hemichordates, and echinoderms. Also reported was a Devonian Chinese fossil fish, Styloichthys changae, that has features linking the lungfish to tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates).

In 2004, newly discovered well-preserved soft-bodied fossils of deuterostomes from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang deposits near Kunming represented a new group of echinoderms (a group of marine animals). Named vetulocystids, these deuterostomes were a diverse superphylum that included the chordates, hemichordates, and echinoderms. The find shed some light on the origin of the echinoderms.

Boundaries

Administrative divisions

Location of Kunming prefecture (yellow) within Yunnan province (light grey) of China (dark grey).

The prefecture-level city of Kunming has jurisdiction over 14 subdivisions - five districts, one county-level city, five counties and three autonomous counties.

Kunming plans to add two new districts to its existing four urban districts (Panlong, Wuhua, Guandu, Xishan) over the next few years.

Demographics

Since its initiation in 1979 China's one-child policy has had a major impact upon the mainland populace, with one of the most notable population trends being an increasingly unequal gender ratio. According to new government statistics, some Chinese provinces are averaging gender ratios as unbalanced as 1.35 males to every female. When compared with much of the rest of China, Kunming has one of the more balanced gender ratios, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.05 to 1.

Kunming is the focal point of Yunnan minority culture. Twenty five ethnic minorities live in Yunnan. This is nearly half of the total number of ethnic minorities in China, and ethnic minorities make up about a third of the total provincial population. There is a strong migration from the countryside.

Of the more than five million people registered as residents in Kunming last year, more than four million were Han. The Yi people were the most prominent minority in the city, with more than 400,000 residents. The least-represented ethnic minority in Kunming were the 75 Dulong people living in the city.

Dialect

Society and culture

The city center has three major squares and five major streets: Jinma Biji Square, Jinbi Square and Dongfeng Square along with Nanping Jie, Jinma Biji Fang, Renmi Lu and Zhengyi Lu and Jingxin. Qingnian Lu, Zhengyi Lu, and Renmin Lu are the main commercial areas in Kunming; the most popular pedestrian streets are Nanping Jie, Jingxing Huaniao Shichang, and Jinma Biji Fang.

Architecture

Central Kunming

Kunming's public focus is the huge square outside the Workers' Cultural Hall at the Beijing Lu-Dongfeng Lu intersection, where in the mornings there are crowds doing tai qi and playing badminton. Weekend amateur theatre are also performed in the square. Rapidly being modernized, the city's true center is west of the square across the adjacent Panlong River (now more of a canal), outside the Kunming Department Store at the Nanping Lu/Zhengyi Lu crossroads, a densely crowded shopping precinct packed with clothing and electronics stores. The river is polluted, black and oily. Surrounding the area are plenty of new high-rises.

The center is an area of importance to Kunming's Hui population, with Shuncheng Jie - one of the last old streets in the center of the city - previously forming a Muslim quarter. Until shortly before 2005, this street was full of wind-dried beef and mutton carcasses, pitta bread and raisin sellers, and huge woks of roasting coffee beans being earnestly stirred with shovels. Under Kunming's rapid modernisation, however, the street has been demolished to make way for apartments and shopping centers. Rising behind a supermarket one block north off Zhengyi Lu, Nancheng Qingzhen Si is the city's new mosque, its green dome and chevron-patterned minaret visible from afar and built on the site of an earlier Qing edifice.

Running west off Zhengyi Jie just past the mosque, Jingxing Jie leads into one of the more bizarre corners of the city, with Kunming's huge Bird and Flower Market convening daily in the streets connecting it with the northerly, parallel Guanghua Jie. The market offers many plants such as orchids that have been collected and farmed across the province. In the small grounds of Wen Miao, a now vanished Confucian temple off the western end of Changchun Lu, there is an avenue of pines, an ancient pond and pavilion, and beds of bamboo, azaleas and potted palms - a quiet place where old men play chess and drink tea.

Bookstores

The two main bookstores are Xinhua Bookstore (on Renmin Dong Lu) and Mandarin Books (on Wenhua Xiang, near Yunnan University). Both have the largest selections of foreign-language literature and niche academic, obscure, and imported texts. The main hospital in Kunming is the Yunnan Province Red Cross hospital and emergency center on Qingnian Lu.

Wheatfield Bookstore (on Tianjundian Xiang) specializes in Chinese translations of international works.¹⁰

Museums

Yunnan Provincial Museum

About 500 m west of the center along Dongfeng Xi Lu and the #5 bus route, the Yunnan Provincial Museum has a collection of clothes and photographs of Yunnan's cultural groups. There are also Dian bronzes, dating back more than two thousand years to the Warring States Period and excavated from tombs on the shores of Dian, south of Kunming. The largest pieces include an ornamental plate of a tiger attacking an ox and a coffin in the shape of a bamboo house, but lids from storage drums used to hold cowries are the most impressive, decorated with dioramas of figurines fighting, sacrificing oxen and men and, rather more peacefully, posing with their families and farmyard animals outside their homes. A replica of the Chinese imperial gold seal given to the Dian king early on in the second century implies that his aristocratic slave society had the tacit approval of the Han emperor. There is a prehistoric section with plaster models and casts of locally found trilobites, armored fishes, and dinosaur and early human remains.

Kunming City Museum

The highlight of the Kunming City Museum, west off Beijing Lu along Tuodong Lu, is the Dali Sutra Pillar, a 6.5 m-high, pagoda-like Song dynasty sculpture in pink sandstone in its own room. An octagonal base supports seven tiers covered in Buddha images, statues of guardian gods standing on subjugated demons, and a mix of Tibetan and Chinese script, part of which is the Dharani Mantra. The rest is a dedication, identifying the pillar as being raised by the Dali regent, Yuan Douguang, in memory of his general Gao Ming. Above them is a ring of Buddhas carrying a ball symbolizing the universe. Formerly part of the defunct Dizang temple, the pillar is a powerful work, full of the energy that later seeped out of the mainstream of Chinese sculpture.

Lake Dian - viewed from the Western Hills Forest Reserve.

The other exhibits are a well-presented repeat of the Provincial Museum's collection. There is a range of bronze drums with the oldest known example to relatively recent castings, allowing one to see how the typical decorations - sun and frog designs on top, long-plumed warriors in boats around the sides, tiger handles - became so stylized. There are also cowry-drum lids, and a host of other bronze pieces of birds, animals and people. Other rooms contain two excellent dioramas of Ming dynasty and modern Kunming, accounts (in Chinese) of the voyages of Zheng He, the famous Ming eunuch admiral, and five locally found fossilized dinosaur skeletons - including a tyranosaurus-like allosaur, and the bulky Yunnanosaurus robustus.

Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology

The Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology presents the diversity of fauna, past and present, of Southwest China. A trio of dino-skeletons dominate the prehistoric exhibit on the first floor. These plant-eaters stomped around Yunnan about 200 million years ago. Though the biggest of the three is a cast, the smaller ones are genuine bones, exhumed from Yunnan's Lufeng Basin in the 1980s. Though the prehistoric exhibit is the most impressive, there are plenty of animals to be seen on all of the museum's three floors. An array of taxidermied mammals and birds lines the display cases of the second floor. Up another flight of stairs reveals a "Rainforest Adventure," which walks visitors along a path through synthetic trees, bird calls and a darkened cave. There are rigid fish and snakes entombed in formaldehyde jars.

Because of the museum's affiliation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is well positioned as both a tourist attraction and a home to future zoological scholarship. Most of the visitors come with a scientific background.

Cuihu Park

Cuihu Park (Green Lake Park) is predominately a lake surrounded by greenery. It has a large and elaborate network of waterways and winding paths, with broad, lotus-covered pools and overhanging willows. It is a place where thousands exercise, do tai qi, sing and feed flocks of gulls.

Located in the west side of the park is the statue of one of Yunnan's most famous patriots - Nie Er, the composer of China's national anthem. The only inscription is The People's Musician Nie Er. Nie Er drowned in Japan in 1935 en route to the Soviet Union in his attempt to escape Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang troops. He was 23.

Heilongtan (Black Dragon Pool)

Heilongtan 黑龙潭 or 'Black Dragon Pool' is far north of Kunming's city center. There is a goldfish-packed pond surrounded by beautiful old buildings and Buddhist statues and shrines. There are many gardens and at the top of a ridge in the end of the park is a grand view of Kunming.

Kunming Botanical Gardens

Kunming Botanical Gardens 植物园 - not to be confused with the Horticultural Expo Garden, the botanical gardens are located very close to Heilongtan (about 200 m).

Yuantong Temple

Yuantong Temple, the largest Buddhist complex in Kunming.

Yuantong Si (temple) is a northern Yunnan's major Buddhist site and an active place of pilgrimage. It is Kunming's largest and most famous temple with the original structure being first constructed more than 1,200 years ago during the Tang Dynasty. Newly renovated the Qing-vintage temple is busy, with gardens of bright pot plants just inside the entrance. A bridge over the central pond crosses through an octagonal pavilion dedicated to a multi-armed Guanyin and white marble Sakyamuni, to the threshold of the main hall, where two huge central pillars wrapped in colorful dragons support the ornate wooden ceiling. Faded frescoes on the back wall were painted in the 13th-century, while a new annexe out the back houses a graceful gilded bronze Buddha flanked by peacocks, donated by the King of Thailand and the Thai government. There is vegetarian restaurant nearby on Yuantong Jie.

Yuantong Park and Zoo

The Yuantong Si sits on the southern slope of the large Yuantong Park. Kunming's zoo, founded in 1950, is adjoined to the park. The zoo houses 5,000 animals from 140 species and receives 3 million visitors a year.¹¹

Bamboo Temple

Northwest about 12 km from the city center is the Qiongzhu Si (or Bamboo Temple) built in 639 and rebuilt in 1422 to 1428, this temple houses an incredibly vivid tableau of 500 arhats carved between 1883 and 1890 by Sichuanese sculptor Li Guangxiu and his six apprentices, who gave to each arhat a different and incredibly naturalistic facial expression and pose. It is thought that some of these arhats, who range from the emaciated to the pot-bellied, the angry to the contemplative, were carved in the images of the sculptor's contemporaries, friends, and foes. A wildly fantastical element dominates the main hall, where an arhat surfs a wave on the back of a unicorn, while another stretches a 3 m (10 ft) arm upward to pierce the ceiling.

Southern Kunming

Huating Temple in the Western Hills near Kunming.

Jinbi Lu runs roughly parallel to and south of Dongfeng Lu, reached from Beijing Lu. Two large Chinese pagodas rise in the vicinity, each a solid thirteen storeys of whitewashed brick crowned with four iron cockerels. The West Pagoda was built between 824 and 859, during the Tang Dynasty; its original counterpart, the East Pagoda, was built at the same time, but was destroyed by an earthquake in 1833 and rebuilt in the same Tang style in 1882. South down Dongsi Jie, past another mosque, the entrance to the West Pagoda is along a narrow lane on the right. In the tiny surrounding courtyard, sociable idlers while away sunny afternoons playing cards and sipping tea in the peaceful, ramshackle surroundings. The East Pagoda is a more cosmetic, slightly tilted duplicate standing in an ornamental garden a few minutes' walk east on Shulin Jie. The temples associated with both pagodas are closed to the public.

Daguan Park (大观公园) on Kunming's southwestern limits. Originally laid out by the energetic seventeenth-century Qing emperor Kangxi, it has been modified over the years to include a noisy funfair, food stalls and emporiums, and is a favourite haunt of Kunming's youth. Among shady walks and pools, Daguan's focal point is Daguan Ge, a square, three-storeyed pavilion built to better Kangxi's enjoyment of the distant Western Hills and now a storehouse of calligraphy extolling the area's charms. The most famous poem here is a 118-character verse, carved into the gateposts by the Qing scholar Sun Ran, reputed to be the longest set of rhyming couplets in China. The park is set on Daguan Stream, which flows south into Lake Dian, and there are frequent hour-long cruises down the waterway, lined with willows, to points along Lake Dian's northern shore. Lake Dian, also known as the Kunming Lake, is the largest lake on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. At Longmen of the Western Hills, there is a panoramic view of the lake.

Wenmiao Tea Garden (文庙茶园) is on Renmin Zhong Lu in the Wuhua District. It is a small tree-filled park that has a walkway, a bridge, a large pagoda and several restaurant-style booths around the edges. There is a collection of yingkesong (迎客松) aka bonsai trees. Locals play mahjong, cards and xiangqi.

Western Hills

Jiuxiang

Other landmarks

The "Garden of the Word Horticultural Exposition", located in the northern suburbs of Kunming, is six kilometers from central Kunming. From May 1 to October 31, 1999, Kunming held the 1999 World Horticulture Exposition, with the theme of "Man and Nature - Marching Toward the 21st Century". In the garden, visitors can see gardening and horticultural works from all over China and East Asia. All the horticultural works in the garden concentrate on the theme of "Man and Nature", with pavilions, towers, terraces, banks, islets and bridges.

The "Golden Hall Scenic Zone", located on the Mingfeng Hill in the northern suburbs of Kunming, is eight kilometers from central Kunming. Constructed in 1602 (the 30th year of the Wanli reign period of the Ming Dynasty), all of its beans, pillars, arches, doors, windows, tiles, Buddhist statues, and horizontal inscribed boards are made of copper, weighing more than 200 tons. It is the largest copper building in China.

A 12.2 m (40 ft) statue of Optimus Prime from Transformers is located near several automobile dealerships on Erhuan Xi Lu.¹² The Transformers cartoon was broadcast in China from 1990 onwards and has a large following among youths of that generation.¹³

Leisure and entertainment

Within Kunming, the entertainment district has its focus around Kunming Square, with many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants. Eating out is the main pleasure after dark in Kunming. Food aside, one feature of less formal Yunnanese restaurants is that they often have a communal bamboo water pipe and tobacco for their customers. Nightlife has improved recently, thanks to rising incomes and tourist population. There are plenty of student bars and clubs. The city has several operatic troupes and indigenous entertainments which include huadeng, a lantern dance. Although indoor performances are lacking, there are often informal shows at the weekend outside the Workers' Cultural Hall and in Cuihu Park. There are similar shows at the Yunnan Arts Theater on Dongfeng Xi Lu. Kunming's main cinema house is on the south side of the Dongfeng Lu/Zhengyi Lu intersection. The other main multiplex, the XJS, at the junction of Wenlin Jie and Dongfeng Xi Lu.

Art galleries

Cinemas

Kunming Movie Business company, owns three of Kunming's most popular cinemas - Xinjianshe Cinema, Renmin Cinema and Dianchi Vision Plaza. [7] The Kunming Shuncheng Mall IMAX Theater is scheduled to open in December 2008.

Film festivals

TV, film and media base

Hong Kong China International and Dianchi National Tourist Resort will jointly invest and construct a new television and film base in Kunming. The Kunming TV, Film and New Media Industry Base (昆明影视与新媒体产业基地) or "Dream City" will be built by a joint venture created for the project with an investment of three billion yuan (US$418 million) allocated for the base's first phase, which will cover three square kilometers. The base will feature television and film studios, shooting stages and equipment, state-of-the-art production facilities and video game production, and a film school established by Peking University and Beijing Film Academy.The whole project is expected to be completed by 2013 with a total investment of 17 billion yuan ($2.3 billion).¹⁴

Food

Kunming's cuisine is distinctly Yunnanese and combines fresh ingredients afforded by the moderate climate with mild herbs and spices giving its cooked dishes sufficient flavour but lacking the pungency associated with food from other regions of the country. The city's climate fosters the growth of literally hundreds of species of mushroom which are consequently a predominant feature of many dishes. There are other regional Chinese cuisines, with a few upmarket restaurants serving international dishes. Back lanes running north off Dongfeng Xi Lu or Jinbi Lu have the famous stalls and restaurants where the locals offer specialties such as grilled cheese, hotpots, fired snacks rolled in chilli powder, loaves of excellent meat-stuffed soda bread, and rich duck and chicken casseroles. The special dish of Kunming is guò qiáo mĭxiàn, a boiling, spicy soup with noodles under a layer of oil. Meat is added to the broth kept hot by the layer of oil. The legend behind "crossing bridge noodles" involves a student studying for the imperial exam (which was given once per year). He went to study on an island a short ways away from his wife and village. Everyday his wife would bring him food, but because of the distance (she had to cross a bridge) the food would get cold. The student's wife figured out that by layering the broth with oil, she could keep the food hot.

Famous Restaurants

Sports

Every year, many Chinese and international athletes come to Kunming for high-altitude training. The city has been China's national high-elevation training base for more than 30 years. There are two major training complexes, Hongta Sports Center and Haigeng National Training Center.

Haigeng National Training Center is located on Lake Dianchi near Kunming's award-winning Lakeview Golf Club and new condominium developments, and is relatively isolated. It contains eight basketball courts, weight rooms, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, a dozen football pitches, two running tracks, a pool for swimming and one for diving. It also has a large snooker hall, a room for table tennis and a volleyball gym. Athletes, coaches and team managers stay onsite in the complex's many dormitories and hotel rooms.

Hongta Sports Center was built in 2000 by one of Yunnan's largest corporations Hongta cigarette company with a cost of US$58 million. Near Haigeng Park, the complex is mostly used by professional athletes but also acts as a sports club for the general public. The general public can use all of its extensive facilities and every weekend, it hosts amateur football matches. Aside from about 10 football pitches, including one surrounded by a running track, Hongta also has a 50 m swimming pool, a badminton gymnasium, tennis courts and a basketball court. It also has one of China's few ice hockey rinks, and a workout room with treadmills and weightlifting machines. There are also game rooms for air hockey and pool tables, and a basement bowling alley. Hongta also has a 101-room hotel and restaurant.

Golf

Golf is a major attraction in Kunming - there are four golf courses within an hour's drive of downtown. For the last six years, Spring City Golf and Lake Resort in nearby Yiliang County has reigned as the best golf course in China and Hong Kong according to US Golf Digest. In 2004, it was named Asia's best golf resort by Asian Golf Monthly.² It hosts the Kunming Leg of the Omega China Tour.

Kunming has attracted foreign investment in golf course development. "Spring City" Golf Resort is a US$600 million project that began as an investment led by Singapore's Keppel Land Group in 1992. Today it is not only ranked by some as China's top golf course, but also one of the top golf destinations in all of Asia. Much of this is attributable to Keppel's financial backing in addition to having golf legend Jack Nicklaus and eminent golf course designer Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design the two courses.²

Facilities

Tourism

A canal in the city center

Kunming is among the most famous historical and cultural cities and one of the top tourist cities in China. Due to its pleasant climate, plateau scenery, age-old history, diverse ethnic customs, and unique plants and animals, Kunming attracts domestic and foreign tourists all year round. As the tourism center of Yunnan province, Kunming has also been a transport hub, from where tourists can go easily to places such as Dali, Lijiang and

Kunming.html

Contents