Dear Family and
Friends,
In his 1933
classic, Lost Horizon, John Hilton described a utopian, idyllic valley he
called Shangri-La. Inspired by the
real life exploits of George Leigh-Mallory who lost his life in 1924 attempting
to climb Mt. Everest, Shangri-La was somewhere in the Tibetan Himalayan
mountains. Shangri-La was a place
of peace and security; living was not a struggle but a lasting delight. People did not age; there were no wars. The society was based around a 'Lamasery'
(a Tibetan Monastery) in a beautiful, snowless, sunny, fertile land called the
Valley of the Blue Moon.
Ever since the
publication of Hilton's novel, people have speculated as to the actual
whereabouts of this wondrous place.
Wonder no more. The Chinese
government, always eager to adopt anything that will bolster tourism, has now
proclaimed Shangri-La is, in fact, the old city of Zhongdian (in the Diqing
Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest Yunnan Province). So, Zhongdian no longer exists, and
thus I found myself in Shangri-La.
(The local Tibetans don’t give a shit what the Chinese call their city. They call their home Gyelthang. It never was Zhongdian, and it won’t be
Shangri-La.)
