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Hunan Travel Blogs

Background: For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.

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By goffnstace
August 23rd 2005

We knew it wasn't going to be easy

Asia » China » Hunan

Sleeping Beauty
Her first night with us. Man, is this cute or what??

Thanks again for reading, writing comments and emails, and pr-ing for us...it means sooooo much. As you're reading this now, we'd appreciate it if you send up another one on our behalf. We're pretty beat up...it's only been 24 hours and little baby Sarah's been bawling for about 7 of those. Part of it is our fault...we just didn't have the right food ready to feed her last night when she woke up for her midnight feeding (according to her charts, she eats four times a day, roughly every six hours). After a couple of hours of anguish, she finally fell [View Full Entry]

By goffnstace
August 22nd 2005

Spicy Girl

Asia » China » Hunan

Sarah's Hom-coming!

She’s here! Whoo-hoo! Sarah’s finally come home…and mommy and daddy couldn’t be happier. Sarah, on the other hand, could have been. She’s been crying off and on ever since we got on the bus to return to the hotel, and it was only in the past few hours that she’s calmed down and seemed to be at peace. Right now she’s sleeping, and she’s just absolutely adorable. We just love looking at her!  The meeting actually started off much better than we expected. We walked into the room with a lot of excitement, and saw her immediately among 3 o [View Full Entry]

By Dawei
July 10th 2005

Mt Hengshan!!

Asia » China » Hunan » Xiangtan

Me
Me. On a mountain. Yay!

Mt Hengshan in known as the Southern Peak, or Nanyue, consists of 72 peaks, and rises 1266m above sea level, although it felt like a lot more! This was my first real mountain, and I reached the summit on July the 4th with 2 mates that I met on the local basketball courts; Socrates and Chen Yue. Together, we laughed all the way up on our 11hr hike, everyone helping each other with every difficulty encountered. It was spectacular. We got lost, found dead ends, had to retrace our path, took a stupidly long route, and at the top I [View Full Entry]

um... excuse me, which way to... enlightenment?

By Dawei
June 29th 2005

Praise, Politics, Pandas, and Chairman Mao. And a pair of stray tigers (not including myself)

Asia » China » Hunan » Xiangtan

Four outdoor basketball courts! And NOBODY can slamdunk :(
The building behind me dates back to 1366!!! It's the other side of the courtyard in which I'm staying now, which also has an exercise gym, football pitch, FOUR outdoor basketball courts, a badmington... [more]

WooHoo! I've managed to add this town into this website, and I feel all proud.. Seeing as I lived here 16 years ago, lots of the retired teachers seem to expect me to remember them! C'mon, I was three years old! I feel a bit strange about constantly being praised about things I feel I have (or had) no influence/control over -such as my height, (I seem to tower over most chinese) and my English, which I was inevitably going to pick up, seeing as that's where I grew up. Things I actually worked for (like exams, extra-currricular activities and voluntary [View Full Entry]

By Dawei
June 27th 2005

Xiangtan

Asia » China » Hunan

Summer enclosure
Stranded for the winter, I begin to understand their art and philosophy grow to love these strange people. I am, The Last Samurai. I mean, Tourist.

I've now reached the town where I was born, Xiangtan. In contrast to Shenzhen, nothing seems to have changed here and I still have strange black and white memories of running up the three or four steps where my grandad worked, to meet him after work. This was before I left China, so I must have been no older than four. My grandparents still live in the college compound where they worked as teachers, and time here seems at a standstill. The town is too small to be listed on this website, so i've had to settle for just showing the [View Full Entry]

By Bill
January 16th 2005

On the Go--China and Pakistan

Asia » China » Hunan

Sunday 16th Jan.2005 Just another test to see if I can add an item. Dobby is still working hard to finance his trip to China and Pakistan. He will be coming home to NZ for a week in Feb to get his shots of Hepatitis A and Typhoid then it's back to Sydney for a while before it's off into the unknown. [View Full Entry]

By Lexman
August 28th 2001

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Asia » China » Hunan

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Here I am standing against a backdrop of a sheer 14,000 foot wall in the Tiger Leaping Gorge park near Lijiang, China. The mighty Yangtze River was racing through the gorge just below. The 14,000 foot mountain in the background is called Jade Snow Dragon. The movie screen (the mountain's wall) was changing every few minutes, going from cloudy to sunny to rainy and back to sunny in a matter of minutes. These five days were the highlight of my trip to China. [View Full Entry]

Travel Blog » Asia » China » Hunan