Hi all, thought you might be interested in this.
The last full lunar eclipse to occur until 2014 is on THIS SATURDAY, the 10th of December.
The eclipse will not be fully visible to much of the world, but lucky Yunnan residents get to see the whole thing! (Check out shadowandsubstance.com/20111210ecl/USA12102011a.png for a world map).
Having seen a similar event earlier this year in India, I can recommend making the effort to get out and see it.
The local timings for viewing the event in Kunming, courtesy of NASA at eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JLEX/JLEX-AS.html, are as follows.
The initial penumbral (partial / 'shadow cast by the edge of the earth's atmosphere') eclipse begins at 19:34.
The partial umbral (actual hard shadow from the earth) eclipse begins at 20:46.
The total eclipse begins at 22:06. As this begins, be on the look out for special colours on the moon. Once it sets in, the moon will apparently be coloured with a reddish or orange hue of unknown nature, due to unpredictable atmospheric conditions at the time. Mid-eclipse will occur almost half an hour later at 22:32. The total eclipse will end at 22:57. The partial eclipse will end at 00:18 and the penumbral eclipse will end at 01:30AM on Sunday, December 11.
It might be worth getting a little out of town to see this. I'm thinking of going to see from the cemetery parking lot on Yu'an Shan, accessible by a small road leading off the main one up to Bamboo Temple. To get there, head directly west from Xuefu Lu / Huangtupo.
If someone has a car I'd appreciate a lift!
Enjoy,
Walter
2012: The Year in Review
Posted by"Cavemen were found near Jianshui" .. actually the location was more like "the lower Yunnense Red River" .. south of the river .. closer to Dienbienphu in Vietnam.
Bronze Age relics unearthed in Baoshan
Posted byErr make that 1700-1800 years. Damn lack of edit feature. (Boo, hiss!)
Bronze Age relics unearthed in Baoshan
Posted byThis is mostly interesting as because Baoshan is the southwesternmost major Han outpost referenced in early Chinese historical literature.
Unlike Sichuan, whose great plain was fairly definitively under Han dominance some 1000 years earlier, Yunnan's real Sinification really only began under the Yuan dynasty (1271 or so onwards... though a few decades later would see the beginnings of real change in Yunnan). Despite early references to Han parties reaching Kunming and other parts of Yunnan, evidence of serious Han cultural impact on Yunnan remains limited before that period. And this is *500-600 years* before that period.
For those interested in history, I'd highly recommend reading the Chinese accounts of the Yi people of the Sichuan/Yunnan borderland (still dominating most of far-southern Sichuan, ie. pretty much everything south of the plain), including how their queen wisely facilitated the passage of the Mongols in to Yunnan by brokering introductions to neighbouring ethnic groups to avoid a bloody war. While the Han have erected a "Museum to the Living Fossil of the Yi Slave Society" (or something equally condescending and dismissive) in that part of Sichuan, a quick trip around reveals just how important they must have been in the past.
The Ailao people would have been a known neighbour of the Yi to the west (via the Dali and Lijiang plains), as would have been the Naxi of Lijiang, the nearby Mosuo and the Tibetans to their northwest. Tai peoples migrated ever-south from southern Sichuan onward to the tropics.
This compounds archaeological interest in Yunnan, which this year saw the discovery of the Red Deer Cave People just south of the Red River that drains Yunnan's southeast (from about Dali, down to Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam), and the earliest Yunnanese stilted house ruins were recently discovered at Jianchuan (on the old Lijiang-Zhongdian road, just south of the big bend in the Yangtse river southwest of Tiger Leaping Gorge), and are also a major recent archaeological find.
Yunnan, along with neighbouring Myanmar (whose internal issues have caused problems with archaeological research in post-colonial times), probably form one of the most exciting archaeological zones in Asia for the coming decades. We live in interesting times!
Getting Away: Lincang
Posted byI second Cangyuan and Mengding.
Cangyuan has loads of neolithic paintings nearby, some traditional Wa villages, and a huge cave.
Mengding has the only maintained ming-era administrator's home I'm aware of in all of Yunnan, and it has been turned in to a great little museum.
AirAsia in Yunnan - better late than never
Posted byInteresting. In Bali right now, just checked that out, couldn't find a fare that cheap from KL to KM over the next couple of months. Maybe expired or sold out already or just a very short-range of dates. Anyway, good to know there's flights.
I know an absolutely exceptional and cheap hostel in KL... folks interested can email for details.