Hello.
I would like to first off say that I'm a realist. I don't believe in Red or Blue, or Conservative or Democrat. I believe in what happens on the ground. Perhaps that would be obvious given that I try to document reality and real life on a daily basis. I take my political ideology from what I see in my daily life. I take my understanding of what state our society or planet is in by my work, my travel and my experiences. And after reading a special report by the Economist, a few weeks back, on population growth I have a few comments I'd like to share on this blog. I hope you'll find them thought provoking, and a strong base for debate.
I think it is important to start out by saying that I live in China, the world's most populous country. At the moment there are around 1.3 or 1.4 billion people that call China home; that means just about 1 in every 4 people in the world is Chinese.
Within China I travel almost weekly, visiting cities and rural communities alike, and often after my jobs are completed and I make my way back to my home in Shanghai (a city of 20 million) I can't help but often think to myself that there are just too many people in this country. It's impossible for them all to obtain a high standard of living and it's impossible for the government to reach each person with basic government services like education and healthcare. There is just too much to manage, democracy or no democracy; managing a country effectively with more than a billion people might just not be possible. One only has to look to democratic India to see how messy democratic development can be.
Sure that might sound like a good excuse, "oh, we have too many people to govern effectively"; but it could actually have a lot of truth to it. Too many people means competition is intense at every level of society which leaves the masses feeling often helpless, which often leads to people thinking that corruption is their only escape or way out. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but when I see ten year old kids coming out of school exams crying hysterically because they didn't do well and they won't get in to a good middle school, echoing words like: "my life is over", "I've failed my parents", and "I'll never get a good job"; I can't help but thinking that is a lot of pressure for a ten year old kid. When I was ten years old Canada had about 25 million people, a shade more than Shanghai, and I can't remember ever feeling like that - even right up until the end of my University career. So what is my point?
My point is that I'm starting to get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I visit a small village somewhere in rural China and see a husband and wife with 5 or 6 kids and not enough food or clothes to go around. I'm pained by reading about Philippine laborers losing their jobs in Taiwan and having to return to Manila with no money and no plan to feed their wife and five children. I'm exhausted by reading about how the world needs Chinese citizens to consume more, to what end? As our societies evolve and women have more educational and employment opportunities birth rates do fall, and they have started falling across much of the world; and that is a good thing. Very few of us, less than 1/4 of the global population, live in an environment where our only form of social security comes from the number of children we have. And hopefully that number will continue to decrease, in fact it must.
While the joys of having children and rising a family are obvious, so too are the successes of family planning and lighter forms of population control. Any country that promotes abstinence should be smacked for thinking the world lives in a sitcom from the 1950s. People have sex, and lots of it; often because it feels great and is a lot of fun if done so responsibly; so getting condoms and educating people how to use them is crucial. And there is a lot of evidence of that paying dividends in Africa and parts of Asia. The Economist even reported that women in Latin America and Asia used condoms 4x more often then women in Africa, so there is still much work to be done on the micro-planning level.
What about the macro-level? How does government family planning work? Well, like all macro planning; it is often very painful for some at the ground level but often better for the society as a whole. Much has been made of China's "One Child Policy" since it's inception in the late 1970s, but reports show that that policy alone has prevented about 400 million new births; meaning that the population of China is today only 1.3 billion instead of 1.7 billion and there are only 20 million new graduates entering the labor market each year instead of 40 million. Now it is true that such macro level planning restricts individual rights and freedoms, there have been horror stories of forced abortions, abandonment of baby girls, sterilization and all the rest of it; but can you imagine the energy demands of a China with 1.7 billion people? Already with 1.3 billion China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, one could make the argument that effective macro level population control in China is benefiting the global environment. Are individuals responsible enough to make the right choices on their own? Do they know what is best for them? Often yes, but perhaps sometimes no.
The Economist reports that the world population is likely to peak around 9.6 billion people in 2050, and then decline from there. China will actually start declining much sooner and be taken over by India as the most populous country in the world; which is a very scary prospect for both urban and rural Indians. Between now and 2050 our world needs to figure out a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, find ways to generate renewable energy, waste less, consume less, produce more food, use water more efficiently, create better infrastructure, manage mega cities more effectively and above all else (as the Chinese government would say) keep political stability.
It's really an incredible task. I read the other day that a woman in the US had seven babies at one time, a result of fertility drugs; and that she is on welfare and hasn't held a steady job in years. I also read that in 1949 when the Communist government took control of China there were only 350 million people here. Can the world prosper with less people? Yes. Can individuals throughout the world become responsible and educated global citizens and manage issues like individual birth rates, waste and consumption on their own? I really hope so.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Economist
Hello.
Why does the Economist hate photographers so much?
I mean, they don't really hate photographers. The Economist is a big picture buyer and their magazine is getting thicker and thicker each year. My reason for my opening statement is that they don't credit any photography; and recently they used one of my images from a computer factory in Shenzhen, and there was no credit in the magazine and only a "Corbis" credit online. See below.
Now, I think I understand why they don't credit writers for their magazine; and it's because they are all staffers and they don't want to draw away from the brand of the Economist and let any individual writers become larger than the actual magazine. And that is fair enough assuming people are compensated enough for giving up that opportunity.
But freelance photographers, and writers as well, rely so much on proper captioning as a form of marketing or advertising. I've had a lot of re-sales over the years from people who viewed an image in a newspaper or magazine and picked out my name in the caption, then googled me and found my website or archive.
So why does the Economist do that? Anyone have any inside information? While it might get on my nerves personally, you can't really fault the Economist and their methods or business plan. Their magazine is booming, in both terms of subscriptions and advertising, while the rest of the industry is falling in to a dark hole. I've been a subscriber for five or six years and I couldn't image living without my weekly edition; if for nothing else it gives me a lot of blog about.
Economist Picture:
_________________________________
Back to the circuit board
Oct 22nd 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
Tech firms are doing so well that boosters say they will spur a broader economic recovery. That is unlikely.
THIS year’s Web 2.0 Summit, an annual technology conference in San Francisco, featured a reception at a swanky hotel dubbed “Web After Dark”. The event was packed with euphoric entrepreneurs toasting their grand plans. Conference veterans noted the contrast with the previous year’s summit, which many attendees spent drowning their sorrows as the world economy sank into chaos.
There is plenty of other evidence that the darkness that has hung over the information-technology industry for many months is lifting. Three of the sector’s heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Google—recently reported surprisingly robust profits. Even Yahoo!, a struggling internet portal, did less badly than expected. On October 19th Apple stunned even the most bullish investors by posting its best quarterly results ever: revenues came in at $9.9 billion, 24% higher than the same period a year earlier. Venture-capital investments in America are growing again. And Windows 7, the new operating system Microsoft launched on October 22nd, is expected to pep up demand for personal computers and related gear. The OECD believes a recovery has been under way for some time, particularly in Asia.
All this is more than welcome. But the wave of good news has also helped to buoy the industry’s infamous self-regard. Some even predict that IT will pull the economy out of the mire, with investment in technology giving a swift boost to productivity and job creation. As Edward Yardeni, an economist known for his optimism, has put it: “This will be a technology-led recovery.”
Just how much of a boost IT can provide is a subject of some contention. Both Forrester and Gartner, the industry’s leading research firms, predict that the downturn will bottom out in the current quarter and that growth will resume next year. Yet the two firms differ on the severity of the recession in IT and, more importantly, the speed at which the industry will pull out of its slump. Forrester sees a V-shaped future, whereas Gartner envisages more of an L, with revenues remaining below last year’s level until 2012 at the earliest.
There are good reasons to be conservative. For a start, talk of rapid growth in percentage terms disguises low absolute numbers, thanks to the depth of the recent contraction. If venture-capital investments in America were up by an impressive 17% in the third quarter, according to the National Venture Capital Association, this was mainly because they had dropped to an historic low. The volatile dollar muddles the picture as well. For almost a year, the currency’s increasing strength weighed heavily on the results of American IT firms by devaluing foreign revenues. Now its increasing weakness makes their numbers look far healthier.
In addition, excellent results at Apple, Google and even Intel reflect increased demand from consumers. Apple has benefited from the boom in smart-phones, Google from users clicking on more advertisements and Intel from the popularity of “netbooks” (small laptops), many of which contain its chips. But companies still account for by far the biggest chunk of technology spending. IBM, which offers the entire range of corporate IT services, from powerful computers to consulting services, is therefore a much better proxy for the overall health of the IT industry. Although its profits were better than expected, its revenues fell by nearly 7% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.
Moreover, it is likelier that the economy, supported by low interest rates and stimulus programmes, is reviving IT, rather than the other way around—a function of IT’s increasing pervasiveness. It now accounts for over half of American firms’ investment in equipment (see chart). In the countries of the OECD, the organisation’s secretariat estimates, it accounts for more than 8% of value-added and nearly 6% of employment. Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist at the OECD, says, “For most OECD countries, the prospects are of a very fragile and weak recovery, for the overall economy and thus for IT.”
Even if corporate investment in IT does bounce back faster than expected, it could be some time before the effects feed through to the broader economy. In a new book, “Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology Is Reshaping The Economy”, Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adam Saunders of the Wharton School point out that it usually takes five to seven years for IT investments to produce substantial returns because it typically takes that long for companies to make the organisational changes needed to capitalise on the new technology. What is more, Mr Brynjolfsson points out, the recession has encouraged companies to focus their IT investments on boosting the productivity of shrunken workforces, which may mean that unemployment remains stubbornly high for some time to come.
So the parties in San Francisco seem premature. Yet the recession has also accelerated trends that could make for a bigger celebration later. It has speeded up the adoption of promising new technologies, such as cloud and mobile computing. Without the crisis, consumers might not have rushed to buy cheap netbooks or even smart-phones. Needing to cut investment, companies looked more closely at software delivered as a service over the internet. One firm that has grown consistently this year is Salesforce.com, the largest provider of such offerings.
These trends have also been fuelled by the shift of the industry’s centre of gravity to emerging markets, where consumers have less money to spend on technology and companies are more likely to outsource their IT (see article). Countries such as China and India have seen IT spending increase by up to 30% annually in recent years and account for much of the industry’s recent growth. Between 2003 and 2008, developing countries’ share of spending on IT grew from 15% to 24%, according to the OECD. Developing countries also make more than half of the world’s electronics. China alone churns out more than a quarter, compared with just 3% in 1995, according to Reed Electronics, another market-research firm.
As for rich countries, the crisis has prompted governments to speed up IT investments which might otherwise not have become a priority for years, says the OECD’s Mr Wunsch-Vincent. The stimulus packages of most countries in the OECD include large sums for smart power grids, digitisation of health records and the deployment of broadband networks. All this, he says, should boost productivity and employment in time, provided the politicians have spent wisely—a big if.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Why does the Economist hate photographers so much?
I mean, they don't really hate photographers. The Economist is a big picture buyer and their magazine is getting thicker and thicker each year. My reason for my opening statement is that they don't credit any photography; and recently they used one of my images from a computer factory in Shenzhen, and there was no credit in the magazine and only a "Corbis" credit online. See below.
Now, I think I understand why they don't credit writers for their magazine; and it's because they are all staffers and they don't want to draw away from the brand of the Economist and let any individual writers become larger than the actual magazine. And that is fair enough assuming people are compensated enough for giving up that opportunity.
But freelance photographers, and writers as well, rely so much on proper captioning as a form of marketing or advertising. I've had a lot of re-sales over the years from people who viewed an image in a newspaper or magazine and picked out my name in the caption, then googled me and found my website or archive.
So why does the Economist do that? Anyone have any inside information? While it might get on my nerves personally, you can't really fault the Economist and their methods or business plan. Their magazine is booming, in both terms of subscriptions and advertising, while the rest of the industry is falling in to a dark hole. I've been a subscriber for five or six years and I couldn't image living without my weekly edition; if for nothing else it gives me a lot of blog about.
Economist Picture:
_________________________________
Back to the circuit board
Oct 22nd 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
Tech firms are doing so well that boosters say they will spur a broader economic recovery. That is unlikely.
THIS year’s Web 2.0 Summit, an annual technology conference in San Francisco, featured a reception at a swanky hotel dubbed “Web After Dark”. The event was packed with euphoric entrepreneurs toasting their grand plans. Conference veterans noted the contrast with the previous year’s summit, which many attendees spent drowning their sorrows as the world economy sank into chaos.
There is plenty of other evidence that the darkness that has hung over the information-technology industry for many months is lifting. Three of the sector’s heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Google—recently reported surprisingly robust profits. Even Yahoo!, a struggling internet portal, did less badly than expected. On October 19th Apple stunned even the most bullish investors by posting its best quarterly results ever: revenues came in at $9.9 billion, 24% higher than the same period a year earlier. Venture-capital investments in America are growing again. And Windows 7, the new operating system Microsoft launched on October 22nd, is expected to pep up demand for personal computers and related gear. The OECD believes a recovery has been under way for some time, particularly in Asia.
All this is more than welcome. But the wave of good news has also helped to buoy the industry’s infamous self-regard. Some even predict that IT will pull the economy out of the mire, with investment in technology giving a swift boost to productivity and job creation. As Edward Yardeni, an economist known for his optimism, has put it: “This will be a technology-led recovery.”
Just how much of a boost IT can provide is a subject of some contention. Both Forrester and Gartner, the industry’s leading research firms, predict that the downturn will bottom out in the current quarter and that growth will resume next year. Yet the two firms differ on the severity of the recession in IT and, more importantly, the speed at which the industry will pull out of its slump. Forrester sees a V-shaped future, whereas Gartner envisages more of an L, with revenues remaining below last year’s level until 2012 at the earliest.
There are good reasons to be conservative. For a start, talk of rapid growth in percentage terms disguises low absolute numbers, thanks to the depth of the recent contraction. If venture-capital investments in America were up by an impressive 17% in the third quarter, according to the National Venture Capital Association, this was mainly because they had dropped to an historic low. The volatile dollar muddles the picture as well. For almost a year, the currency’s increasing strength weighed heavily on the results of American IT firms by devaluing foreign revenues. Now its increasing weakness makes their numbers look far healthier.
In addition, excellent results at Apple, Google and even Intel reflect increased demand from consumers. Apple has benefited from the boom in smart-phones, Google from users clicking on more advertisements and Intel from the popularity of “netbooks” (small laptops), many of which contain its chips. But companies still account for by far the biggest chunk of technology spending. IBM, which offers the entire range of corporate IT services, from powerful computers to consulting services, is therefore a much better proxy for the overall health of the IT industry. Although its profits were better than expected, its revenues fell by nearly 7% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.
Moreover, it is likelier that the economy, supported by low interest rates and stimulus programmes, is reviving IT, rather than the other way around—a function of IT’s increasing pervasiveness. It now accounts for over half of American firms’ investment in equipment (see chart). In the countries of the OECD, the organisation’s secretariat estimates, it accounts for more than 8% of value-added and nearly 6% of employment. Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist at the OECD, says, “For most OECD countries, the prospects are of a very fragile and weak recovery, for the overall economy and thus for IT.”
Even if corporate investment in IT does bounce back faster than expected, it could be some time before the effects feed through to the broader economy. In a new book, “Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology Is Reshaping The Economy”, Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adam Saunders of the Wharton School point out that it usually takes five to seven years for IT investments to produce substantial returns because it typically takes that long for companies to make the organisational changes needed to capitalise on the new technology. What is more, Mr Brynjolfsson points out, the recession has encouraged companies to focus their IT investments on boosting the productivity of shrunken workforces, which may mean that unemployment remains stubbornly high for some time to come.
So the parties in San Francisco seem premature. Yet the recession has also accelerated trends that could make for a bigger celebration later. It has speeded up the adoption of promising new technologies, such as cloud and mobile computing. Without the crisis, consumers might not have rushed to buy cheap netbooks or even smart-phones. Needing to cut investment, companies looked more closely at software delivered as a service over the internet. One firm that has grown consistently this year is Salesforce.com, the largest provider of such offerings.
These trends have also been fuelled by the shift of the industry’s centre of gravity to emerging markets, where consumers have less money to spend on technology and companies are more likely to outsource their IT (see article). Countries such as China and India have seen IT spending increase by up to 30% annually in recent years and account for much of the industry’s recent growth. Between 2003 and 2008, developing countries’ share of spending on IT grew from 15% to 24%, according to the OECD. Developing countries also make more than half of the world’s electronics. China alone churns out more than a quarter, compared with just 3% in 1995, according to Reed Electronics, another market-research firm.
As for rich countries, the crisis has prompted governments to speed up IT investments which might otherwise not have become a priority for years, says the OECD’s Mr Wunsch-Vincent. The stimulus packages of most countries in the OECD include large sums for smart power grids, digitisation of health records and the deployment of broadband networks. All this, he says, should boost productivity and employment in time, provided the politicians have spent wisely—a big if.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 13, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: New Work from Chinese Turkistan
Hello,
I just wanted to write to make you aware of some new work I've completed on my multi-year project about Chinese Turkistan, or China's northwestern Xinjiang province.
The project has been an exciting progression in both the disciplines of anthropology and photography, in an attempt to emulate the methodology of the great documentary photographers of the past century. It's been a most challenging task, and at stages it has been an incredibly rewarding process. The task at hand, is still that of documenting a culture and a way of life that is struggling to come to grips with an ever expanding Chinese presence throughout the region. This struggle, in my opinion, will always exist at some level; and my documentary project may never have a finite ending because of that. But still I continue to visit the region several times a year, capturing glimpses of a culture on its last legs - so to speak.
Xinjiang was in the news for all of the wrong reasons during much of July and August for ethnic riots in the city of Urumqi. And while Urumqi was clearly the flashpoint, the rest of China's largest province remains relatively calm as the local population comes to terms with the development goals of the regional government. Below are two links. The first is to a series of new work, some of which was included in a gallery show that I had in Toronto, Canada in August 2009. The second link is a wider edit of both new and old work covering the last several years.
The New Work:
LINK: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
A Wide Edit of Old and New work:
LINK: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, November 06, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Bizarre Driver
Hello.
As part of my profession, I end up hiring a lot of drivers. Almost every job I am involved in requires me to travel somewhere and hire a driver so that I can get either from A to B, or so I can make multiple visits in one day without worrying about standing around waiting for taxi's.
With that being said I can say with confidence that I've hired hundreds of drivers over the last nine years in China. I've had the chain smokers, the mobile phone talkers, the drunks, and one who fell asleep at the wheel. But don't think it is all negative; I've had a few gems as well.
Last week I was bumbling around Hainan Island working on a story and I hired a driver to take me from the provincial capital in Haikou along the coast to south to Sanya. The drive was very pretty and at one point, after cruising through endless stretches of cocunut plantations, we came across a massive mountain right on the coast.
My natural reaction when I see something like that is: let's get to the top and see what the coast line looks like. And after convincing my driver it would be exciting to veer off our original path for just a few minutes, he said he would try the road that seemed to be leading up the mountain. And so we followed the narrow switch backs for almost 20 minutes twisting and turning until we reached near the top of the mountain. Once there, it was just a short walk up some bamboo stairs to the summit of the mountain, and endless views north along Hainan's coast. I popped out of the car and started towards the stairs, my assistant was close behind me; but alas the driver stayed put.
Dumbfounded I walked back to the car and asked him if he wanted to come along? Then mentioning that I wanted him to join us. He said no and reclined his seat and closed his eyes. I asked him if he had been up to the top of this mountain before, he said no; never having opened his eyes. I let it go.
Upon reaching the summit I was amazed by the incredibly beautiful coast line; I shot a bunch of shots with several different lenses and once finished I just sat back and gazed out at the ocean for a good half an hour; taking in the salty sea air. It was a perfect moment of relaxation after a few hectic days of traveling and shooting.
Upon getting back to the car my assignment was beaming about how lovely the view was, my driver had been out cold; sleeping like a log. Once we got back in to the car I asked again if he would like to take a quick peak, he said no, started his car and we carried on with our trip down to Sanya.
Odd? Normal? Lazy? Unmotivated? Generally unhappy? Focused? Goal Oriented? Exhausted?
It strikes me as odd that sometimes in China, particularly men, don't seem very adventurous or care much to seek out the natural beauty of their own country. Are they above it all? Or just simply uninterested? I couldn't believe it when my driver said he wasn't going to come with us. There was not even an entrance fee. It was free. Clearly you don't have to be a photographer to enjoy an incredible mountain top coastal view. What gives?
Mountain Viewing Note: Travel from Haikou to Wenjiao on the provincial highway. From Wenjiao continue East until you reach LongLou. Once you get their you'll be able to see the massive mountain. Just head due East, straight to the ocean. At the bottom of the mountain you'll see signed that indicate that the site is a nature reserve, then about half way up you'll see another sign asking you to turn back and that it is forbidden to enter; ignore that one and keep ascending. You'll have to park you're car at the Chinese Naval Base at the summit of the mountain, don't worry there are fairly tourist friendly. Stay away from the base and take the bamboo stairs up to the summit, opposite the base. Enjoy the view.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
As part of my profession, I end up hiring a lot of drivers. Almost every job I am involved in requires me to travel somewhere and hire a driver so that I can get either from A to B, or so I can make multiple visits in one day without worrying about standing around waiting for taxi's.
With that being said I can say with confidence that I've hired hundreds of drivers over the last nine years in China. I've had the chain smokers, the mobile phone talkers, the drunks, and one who fell asleep at the wheel. But don't think it is all negative; I've had a few gems as well.
Last week I was bumbling around Hainan Island working on a story and I hired a driver to take me from the provincial capital in Haikou along the coast to south to Sanya. The drive was very pretty and at one point, after cruising through endless stretches of cocunut plantations, we came across a massive mountain right on the coast.
My natural reaction when I see something like that is: let's get to the top and see what the coast line looks like. And after convincing my driver it would be exciting to veer off our original path for just a few minutes, he said he would try the road that seemed to be leading up the mountain. And so we followed the narrow switch backs for almost 20 minutes twisting and turning until we reached near the top of the mountain. Once there, it was just a short walk up some bamboo stairs to the summit of the mountain, and endless views north along Hainan's coast. I popped out of the car and started towards the stairs, my assistant was close behind me; but alas the driver stayed put.
Dumbfounded I walked back to the car and asked him if he wanted to come along? Then mentioning that I wanted him to join us. He said no and reclined his seat and closed his eyes. I asked him if he had been up to the top of this mountain before, he said no; never having opened his eyes. I let it go.
Upon reaching the summit I was amazed by the incredibly beautiful coast line; I shot a bunch of shots with several different lenses and once finished I just sat back and gazed out at the ocean for a good half an hour; taking in the salty sea air. It was a perfect moment of relaxation after a few hectic days of traveling and shooting.
Upon getting back to the car my assignment was beaming about how lovely the view was, my driver had been out cold; sleeping like a log. Once we got back in to the car I asked again if he would like to take a quick peak, he said no, started his car and we carried on with our trip down to Sanya.
Odd? Normal? Lazy? Unmotivated? Generally unhappy? Focused? Goal Oriented? Exhausted?
It strikes me as odd that sometimes in China, particularly men, don't seem very adventurous or care much to seek out the natural beauty of their own country. Are they above it all? Or just simply uninterested? I couldn't believe it when my driver said he wasn't going to come with us. There was not even an entrance fee. It was free. Clearly you don't have to be a photographer to enjoy an incredible mountain top coastal view. What gives?
Mountain Viewing Note: Travel from Haikou to Wenjiao on the provincial highway. From Wenjiao continue East until you reach LongLou. Once you get their you'll be able to see the massive mountain. Just head due East, straight to the ocean. At the bottom of the mountain you'll see signed that indicate that the site is a nature reserve, then about half way up you'll see another sign asking you to turn back and that it is forbidden to enter; ignore that one and keep ascending. You'll have to park you're car at the Chinese Naval Base at the summit of the mountain, don't worry there are fairly tourist friendly. Stay away from the base and take the bamboo stairs up to the summit, opposite the base. Enjoy the view.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
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