Wild China (2008) s01e04 Episode Script

1
The Great Wall of China
was built by the Han Chinese
to keep out the nomadic tribes
from the north.
They called these people barbarians,
and their lands were considered
barren and uninhabitable.
Northern China is indeed a harsh place
of terrible winters,
ferocious summers,
parched deserts.
But it is far from lifeless.
With colourful places,
surprising creatures,
amazing people
and strange landscapes.
The further we travel,
the more extreme it becomes.
So how do people and wildlife cope
with the hardships and challenges
of life beyond the Wall?
The northern limits of Ancient China
were defined by the Great Wall
which meanders for nearly
5,000 kilometres from east to west.
The settled Han people of the Chinese
heartland were invaded many times
by warlike tribes from the north.
The Great Wall was built to protect
the Han Chinese from invasion.
To meet those fearsome northerners
and the wild creatures
who share their world,
we must leave the shelter of the Wall
and travel into the unknown.
Northeast China was known
historically as Manchuria.
Its upper reaches are on the same
latitude as Paris
but in winter it is one of the coldest,
most hostile places on the planet.
Bitter winds from Siberia regularly
bring temperatures
of 40 degrees below zero.
Dense forests of evergreen trees
cover these lands.
And the rugged terrain is made even more
difficult by impenetrable ravines.
We start our journey on a frozen river
snaking between China's
northeasternmost corner and Siberia.
The Chinese call it
the Black Dragon River.
The people who live here
aren't exactly fearsome warriors.
They're too busy coping
with the harsh winter conditions
and they respond to the challenge
in some creative ways.
The Black Dragon River is home to one
of the smallest ethnic groups in China.
The Hezhe People.
It's not just bicycles that seem
out of place in this icy world.
Fishing boats and nets lie abandoned,
a long way from open water.
Underneath a metre of solid ice
swim a huge variety of fish,
including 500-pound sturgeon,
enough to feed a family
of Hezhe for weeks.
But how can they catch their quarry?
First they must chisel a hole through
the ice to reach the water below.
Then they need to set
their fishing net under the ice,
a real challenge.
A second hole is made,
20 metres away from the first
and a weighted string is dropped in.
Then, a long bamboo pole
is used to hook the string
and pull the net
into position beneath the ice.
After a few days, the nets are checked.
These days, almost nobody catches
a rare giant sturgeon.
The Black Dragon River has been
overfished like so many others.
But even these smaller fish
are a welcome catch.
Frozen within seconds,
the fish are guaranteed to stay fresh
for the wobbly cycle ride home.
The forests that lie south
of the Black Dragon River
are bound up in snow
for more than half the year.
It's deathly silent.
Most of the animals here
are either hibernating
or have migrated south for the winter.
But there is an exception.
Wild boars roam the forests
of the northeast.
Like the Hezhe people, the boars find it
difficult to gather food in winter.
To survive, they follow their noses,
among the keenest in the animal kingdom.
They will eat almost
anything they unearth.
But one energy-rich food source
is particularly valued.
Walnuts.
When a lucky boar finds a walnut,
there's bound to be trouble.
But despite the squabbles,
wild boars are social animals
and gather together in groups.
Staying close together may help them
to keep warm in the extreme cold.
But there is another reason
for group living.
More ears to listen out for danger.
Siberian tigers also live
in these forests.
But these days, only in captivity.
There may be less than a dozen
wild Siberian tigers left in China.
Though there are many more
in breeding centres.
This enclosure at Hengdaohezi
started breeding tigers in 1986
to supply bones and body parts for
the Chinese medicine market.
Trade in tiger parts was banned
in China in the 1990s
and the breeding centre is now
just a tourist attraction.
The forests of the northeast
stretch to where the Chinese,
Russian and Mongolian borders meet.
Here, a surprising herd of animals
is on the move.
The reindeer were introduced to China
hundreds of years ago
by the nomadic Ewenki people
who came here from Siberia.
It's late April, and the women
are calling in their reindeer,
which are semi-wild, and have spent
all winter away in the forest.
This is a very special relationship.
Each reindeer has its own name
and many were hand-reared
by these women.
Finally reunited after months apart,
they will now remain together
until autumn.
The Ewenki women are anxious
to check the condition of their animals
and to see which of the reindeer
might be pregnant.
Eighty-one-year-old Maliya Suo
is one of only 30 Ewenki people
still living the nomadic life
in these cold northern lands.
Almost all her fellow Ewenki
have given up the forest life
to settle in concrete houses
in modern cities.
The reindeer herders are now almost
as rare as wild Siberian tigers.
There's about to be a new addition
to the family.
The women act as midwives
to the newborn calves,
helping to nurture them through
their first precious minutes of life.
But the world around them
is changing fast.
This could be the last generation
this ancient partnership will endure.
This is hardly the image of
the dangerous tribal people
that the Great Wall
was built to keep at bay.
Along China's border with North Korea
is this region's most famous mountain,
Changbaishan.
Its name means Ever-White,
and it harbours the world's
highest volcanic lake.
Even in mid-May
there is still ice everywhere.
But there are signs
that the seasons are changing.
Warmer winds arrive from the south,
and within a few short weeks
Changbai Mountain is transformed.
Water begins to flow down
the mountainside once more,
replenishing the landscape.
It's June, and insects emerge to take
advantage of the abundance of flowers.
The warm weather sees
the arrival of migrant birds.
Stonechats that have spent
the winter in the south of China
return here to raise their chicks.
With so many insects around,
the stonechats may have several broods.
Heading west from Changbai Mountain,
the forests give way
to rolling grasslands.
The Great Wall stretches off
into the distance,
defining the southern limits
of the vast Mongolian Steppe.
North of the Wall
are huge areas of grassland
but one place on our journey
is particularly significant.
In the tall grass, a family of red foxes
is raising its cubs.
Today they have this meadow
pretty much to themselves.
But it wasn't always the case.
Eight centuries ago, this place would
have been teeming with people.
Now these ruins in a field
a short distance from Beijing
are all that remains
of the great city of Xanadu,
once the summer capital of China.
Within these walls it is said
that the leader of the Mongolians,
the mighty Kublai Khan,
welcomed Marco Polo to China.
Mongolian warriors established
the greatest empire in history,
stretching to the borders of Europe.
Fear of this warrior tribe
is the main reason
the Han Chinese built the Great Wall.
The cornerstone
of the Mongolian's supremacy
was their relationship with horses.
This is what brought them
such success in war.
The Mongolian raiders travelled light,
and rode with spare horses
so they could move huge distances,
strike and then retreat quicker
than their opponents.
At the heart of Mongolian culture
is horse racing.
The annual Nadam Festival,
held each July,
is a chance for young Mongolians
to show off their horsemanship.
It's said that Mongolian people
are born in the saddle.
Even as children,
they are consummate riders.
Horsemanship was the core
of the Mongolians' success
as warriors in the past,
and is central to their lives
as nomads today.
In an area of grassland
known as Bayanbulak,
families of nomadic Mongolians
are gathering.
The name Bayanbulak
means "rich headwaters"
and they've come here
to set up temporary homes
to graze their livestock
on the lush summer pastures.
The search for fresh fodder for their
animals keeps them on the go
and being able to move home
so easily is a real advantage.
It takes only a few minutes
for the Mongolian family
to set up their yurts.
But the Mongolians don't have
this place all to themselves.
The rich resources also attract
a huge variety of birds.
Demoiselle cranes,
wading birds and waterfowl
migrate here from all over Asia,
drawn to the rivers and wetlands
fed by glacial meltwater
from nearby mountains.
This place is known in China
as Swan Lake.
It's the world's most important
breeding site for whooper swans,
and arguably, mosquitoes as well.
The pastures at Swan Lake provide
endless amounts of lush grass
for birds to nest in
and for livestock to eat.
It would seem there's plenty
for everybody.
But occasionally they can get
too close for comfort.
Eight hundred years ago,
the Mongolians were
the most feared people on earth.
But they have a spiritual side as well.
The birds of Swan Lake
have little cause to worry.
The Mongolians protect the swans,
and venerate them,
calling them Birds of God.
The Great Wall's journey through
northern China continues westward
bisecting a landscape that becomes
increasingly parched.
Our journey has brought us
halfway across northern China
and the grasslands are becoming hot,
dry and desolate.
Wandering these wastes are creatures
that look more African than Asian.
These are goitered gazelles,
skittish and easily startled.
When threatened by danger,
they're as fast as a racehorse.
But in this intense heat,
they favour a gentler pace.
There's little standing water here,
but the gazelles
have a remarkable ability
to extract moisture from dry grass.
Although finding enough worth eating
keeps them constantly on the move.
Even out here in the semi-deserts,
the Wall continues its long march.
Here, it's made of little more
than compacted earth.
But with hardly any rain falling,
it's suffered very little
erosion over the centuries.
Hundreds of thousands of people
lost their lives building it.
Yet it seems hard to believe
that anyone felt
that these distant wastelands
needed protecting.
But the Wall still has
one final surprise.
This is Jiayuguan,
the mighty fortress in the desert.
Built in the Ming dynasty
over 600 years ago,
legend says that the construction of
the fortress was so meticulously planned
that 100,000 bricks were specially made
and only one brick was left unused.
This fortress marks the end
of the Great Wall of China.
The greatest man-made barrier on earth.
But ahead lies an even more
formidable barrier.
A vast no-man's land of deserts
that stretch westward
to the borders of Central Asia.
Jiayuguan Fortress was considered
to be the last outpost
of Chinese civilisation.
Beyond this point lay utter desolation.
China's largest desert,
the Taklamakan, lies out here.
Its name has been translated as
"You go in, and you never come out."
This is a place of intense heat,
abrasive wind-blown sand
totally hostile to life.
Yet there was a route
through the desert.
For those brave enough
to risk their lives for it.
People were lured into
the horrors of the deserts
because the Chinese
had a secret so powerful
that it changed the course of history.
The key to that secret lies
in the distant past.
Legend has it
that around 5,000 years ago,
a princess was walking in her garden
when something unusual
fell into her tea cup.
A magical thread was extracted
and it became more prized
than gold or jade.
The thread was silk.
Incredibly, such a beautiful substance
and all the history behind it
comes from a humble little insect.
The silkworm.
Silk moths lay several hundred eggs,
and the tiny caterpillars that emerge
eat nothing but mulberry leaves.
After 50 days of gluttony
they've grown 10,000 times heavier.
By this stage, 25% of their body mass
is made up of silk glands.
In the process of turning into
adult moths, they spin a cocoon
from a single strand of silk which
can be over 1 ,000 metres long.
It was the legendary strength
and brightness of silk fibres
that made it so sought after.
For over 5,000 years,
people built great fortunes
and mighty kingdoms
on these delicate threads.
And the desert routes
those ancient traders took
became the fabled Silk Road.
The principle of extracting raw silk
hasn't changed since its discovery.
Harvested cocoons are dropped
into boiling water
which unravels the long filaments.
These are then gathered and spun
into raw silk thread.
Here at Hotan, on the ancient Silk Road,
silk weaving is still
a cottage industry,
done the old-fashioned
way on wooden looms.
For the ancient Silk Road traders,
the problem was still
how to get the valuable silk
from the fortress at Jiayuguan
through the deserts to the markets
of Central Asia and beyond.
Those early travellers
heading west on the Silk Road
were setting off on
the worst voyage imaginable
through some of the most terrible
places on earth.
Starting with the world's
tallest sand dunes.
Strong winds whipping in from the west
blow the sand into ever higher dunes.
Over millennia, mega-dunes build up.
Walls of sand soaring
to over 500 metres tall.
Camels are the only beasts of burden
that can tackle these monstrous dunes.
Their feet are wide and splay outwards
to stop them sinking in loose sand.
The wind that whips the sand into dunes
has created other bizarre shapes
in China's western deserts.
Mysterious giant structures,
known as Yardangs,
were sculpted by flying sand.
The wind brought other hazards
to travellers in these deserts.
Marco Polo wrote,
"Sometimes the stray travellers
will hear the tramp and hum
"of a great cavalcade of people
away from the real line of march
"and taking this to be their own company
they will follow the sound.
"And when day breaks, they find that
a cheat has been put on them.
"And that they are in an ill plight."
To this day, no one knows
what causes the sands
in some parts of the desert to sing.
No wonder travellers
call this place Fury of God
and Sea of Death.
But the most severe problem
was lack of water.
The reason this place
is so intensely dry
can best be appreciated from
a satellite view.
China's deserts are the farthest place
on earth from any ocean.
This lack of water is what
created the Taklamakan.
An area the size of Germany,
covered in sand dunes,
through which the Silk Road traversed,
this is the world's largest
shifting sand desert.
Most living creatures would die here.
But the camel is uniquely equipped
for desert survival.
Its nose humidifies the dry
desert air as it breathes in,
then dehumidifies it on the way out,
conserving precious water.
The camel's thick fur
keeps it warm at night
while reflecting sunlight by day
and its body temperature
can rise by six degrees Celsius
before it even begins to sweat.
With these adaptations,
it can go for days without drinking.
For the camel trains, travel through
the desert is about moving
between one lifesaving oasis
and the next.
When they finally do
reach a drinking hole,
camels can drink up to 60 litres
of water in 10 minutes.
Without oases,
life in the Taklamakan couldn't exist
and travel would be impossible.
But nothing is permanent in the desert.
The shifting sands
and the extreme climate mean
that these precious
water sources can disappear.
This is exactly what happened
at Aydingkol Lake.
The lake bed is
the second-lowest place on earth
at 154 metres below sea level.
It's the hottest place in China
with air temperatures recorded
as high as 50 degrees Celsius
and ground temperatures
up to 80 degrees.
Yet not far from Aydingkol
is a surprise.
A thriving human settlement
in the desert.
This is Turpan oasis.
And it's famous in China
for an unexpected product.
Grapes.
But how on earth can a water-hungry crop
grow in such abundance in a desert?
The secret lies below ground.
A subterranean network
of canals known as karez
is used to channel water around
Turpan's streets and into the vineyards.
But where does the water come from?
The clue lies on the desert floor
in these lines of holes which mark
the course of
the subterranean waterways.
Over two millennia ago,
local people carved
more than 3,000 kilometres
of these canals
beneath the desert, diverting water
from the distant mountains.
Channelling the flow underground
means that less water is lost
to evaporation in the desert heat.
In August, the grapes are harvested.
This rich bounty does not go unnoticed.
In the lush vineyards of Turpan,
one animal is thriving.
Red-tailed gerbils are
hardy desert creatures,
but those in Turpan
have never had it so good.
Once the grapes have been picked,
some are sold in the market.
But most are hung up to dry
in special drying houses.
This place is far too tempting
for any rodent to resist.
Red-tailed gerbils
are excellent climbers.
But why bother when there's plenty
of bounty lying around
on the ground, unguarded?
Rather than suffering the extreme
environment in which they live,
the wildlife and people
of Turpan have found
innovative ways to cope with
conditions beyond the Wall.
But not all desert communities
were as resourceful as Turpan.
Between here and China's
western borders,
lie the ruins of many great cities.
In their day they were vibrant,
thriving places.
But in the 5th century,
the Silk Road's fortunes
took a turn for the worse.
Once again a princess was involved.
She smuggled silkworm eggs out of China.
The secret of silk was a secret no more.
And China's stranglehold on this
lucrative trade was over.
Even when Marco Polo passed along
the Silk Road in the 13th century,
many of these cities
had been dead for over 500 years.
But the Silk Road's most famous city
managed to survive.
Where the desert ends
beneath vast mountain ranges,
China's westernmost point is only
a stone's throw from the borders of
five Central Asian countries.
This is Kashgar, where east meets west.
The silk that travelled along
the Silk Road ended up here
where it's still traded today.
Kashgar is famous
for selling everything under the sun.
The local Sunday market is one of Asia's
largest and most exuberant gatherings.
But looking around the market,
it's hard to believe
you're actually in China.
Kashgar is a melting pot of
non-Chinese ethnic people.
Uyghurs, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks,
and many others.
Here, our journey heads northwards
into one of China's wildest places.
Leaving Kashgar and the Silk Road behind
we travel into the Tian Shan,
or Heavenly Mountains.
This great mountain range defines
the border between
China's most north-western province
and neighbouring
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Its majestic peaks are nearly
as high as the Himalayas
forming a natural great wall.
For much of the year
it's bound up in ice.
But the glacial meltwater
allows evergreen forests to grow.
A far cry from the deserts
south of here.
These mountains are the gateway
to some of China's
most surprising people and places.
In the upland valleys,
a family of Kazakhs
has been grazing
their livestock all summer
on the lush alpine meadows.
It's autumn, in a few weeks' time
winter snows will seal
the mountain passes.
So the Kazakhs have
decided to break camp,
and move while they still can.
Turning their backs
on the mountain pastures,
they have many long weeks
of travel ahead of them
along well-worn trails.
Their destination could hardly
be more different
from the Heavenly Mountains'
lush pastures.
These paths head into one of China's
wildest and least known places.
This is the Junggar Basin.
An arid land that lies
at the westernmost edge
of the great Gobi Desert.
The most northerly desert in the world.
The Junggar is a place of surprises.
This bizarre landscape
is called the Five Coloured Hills.
And though very little lives here now,
the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus Rex
once roamed these hills,
their fossils only discovered in 2006.
But the Junggar is not
entirely lifeless.
In the darkness,
a little Roborovski's Hamster
emerges to search for food.
They're the world's smallest hamsters,
the size of a Ping-Pong ball.
And they live in family groups
of around 10.
Unlike the Kazakhs, hamsters can't
migrate to avoid the severity of winter.
They have to prepare for difficult times
by storing up provisions
to spend the season underground.
Anyone who has kept a pet hamster
knows what an energetic little
creature it can be.
In a single night,
a hamster may cover the equivalent
of four human marathons.
But foraging far and wide
creates a problem.
How to carry the harvest
back to its nest.
Here the hamster's famous flexible
cheek pouches come into play.
They can be stuffed full of seeds
for carrying back to the burrow.
Underground, the family has special
food chambers to store the bounty.
This supply will have to last them
through the lean and cold times ahead.
Winter is on its way.
Within a few short weeks,
the Five Coloured Hills
are blanketed in snow,
driven by icy winds from Siberia.
Despite being at the same
latitude as Venice,
Asia's northern deserts have no
nearby sea to warm them
and so suffer bitterly cold winters.
When it melts next spring,
the snow will provide
moisture for grasses
and other plants to grow.
Like almost everywhere beyond the Wall,
the harsh conditions
force people and wildlife to keep
moving to find enough to survive.
The Kazakhs have arrived
from the Tian Shan mountains
to graze their animals on
the meagre pickings in the Junggar.
But the Kazakhs don't have
this place all to themselves.
Their winter migration routes take them
past a fenced enclosure in the desert.
The horses on this side of the fence
aren't domestic animals like those
belonging to the Mongolians and Kazakhs.
These are the last wild horses on earth.
Millions of them once ranged
all the way to Europe.
But now they barely number
in the hundreds.
For part of the winter
the wild horses are quarantined
to stop them mating
with the Kazakhs' horses.
That way the gene pool of the rare
wild animals can be kept pure.
There is a bigger problem, however.
The livestock and the wild horses
compete for the same food.
Many Kazakh families and their flocks
will pass through here over the winter.
By the time the wild horses
can be released from the pen,
much of the best forage will be gone.
When there's so little
to go round in the first place,
it doesn't take much for
the situation to turn critical.
Even in the least inhabited
parts of China,
wildlife and people come into conflict
in the struggle to survive.
Yet in this barren landscape,
a remarkable association between
people and wildlife persists.
A tradition harking back
almost 6,000 years.
Eighty-two-year-old Ziya carries on
a tradition that has made the Kazakhs
famous throughout China.
Every winter for most of his life,
Ziya has gone hunting
with a golden eagle.
This eagle is around five years old.
It was taken from the wild
as a chick and raised by Ziya
who trained it to return to him
after each flight.
He will keep this bird for a total of
10 seasons before setting it free.
Foxes were once the favourite
quarry for eagle hunters.
These days they almost
never catch anything.
As in many parts of China,
wildlife is far scarcer here
than it used to be.
When Ziya finally releases this eagle,
it will be the end of his hunting days.
Many of the younger generation
of China's nomads
are moving to modern cities
and leaving their traditions behind,
their lives no longer ruled
by the changing of the seasons.
Back in the northeast, in mid-winter,
the Great Wall still dominates
the landscape.
Originally built to keep out
dangerous warriors,
today it is little more
than a curiosity.
The Han Chinese,
whose ancestors built the wall,
now live in great cities like Harbin,
far to the north.
Each year, the artists of Harbin get
ready for a special winter celebration.
Giant blocks of ice from nearby rivers
undergo a magical transformation.
Tourists flock to Harbin
from all over China
to see the spectacular carvings,
and the ice city
that has sprung up all around.
It takes 10,000 people 18 days
to construct this icy wonderland.
It's impressive enough by day.
But the magic of this place only becomes
apparent once the sun goes down.
Northern China can be a harsh place,
but also a place of great beauty.
The Harbin Ice Festival shows
how attitudes have changed
since the Great Wall was built.
No longer are the extremes of life
beyond the Wall merely to be feared.
Now it is possible to
celebrate them, too.