One of my trips through the middle kingdom landed me in 张家界 (Zhangjiajie) in the southern province of 湖南 (Hunan).

The karst landcapes of this UNESCO World Heritage site are famous all over the country, so I was very excited when I got there.

And it was magnificient:

October 5th 2006, 张家界 (Zhangjiajie).

I spent a whole day in the mountain paths.

There didn’t seem to be that many tourists around, probably because there was a constant notion of rain in the air. Sometimes it was absolutely quiet, and I remember it felt somewhat like walking around within the realms of an old poem.

When I got to a lake, I decided on a boat trip to the other side. I sat down in the boat. Then a Korean couple sat down next to me, then another one. Then the whole boat was full of Koreans. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They were all wearing red hats, and some of them had been carried along in carrying chairs.

October 5th 2006, 张家界 (Zhangjiajie)

I hated it.

There was a Chinese girl on the boat, holding a microphone. The boatman started steering us along with his pedal. When we got to the middle of the lake, the girl started singing a song. Although her voice didn’t sound very motivated, her singing was actually not too bad. We all smiled politely when she was done, and most of us softly applauded.

Then an old Korean dude got up from his seat. He walked to the center of the boat and stood there for a moment. The boat was gliding along, everything around us had the color of emeralds.

Then the old dude started singing.

It must have been an aria from some opera, and he definitely didn’t need a microphone. The boatman, the Chinese singer, the other Koreans, and me – we were all completely in awe.

Nobody made a sound, and the boat kept gliding along through the emerald world. It was beautiful.

When the old dude was done and we were applauding, my seat neighbor turned around to me and said something in English. I couldn’t understand what it was, so I asked him to repeat it. He was wearing a big pair of glasses, and he had a very happy expression on his face.

This time I understood what he said: “Famous opera singer.” Of course, it couldn’t have been anything else.

I smiled and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

The world was a poem and a song.

Soundtrack: Enrico Caruso – “La Donna È Mobile”