THE SEARCH FOR THE GRAVE
[..It was Sunday morning in Tengchong. Had a look out of the window of the hotel-room and decided to have a morning stroll on the mountain nearby. First the usual breakfast, of course, Yunnan style, rice-noodles and glass of doujiang..]
Half an hour later walked to the outskirts of the city up the hill. Approaching the mountain there was a sign saying that there were some historical Japanese defense posts up there somewhere on the east side of the mountain. Now walking up this particular road eastwards, one could not be without noticing that there were many graves in the area - as a matter of fact - everywhere there were tombstones. Even the road itself was built on a graveyard and at times one could not but notice that the road went straight over some old graves too. Could the foreigner cemetery possibly have been on this particular mountain? There were thousands of graves scattered around, some of them dating back to the Qing-dynasty. The whole mountain seemed to be a main Tengchong grave-yard.
Going off the beaten track was the next choice, could it be possible by just a sheer coincidence be able to find any graves with English script written on them? After a while there in the forest stood an old man with a companion having brought some incense to one of the graves there. I politely asked the old man if he knew whether the foreigner cemetery possibly could be on this particular mountain. First, he didn't hear the question, so his companion helped the situation out by putting his mouth close to the old man's ears and screaming the question another time loud into his ears. Once being able to comprehend the question, he replied that he didn't know the exact location where the cemetery was, but he knew that it was located somewhere on this particular mountain. Apparently he had heard stories of it as a younger man and people had said there was a "Yang ren feng" (foreigner cemetery) up on this particular mountain. I thanked the man for the information and gave the old man and his companion a sign of a thankful goodbye, to which the old man replied by saying "qiaozhi fulaisi". It took me a second to comprehend his words – well, oh yes - he was saying "George Forrest" in the Chinese way of saying Western names.
I started to go up and down the area hoping to find some new clues of the cemetery but there were just too many tombs - in conclusion - it would probably had taken a month or two to go through all the graves on this mountain. More convenient would have been to get at least a little more precise information where about the grave likely could be located. Off the beaten track there, there were also some nasty dogs barking somewhere fairly close, and the aggressive barking indeed influenced decisions by then too. Back at the foot of the mountain - after asking around for a while - some people in the shop nearby said they knew that the "yang ren feng" was about 300m "that way" and about 50m "that way". In China information like this doesn't always mean much though, but at least a little more precise information about the potential location of the foreigner cemetery was available now. However I scanned the coordinates provided without a trace of any foreigner's graves.
After having checked the area twice - even going back asking the same people more precise information - and still without success, it was time to call one of the connections down in Tengchong. This was an antique dealer and a local historian; Mr. Wang. The same man who had informed a group of us previously visiting the area, that he can point out the exact location of George Forrest's grave. So I called him up, and in half an hour we had a meeting at the gate of the mountain. Apparently this time he was not so sure about the location of the Forrest's grave anymore – things like this doesn't surprise me anymore - and he said that according to his memory Forrest's grave should be located in the nearby, overseas Chinese, Heshun Village. I told him that some locals had just given pretty reliable information that the foreigner cemetery should be at this particular mountain. Now this made him confused. We went to the people that previously had said that the foreigner cemetery would be located on this mountain, and we got this confirmed. It was over 10 years ago since he had been into this matter, so it was more or less understandable that he had forgot some information about the cemetery, and it was not his primarily concern either. However he was the right man with the right connections, being the main antique dealer in the area, he knew the right people all the way from Tengchong to Hong Kong.
Lunch
After a while we went for lunch. After having placed the order Mr. Wang started to make phone calls. In a minute there came a bottle of rice-wine on the table. It was lunch time by now, and being Sunday, local men in the area normally celebrate the day off with good food and local rice-wine; this Sunday was no exception. This was a good way to get in connection with the people needed - ask them to join us for a good dinner and some glasses of rice-wine - probably only very few men in the area would neglect such an offer. The food brought in proved out to be local delicacies such as deer, special plants, and other delicacies from the Gaolingshan mountain range. It was probably not a coincidence that we ended up in a restaurant with local specialties from the Gaolingshan mountain range. This is the mountain range which George Forrest used to visit on his plant exploring expeditions.
While sitting there in the restaurant, a few more people started to show up. In an hour or two, there at the table sat the leader of the Tengchong's (political) Provincial museum, another antique dealer, some kind of a local historian and an underground film-producer from North China. The film producer ended up on the scene there, being around doing some historical documentary with the museum man. All these people - apart from the documentary shooter – shared a common vision of starting some kind of an independent Tengchong Museum, so any information about Tengchong's earlier history concerning well known foreigners such as George Forrest, was of interest to them too.
Now the information during this lunch was the following. First off, it was told that according to the local lao bai xing - means "the common people" in Chinese - Forrest would not actually had died of a heart attack - as it is being stated officially - but being murdered. The reason why Forrest potentially was murdered, they didn't know, but the antique man said it was a common rumor among Tengchong's local people. They didn't have any more precise information about this rumor, as most of the old people had passed away by now.
The antique dealer also had the information that about 10 years ago some kind of a grave looter had come to him with a tombstone and asked him if he would be interested in buying it. He noticed there was some English text written on it, but as he couldn't understand it, he didn't buy the tombstone either. Could this have been Forrest's tomb? The table tried to figure out who the grave looter possibly was, made a few calls, but as this had happened over 10 years ago, they couldn't figure out his character anymore.
The man from the museum said there's a foreigner's tombstone in the cellar of the museum. He had bought it from a local woman who had used it as a washing board for clothes. He said it was not Forrest's tombstone - he had got this confirmed earlier - but he didn't know whose it was either. He said it's likely some missionaries. Later I could confirm it was a tombstone of tree Swedish missionaries who were in the area in the 1920's. They all had got their names written on the same tombstone. One of them had died after having given birth, her new-born daughter died six months later and the third woman had died of malaria. Both of the women were 35-years old and the baby, called "Baby Inga", had died at 6 months old. They had had their spouses in the area too, and letters to the Swedish church society, which I saw later, could confirm that the society was asked to pray for the spouses of the passed ones, as they were in deep agony and sorrow down in this foreign land.
[..In the early 20th century time malaria was a serious menace in the Salween-river valleys. Malaria reaped the English consular Mr. Litton and plenty of other missionaries too. While building the French railway from Tonkin to Yunnan, at times, the project got in serious troubles because of the many devastating outbreaks of malaria. Typhus outbreaks were common too. A handful of Yunnan missionaries fell because of typhus, including a missionary called Samuel Pollard. (Note: The President of China, Mr. Hu Jin Tao, mentioned Samuel Pollard as an example of a practically benevolent and efficient person, while taking the throne as the President of China. This was the first time a foreigner has ever been mentioned in the ceremonial speech.) On the contrary though, back to the death of Mr. Litton, Aleister Crowley, who happened to be there at the scene of Mr. Litton's death, has written in his diaries that during the scene of the death in 1905, which is officially stated as malaria, he suspected, according to the visible symptoms, that Mr. Litton actually would had been murdered.]
Later it was confirmed, that the tombstone in the nearby village of Heshun, belonged to a British nurse. Any more information about this particular nurse was not available. The tombstone was gone too. Apparently some kind of a waterfall for tourists had been built there where her grave was earlier located, so the tombstone had vanished – nobody knew where – possibly demolished apart by a Chinese bulldozer. Who this particular British nurse was, was unknown to us, but maybe she could have worked at the former British Consulate there? They used to have a Bengali doctor there in the early days, but maybe she could have ended up there later? Or was she possibly from the British Nursery in Kunming that existed back then? Both the British and the French had their hospitals in the capital of Yunnan, Kunming. (The former French Colonial Hospital is actually opposite from where I'm writing this entry. The once majestic building is more or less in ruins by now - being state protected though - and used as a dormitory for nurses.)
Now, back to the scene concerning the foreigner cemetery. The information provided was that the foreigner cemetery was situated somewhere at the foot of the mountain. There used to be pine wood there - they had seen this on some photographs – but none of the pine trees were left anymore, the pictures too were mysteriously gone, and some kind of massive plantations of rubber trees had been planted there around the mountain. What we knew on the other hand, was that the foreigner cemetery used to have a small wall of loose stones built around it. As the wall had been built with loose stone bricks without any cement, someone had later picked up the stones from there and built a toilet of them a little bit further down from the mountain. This toilet didn't exist anymore. During the Cultural Revolution there had also been some manifestations around and some foreigner's tombs had likely been destroyed. This was more or less evident when we later found the tombstone of another Swedish missionary lying there partly broken a little bit up on the mountain. But why it was up there higher up on the mountain, a huge block of a tombstone, I yet have to figure out. According to Swedish sources the British Embassy had a chapel in Tengyueh, where a small graveyard was located. Letters I read later explained that the missionaries were thankful that they were allowed to bury their loved ones at the graveyard of the English Embassy's chapel. Was the chapel also situated on the foot of this mountain?
The Search
Okay, so after plenty of good food and a few glasses of Chinese rice-wine it was time to go and try to locate the graveyard. One of the men there asked us to wait for a minute while he quickly went to buy a cake, some sticks of incense, some fruits, and a bottle of liqueur. The purpose of these objects was to serve as gifts for the spirits at the graveyard. The museum man gave the coordinates and we all prepared to scan in a particular area. I was asked to consult the spirits and ask them for help. Mr. Wang explained that according to a Chinese tradition, if you want to find a grave, of which’s location you are not sure about, you may ask the spirits for guidance. So I humbly asked the spirits for guidance there, and we all set off. I don't know how the other felt about the scene, as we all broke apart in the order to be able to scan the area more efficiently, but I was pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing going on there, running up and down, in between the tombstones, local rice wine running through the veins. Anyway, we were 6 people scanning a particular area there but no-one of us could find a trace of any foreigner cemetery. After a while Wang called and said that they were going to bring someone to the scene that would have some more specific information. It was going to be some relative of someone who had been involved with the British consulate a long time ago. Wang said they would be back in an hour or so.
In a while Wang called back and gave some new coordinates. He said they had found a tomb of a foreigner, which was located "up there" and "under the big tree". In a few minutes I could find them. At this point a woman was there in the company of our team and she stood there pointing at a huge block like tombstone lying there in the muddy soil. The block was upside down, but once having turned the heavy block around, it was confirmed that it belonged to a Swedish missionary Mr. Carlsson. Where the actual grave was - not to mention the foreigner cemetery - none of us was aware of. We searched the surroundings but could not find anything else than this block like tombstone. The tombstone itself had been broken apart from its actual grave, but the grave it belonged to could not be found in the near surroundings.
In a while we went a bit more down from the mountain and the man from the museum said that according to his information the foreigner cemetery had previously been around there. He spotted a ditch looking rectangular area, and said that it probably was there where the cemetery had previously been. He also said that there's some scientific equipment through which this could be confirmed, although I am not really sure what this equipment he referred to could be. Basically the information at this point needed was the following:
- George Forrest is said to be buried next to his friend Consular Mr. Litton. If that's accurate information, was the cemetery existing already in 1905 and was Litton buried there?
- Why was Mr. Carlsson's tomb up higher at the mountain? The tombstone was extremely heavy, even 4 men turning it around was a real effort. Now who would carry it up there, it makes no sense. Was Carlsson buried in another place and not at the foreigner cemetery? Or was the foreigner cemetery actually higher up on the mountain? In that case no chapel could likely have existed there, as the terrain was way steep. On the contrary though, the chapel could of course also had existed apart from the cemetery itself.
- And where are the pictures of this area? The museum man said he had long time ago seen some photographs of the foreigner cemetery. Supposedly there were pine trees around it. There were foreigner's names on the tombs, but being unable to read English, he couldn't comprehend their names. Some sporadic local person had occasionally showed him the photographs earlier - possibly some 20 years ago - but he had no trace anymore who this person could have been and where the photographs possibly where either. All he remembered was that there were pine trees around a small foreigner cemetery. Now could the pine trees be somewhere else?
Anyway the group came to the conclusion that the foreigner cemetery was down there at the foot of the mountain, but since the wall of stones had been taken away, and the area had been looted during the Cultural Revolution, the cemetery itself was more or less gone as an actual graveyard. Moreover a massive rubber plantation had been planted in the terrain. The museum man said in conclusion that he was positive that the graveyard was located in the rectangular area where it looked like something had been built before.
Finally, finishing the expedition, it was time to honor the spirits of the mountain. The cake was placed on the ground, and so were the fruits and the incense. The incense was lightened and rice-wine put in cups. Then I was asked to hold a speech. I humbly thanked the spirits for letting us peacefully search at the graveyard and asked, if only possible, for more guidance, particularly from Mr. Litton and Mr. Forrest. After the speech I stood there silently looking down. The silence lasted a while, and made me wonder what it was all about. One of the men there in the group then came close to me and whispered in my ear that I didn't say "Amen". I see, so finally I did a ceremonial rite of saying "Amen", did a cross with the fingers Catholic style over the chest, and then it was okay, the rite was in order, we could leave the scene.
At the Antique dealer
Later we went for tea to the antique dealer's house. Entering his house it was clear that it was not an ordinary man's house. The house was more like a museum, there were everything from fossils to piles of Japanese swords. Even a so called ancient rusty Wanjiaba bronze drum was there under the bed and a few Qing-dynasty imperial torches leaning there on the wall. He also had equipment from the previous British Consulate. This was mainly some kitchenware, a coffee grinder, a meat grinder and a fan. The fan worked on oil and stood by his TV. On the wall one could spot a massive Lisu war bow. George Forrest had previously written to the Royal Geographical Society about this particular kind of a bow. The bow was so huge that two men were sometimes needed to pull it. The arrow and string were of bamboo. The poison was extracted from some root, mixed with ricin, and put on the arrow. Even the tiniest scratch on the skin could lead to death with this poison.
[..Later we went on another dinner and after the dinner we went for a cup of tea to the museum man's house. He had plenty of photo albums and he gave a few old pictures of some Swedish missionaries. There were also pictures of the Korean comfort women the Japanese army had dragged all the way to Yunnan during the Second World War. There were also pictures of Tengchong while being bombed by allied forces. A particular picture caught the eye, there were some prisoners take by the Chinese forces that were Indian, Pakistani or Afghani. Apparently the Japanese had dragged some of the imperial army's foreign soldiers to Tengchong too. The look in the eyes of these prisoners was pure agony, and according to the museum man, they were all stabbed to death a while after the picture was taken. The museum man also gave a picture of what the British Consulate looked like after having been bombed by allied forces. The Japanese had used it as a fort, so it was peppered by every inch.]
Back to the mountain
Back to the hotel in the evening, I couldn't be but pondering why the tombstone of the Swedish missionary was higher up there on the mountain. Now, if it was looted during the Cultural Revolution, why would anybody had carried a ton weighing heavy tombstone up the mountain? Wouldn't it be likely that someone had pushed it downwards instead? And it was so heavy too, that at least 5-10 men would have been needed to carry it. I decided to stay another day and to go and check the tombs higher up on the mountain.
Next day it was Monday, and while approaching the mountain I could see that the office for the environmental protection in the area was open. I went inside and politely asked for information if someone possibly knew of any foreigner tombs around in the area. For one reason or another, they were not too keen to provide information, and seemed somewhat disturbed by my questions. Fair enough, it was not their work either, they were no consultation office. One of the men there said he knew a Western grave on the mountain. He said it was a female's grave, but added that he was busy, and that he didn't have any time to go up and show the location. I had no other choice than to take a hundred out of my pocket, and hand it to the man; it worked, in a minute we were climbing up the mountain. However, the “Western female's” grave, which we ended up at, proved out to be the same missionary tomb we had spotted the day earlier.
This time I decided to go higher up the mountain. The theory was that the Swedish missionary's tomb would have been pushed down from a higher position. I walked vertically and horizontally, higher and higher up, there were many tombs indeed, but I couldn't spot any Western tombs. Finally it started to pour down rain, so it was time to go back down again. The rest of the day was spent cleaning away the red Yunnan soil from the clothes and the shoes.
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Conclusion: I am still in contact with the people down there, so at least hopefully, if any new information would appear, I could get a hold on it. More historical work is needed to be done to get a confirmation of the exact location where the foreigner’s graveyard is located. Documents from where this kind of information could be obtained likely exist too. China has opened up, and there are no actual restrictions around information in issues like these anymore. Nor are there any restricting political issues serving as obstacles here either - particularly when it comes to a historical botanist. (Actually a well known Baptist from USA, called James Fraser, who gave the Lisu-people a written script, recently got his memorial grave a little up North from Tengchong, in Baoshan). Some kind of cooperation when it comes to a museum would likely be resourceful for both sides of the world. At last but not least, the man who brought the rhododendron to Europe, and many other species too, the man who is considered the greatest plant-hunter of all time, could probably deserve a small monument around too.
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NOTE: I have added 3 video-clips concerning the search for the cemetery. They can be found in my video section. They have been shot with a mobile phone; indeed also after a session with good food and local rice-wine.
