The Downfall of Dali

I first went to Dali in March of 1986.  I had spent a lot of time in big Chinese cities with grey skies and grim Stalinist architecture, so I was thrilled to arrive in this sleepy little town.  It was filled with traditional architecture and enclosed within a massive stone wall with impressive gates facing the four cardinal directions.  Surrounding it were fields of rice and other crops, and fruit trees in full bloom.  I remember that when I arrived, I thought, “this is what China should look like!”  The town had only opened to foreigners a few months earlier, and there were just a handful of hotels and restaurants.

Fast forward 27 years.  Word had quickly spread about Dali’s charms, and the tourist throngs descended on it. Millions of Chinese tourists from all over the country now come to Dali by the busload.  Foreigners from all over the world are there also.  The town is now chock-a-block full of guesthouses, restaurants, and trinket stalls—hundreds and hundreds of trinket stalls.  We stayed at a place outside the walls, and Lillia would say, “can we go back to the shopping mall?”  Which is exactly what the Old Town has become.  And all those pretty farms that had surrounded the town?  Now replaced by an ugly new city that has grown up around the walls like barnacles on a boat.  I have always felt a bit leery about going back to a place I loved, decades later.  In Japan, it was OK; Kamakura was as lovely and peaceful as I remembered.  But I’m never going to do this in China again.