Li Yun Zhao ("Wendy")
An English speaking tour guide in Yangshuo, China.
Yun Zhao makes arrangements for us to get to the Liu San Jie Impression light show, choreographed by Zhang YiMou (a well known Chinese film director) and takes us there.
(E-mail Li Yun Zhao for more information.)
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We were lucky that Wendy
found us in the street in Yangshuo right after breakfast on our
first morning. This is where she does her prospecting for new
clients. She later told us that she looks for people "who look a
little lost!" That described us pretty well, with our tourist
map in hand, looking all around the street with a slightly dazed
look on our faces. She started a conversation with Carol and presented her credentials in her testimonial book. You can see that she presents herself in a very pleasant manner and gains your confidence immediately. She told us about her approach to guiding, which is basically to help us find whatever we want to do in the area and to make it easy for us. She hit our "hot button" when she said that. We did not want a pre-packaged tour of anything. |
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We didn't set up any
touring for that day with her, but we were interested in the big
show that takes place on the river in the evening. She agreed to
make the arrangements for us to get there and came back in the
afternoon to take us to the ticket station where we could buy
tickets for the show and get on a bus to take us to the
pavilion, which is about a half hour ride out of town. This sounds like a small thing, but watching her get to the ticket window to get our tickets and then getting us on the right bus convinced me that her time was worth our money! She rode the bus with us to the show and set us up with the bus driver (who spoke no English) so that we knew exactly where to come back to after the show to get our ride back into town. I would not have wanted to make that arrangement myself. I probably would have missed the whole show! |
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We had ridden the subway in
Shanghai, and taken the train from there to Suzhou, and had
flown from Shanghai to Lijiang, and then to Yangshuo via
Kunming, without any problem, but riding the bus was a different
experience. I don't think I would have ventured this on my own! Subways, trains and planes are big operations with lots of information available to tourists in the form of maps and signs. With the bus, you are working it out with the bus driver. If you don't speak the language, that can be tough! But getting on the bus with other tourists, most of whom were Chinese, was exactly the kind of experience that we wanted to have while in China. |
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The show itself was pretty
spectacular. There were hundreds of people in the audience in an
open air stadium facing a large pond with the karst formations
in the background. When the show started, the lights came on to
illuminate the formations so they became a backdrop to the show.
On the far side of the pool in front of us was a large TV screen
with moving pictures of the local scenery and silhouettes of
boatmen drifted across the water in front of the screen so it
was hard to tell exactly what was "real" and what was TV. It was
a striking visual impact. This show is a big production here and employs over 6,000 performers for about an hour and a half. I don't really know what it was about, but it was clearly an epic presentation of Chinese history. |
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My pictures don't do it justice at all, but there were a great many stunning visual effects and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole show. It is reminiscent of the kind of extravaganzas that I see at half time in football bowl games in the US, but with a special, more grand and epic flavor. Being outdoors in the open air in the midst of this spectacular setting added to the appeal of the show. |
China travel and vacations go better when your sightseeing is supplemented by explanations of what you are seeing. You owe it to yourself to have an English speaking tour guide accompany you and assist with arrangements and point out the sights that will be of most interest to you.
For more information, contact Li Yun Zhao by email through this link.