No one could have predicted that a young woman of a family that lived about sixty miles from the Yangtze river trading centre now known as Wuhan would be the subject of a Disney cartoon movie sixteen centuries later. She joined the army in her father’s place during China’s Northern Dynasties period (386-351) fighting the invaders successfully and rising to the rank of General. No one knew she was a woman until she returned home and appeared before her comrades in women’s clothing. All we know of her historically comes from a feature length poem by an anonymous female poet, one of the few pieces of classic Chinese literature to have a strength role for a woman. The legend has been preserved since then in novels, plays, and more recently in films, including the Disney cartoon, Mulan.
Mulan Shan, Mulan mountain, is a historical, religious and ecologically significant area a day trip away from Wuhan. It was renamed after its most famous inhabitant, Hua Mulan, It is said that all the grasses, the trees, the rocks and the scenery on the mountain have recorded the legend of General Mulan. A Temple has been built in her honour there. Mulan Mountain has hosted religious shrines for more than 1000 years, beginning in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and developed further in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Buddhists and Taoists have existed peacefully together there since that time. There are seven temples, eight shrines, and more than 1000 sacred statues. Every year about 1 million pilgrims come from the surrounding areas to worship. The buildings merge into the steep mountainside.
An ecotourism protection zone will be established on the Mulan Mountain area, with a protected area of 25,000 ha. and a lake area of 4,000 ha. The area has many natural and historical resources that warrant preservation. An island is the nesting site for more than 100 thousand white egrets from April to August of each year. A village in the naturally beautiful Mulan Valley has 52 buildings from the Ming dynasty period (about 400 years old). On Shesui Lake is a white sand beach, a natural fresh water bathing spot. Wuhan Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently decided to construct China’s North Asian Tropical Forest Ecological Positioning Station in the Mulan Mountain Area as it is a rare and endangered plant species conservation and migration base in the middle section of China. Its altitude ranges from 200 to 600 meters above sea level, occupying an area of about 22,000 mu(1mu=0.0667ha.). The Mountain’s forest coverage reaches 95% with one half virgin forest and the other half secondary vegetation, North Asian tropical evergreens, hardwood and broadleaf in more than 100 families, 300 genus and over 1000 species. Mulan Mountain area represents a transition from North Asian Tropical to Temperate. Thus, the area is ideal for studying North Asian tropical ecological system positioning. Such studies will provide scientific evidence and technical support for the restoration of forest coverage and ecological environment control over North Asian tropical hilly areas.
Mulan Shan is a beautiful scenic spot which is also of great historical and religious interest. The variety of points of interest make it well worth visiting. However, this is China and a walk in the countryside is not a quietly contemplative experience. Even on the quietest day you will have to negotiate the steep staircases through the forest at the pace of the slowest of the several hundred other people who have also come to see it and are ahead of you. At least this place is not so heavily commercialized as many other places. You won’t see many birds and those you do see will not come anywhere near you. If you live in China for more than a couple of years you will enjoy the chance to get out of the dirty city you live in and walk amongst trees and breath the oxygen produced by them. Mulan Shan is far more tasteful than many other places I have visited. Walking paths and staircases are helpful and blend well with the surroundings. There were no especially garish souvenir stalls and the local vendors were not aggressive. Cool fruits, whole or cut and mounted on sticks for consumption, were a welcome treat on a hot day. However, the heat was ameliorated by the cool forest. Oh, how I miss my Queensland rainforests where I could walk in a quiet forest with only small birds coming to gaze at me curiously, and very few people passing discreetly.