How China transformed its desert into a fruit growing oasis

[Music] in this episode of travelogue I'm journeying to China's Northwest to explore the desert world of nice out there I'll discover the ingenious methods being employed to carve out a patch of paradise amidst all the sand [Music] you don't get much better views than this we've got the jeans you've got the Yellow River that massive mountain range in the distance now this is Ning sir when you hear the name most people would think of beautiful deserts but also fertile farmlands because over the centuries locals have adapted to and now thrive in this extreme but also contrasting environment I'm Turan welcome to this episode of travelogue and welcome to Ning sir located in northern China the ninja Hui Autonomous Region is one of the country's smallest regions here the day is a long dry and scorching hot for the desert and it's climates are never far away [Music] well this is a little bit unexpected I mean usually when you think of an oasis it's a lake within a desert but here we've actually got a desert surrounded by a lake it's my first time seeing this kind of landscape evangelist intended organ conquer your own fear telemedicine that's a comedy can't download repair the JD shots and not hash your honker get dr. hollows idle at home oh la ciudad de kinshasa McCormick's Alicia sham hold the congolese Shama yoga senator Shankar nah jus de pomme du bateau de yada yada yada yada now you may be Garcia serenigy teenager Lila Commission Anthony - ah it comes as a surprise to find a bird reserve in the desert but I'm reliably informed that of five main avian migration routes in China to pass through here Shahu literally translates as Sand Lake and unless you're a bird the only way to get around is by boat which is fine because it gets you closer to the reeds where the bird's nest sometimes you'll even catch a glimpse of them feeding on the shrimps and fish that team in showers shallow waters [Music] Union for passing their social Angelica to Burma how about being gone that has your son hada arrested after that donkeys and yalla - aha - ho - ho oh ho a camera dolly off a water well hi - you threw your whole lot - it sounds a jolly or how you feel - ooh ha ha complacent swans to be fair they're not the only Birds partial to a pleasant environment Johnny's done yalla tornado high or Ebay Georgia battle no food all she of inertial hold happy that all you Belle should relent one of the most common birds you will see here is the grey heron it's known to be very picky about where it nests but once it shows in a site it comes back year after year this has been a pretty eye opening for me because we're sort of the desert as being barren and inhospitable and you know not home to any kind of life whatsoever but it's exactly the opposite over here it's it's full of life and water - it is quite unusual 60 kilometers away from sha who is the entrace Museum of Contemporary Art it too has a link to the Yellow River in its walls the wavy design is supposed to represent the layers of sediment left by the rivers migration over the centuries the current exhibition here is aptly named starting from the desert Ecology's on the edge is the jackal Tovey encounter a beautiful Zabar for her heavenly god I hope Java concerns some hi yes I would tsubasa Sega Symphony ARPU so shall we - ni hua Chi Chi Chi su casa father initially keeping your EP a-- son sólo la serie or piensan facial anatomy on highway tarantula a planetary light touches of the opacity so in this one nama chimp in the PATA can coach it and then conclusive a treat or some pathology that's aligned to decimal point even sorry hotchkiss of X is one Oh this is the museum's second Biennale its first attracted headliners like anishka Paul and Yoko Ono this time round the focus is on artists from desert countries many of them Central Asian it's an interesting look at how we've shaped the environment we live in and how the desert is viewed by cultures around the world [Music] and the exhibits aren't just limited to galleries inside the museum kosher Wow man it's so lush over here it's almost kind of hard to believe that we're so close to the desert this gazebo faces a place called sea high ghoul which supposedly has the harshest living conditions in all of lingsha but as you've seen from the Biennale people are always able to survive in any condition where there's a world there's always a way the northern tip of Ning Xia is dominated by the tanker and oddest deserts here the Yellow River makes a dramatic u-turn and in doing so it forms the panoramic vistas of the Schappert old scenic area while its dunes may look forbidding today this region is one of Ming's house best loved tourist destinations [Music] Wow gorgeous man a different planet you can also go sand sledding and camel riding but this definitely takes the cake there's no better way to explore the desert hold on to your seats [Music] however there's a problem with this playground it's expanding for generations people try to stop the growth then a few decades ago a method was discovered quite by chance when a sandstorm blew away everything except for some straw that been planted in the sand Sabbath whole community is judging you only want the Sabbath order to shaft Yoji I'll use your hat see the other 200 watt dongle that just hug honey yeah Nutella to shop Kuwait support your comment early this simple method developed in China has now been adopted by countries including South Africa Saudi Arabia and Egypt I'm Amanda I enjoy fashion the gym you choose you the metal Funko Josh are two doors down a little bit about a tiny port shall owner Soviet that patek ho - opportune shoes washer Shindo bag or the past when you trip the dollar you show me Felicia she's holding sucia Charlie once I gotta know she'll fetch aunt EULA ma I'm party well you are you well I shall be traveling beyond hot chocolate Oreo borrow you sure no job sir - AHA you're not my hair dog will shoot your okay bye ha - ah que pasa you know ship within tatiana campo di russia samara region roshaniya do the dishes be organic or donor that show the ashwin from there last but not least to finish off the straw all the seeds of some hardy desert shrubs are planted in the grids quite interesting that I think often with inventions you do have that Eureka moment but it usually comes when you're least expecting it kinda hard to imagine that just you know simple pieces of straw are able to stop an entire desert I guess this will by little but it builds up until you can stop the entire movement [Music] coming up next I discover how the ancients mastered the Yellow River and used it to transform the desert into fertile land so as beautiful as the desert is it can't support life without water and here we not only have erasies we have the mighty Yellow River which is Tyler's mother River [Music] the yellow river forms the southern boundary of the tango desert effectively cutting it off from the rest of ning xia however very early on some clever clogs figured out a way to get from one side to the other she uses schemata to you know kind of take you to more power on three bullets always good you don't see father nothing yeah yo you know she's in the lesion allah don't a bit on it that is why she - she oh gosh are you you mean to gamma formula Jonathan Thompson are you late cause you don't you don't wanna holla at you when you need you to clear to me ha ha ha dongqn animatronio c-tec below so you Natasha alibi ha ha sido yo you cooties archaea pavelic Ladra the mudarra hot chichi hey guna da totally do not other people on the house Jana and turn the hair on take your shirt which arise and make sure of salty water and oil is poured inside the skin to make it watertight the salt acts as a preservative while the oil smooths out the skin and plugs up the follicles oh wow he's obviously got very healthy lungs to do Haleh yeah little choir what Riga straight ahead trinkets ease your head hey this is really weird smell of like a little bit of sour taste and an old leather so that's others I see there what's my wife gonna think all right guys Oh like someone farted in my mouth ha sure they did you said you see what Oh yep I could really taste the oil and salt in there pretty interesting I've written on lots of different crafts that this would be the first time I've ridden on a raft and heat out of inflated sheep skins well it looks pretty fun hi Jordan hey first impression it's very stable what we have here is basically an ancient rubber dinghy it's pretty comfortable here the I guess they probably didn't have any of these padding's back in the days it's a very ingenious use of your environment and I guess your natural resources [Music] boatmen is singing a popular folk song about the Yellow River the lyrics are simple and remind me of the vastness and might of this river and in turn the strength resilience and awe it inspires in the people who live by it [Music] [Music] after the wide-open desert and jeans of capital we've now viola Gila River gone further north and that over there is actually the southern tip of the hood on mountains so we're going to be seeing more and more of that mountain in this valley and starting from here people have developed even more ingenious ways to use the water of this river here in northern Ningxia a vast irrigation Network has been built to make use of the rivers precious water pencil and grab of them tap or ago is no nothing death has uhmm they will in Valentina Melbourne Felicia means our youth in the community intellectually so he was inventive hobbits actually means a lot over the centuries the Yellow River irrigation system has been built on and improved countless times today it's one of the oldest irrigation projects in the world that's still in use in fact don't how can shoot social woman in tacky music each having pond hose with granddaddy touch you see turn shoes changer Gigi your limb since I met on your Li Shu Islands in San Antonio should I hire you good that's major hang on wow man that's incredible this is really an amazing feat of human engineering I mean it is because of this I guess that that means has what it is today [Music] Ninja is one of China's poorest regions and that's largely due to the lack of water the fact is the Yellow River only flows through northern India leaving parts of the South dry and impoverished which makes it all the more surprising to see this lush greenery in fact for centuries this little pocket of ninja has been an important rice producing region it's thanks to the irrigation project that farmers have been able to grow rice in such an arid area here the Yellow River is very much their lifeline [Music] whattcha whattcha shakuhachi decided to park india tell me ho de Pompadour objectivity ho she would include Phaedo need to do a bit want one with a shot ho ho to Allah there you go pop do you in traffic I'm deductible hearted silly ha ha now you tell you see the trash you tosser what is your whole harem here Nadine made to Twitter let Vatican Funko Kaku but I didn't assume that inside huh ha ha ha a local saying has it that in the most drought stricken parts of Ning Sam if it doesn't rain you don't eat in many ways it's a luxury to be trying this rice taiwan the nearby hospitals pachi that are advanced he goes is it good yes mmm treasure for sure that's your boon yet it's really tasty actually it's um you can pretty much taste every single grain of rice to be honest before I came here I kept hearing people say oh the Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization and you kind of don't realize it until you come here and you've seen that the Yellow River has basically turned barren desert into fertile land and provided livelihood for so many people and at the end of day given us this really tasty bowl of rice you've done Harlem pajama day I mean Salvador show gone Mia not known it or tada coming up next I learn about the importance of the her lad Mountains and the precious products found fun and below it speaks [Music] from these house flowing sand dunes to its vascular River we now arrive at its most immoral landmark which is the hurlan mountain range and with its immense size that quite physically blocks the desert on that side of the mountains from encouraging upon the fertile plains of things out on this side these mountains are also an excellent hiking destination I've come to the so you colle National Forest Park from here you can access several of the Rangers Peaks they're not particularly high but one of them ding-ding serves an important function area this is a nice house only meteorological observation station which can't be reached by car which is why ax has such a nice little climb to stare this gentleman is in charge of recording all the meteorological data at this station so you don't laugh at her don't grab a phone there you go Cindy from Gemma different features from the fringes here so for each other baby our holidays John for video I don't envy him his job full beam has to be here come rain shine or sandstorm in the Kanto region for the UAE to shed either strouhal needed a virus sorry Sanjay hope I did the pocket developer to the fatherland letís get her found the sweeper when she went to the shrink was wrong there she product official to attach a strong it which I was first on the one we sell something called offer sila full bin lives up here all year round with his wife he's responsible for vital equipment that measures things like temperature humidity wind and of course rainfall it's a lonely job but on the flip side he practically has the entire mountain to himself to get a load of this kind of Yanis always thought the mountains were kind of barren but from up here it has this kind of striking beauty sort of rough charm and it's immediately obvious how important this mountain is tunings have because right over there is China's fourth largest desert the tender desert and it's only because of this mountain range that this side isn't also covered in San jeans [Music] I realize now why the meteorological station was built in there's been a sudden change in the weather and we can actually see the storm clouds rolling in before it starts to pour we make our way down the mountain to meet another person whose work depends on the her land mountains dirt is Raman each other ha ha yeah okay fine I entreat water particle society he's off on foot RJ yes Earl and bigger share strength of a totally general two sodium hydrogen also the answer to you J Parnell hello Lida Georgiana one-way tickets hello society woman Elisha high Valley are genuinely the diva shells originally Colin will be live with Argus your about your shoe in addition to being difficult to source : ink stones can also be tricky to carve that's because the colors permeate the whole stone so as a craftsman you need to know how to bring them out it's a test of skill and creativity you can take apart as you see some assurances so Leah and slow Tiger totally tight also she can take it on side Santa John - Santa all of that just by ecology the ecology from the surface I watch is on tape I'm sorry sir until yesterday concrete actually hold - Lisa kinetics wishes action get to see Santa and so uh and now it's my turn as I worry I'm only scratching at the surface hi so I guess valuable soft another I've never I've never made an inkstone before but it's kind of surprising because when you look at the hollow mountain it's not particularly pretty it's kind of barren actually but for it to produce something as exquisite as this it's pretty unexpected mink stones are one of the four treasures of the study that are highly prized by Chinese calligraphers you're supposed to grind ink stains on them to produce ink but you'd be reluctant to do that with exquisite works of art like these a good hurlan ink stain will set you back at least $1,000 and a great one well sky's the limit [Music] in the past two decades the hurlan mountains have also become known for another product wine in fact the entire eastern slope of the range is covered in vineyards in some circles Nita is being called China's Bordeaux I'm visiting Chateau Yin Xiu a family-run winery which like many in this region borrows French expertise to make Chinese wine the question is are they any good I can only smell the fragrance kind of emanating from this glass man that I'm feeling kind of nervous because I'm sitting next to these two experts they really know how to describe this wine but it's it is absolutely incredible in recent years there's been a steady increase in quality wine production and in 2011 a boutique Ning sale winery took home a surprise win at the prestigious decanter world wine awards china is the world's largest red wine market and one of its biggest producers with more vineyards than France the other soldier catches a giraffe or NATO woman dr. cha cha Masha Baglioni inertial powerful family figures on gender from the higher 10000 mention Gordeau John Dos Rios whole life ta-da-da-da-da-dah a little mint room for Jose Alvarez de distrito de la jolla since also shows how much are you I took a job looking beneath your what you see at home no no that's true ironically it's thanks turning says lack of water that vineyards do so well here I mean sama chocolate on foot heart able to be Natalia it's our chance or you're missing their dealer pyranometer and kind of do the whole could be a daughter go daughter down for that leisure you guys ought to pour out the shunt holes in front of house those are it seems on ha there you go to a doll or 20 kilometer away can happen agency position as your contra clad up how cup seeing Hannah Taylor Garcia needs or her going out for that they have found cool down slowly but surely Chinese wines are gaining international recognition with Ning SAP leading the way this success is further evidence of something that has really struck me about this place that people here have learned to benefit from their strong connection to their land you know before coming here I thought Ning cell was an inhospitable land but I realized that the truth is the opposite because it's sheltered by the hurlan mountains and also fed by the Yellow River the locals who have come up with many ingenious ways to cultivate the land and also make the best use of their environment whether it's producing Imperial rice or internationally acclaimed wines they're creating products that are emblematic of this region and also helping to put an insight into the global limelight for many years to come I'm Turan and I hope you've enjoyed watching this episode of travelogue [Music] in the next episode of travelogue - to dazzle and discover the world of Medicine Mountain shimmering waters incredible whistles lots of which life [Music]

Channel: CGTN

Views: 1,359,916

Keywords: CCTV, CGTN, CCTVNews, News, ChinaNews, WorldNews, traveloguechina, travelvideos, travelvlog, chinatravel, travelchina, ningxia, ningxiared, redwine, chinadesert, chinadesertification

Id: BepMqZ4pFXQ

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheMogician]

It is only through hard work and years of toil that allowed the desert to turn into usable land. Yelling “how dare you” doesn’t help at all.