Shangri-La: The Eastern Eden

Author: Xu Jiaguo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: "Where the sun rises earliest is Jiantang in the east, where the most extraordinary life exists is Shangri-La by the Naizi River." Here are tranquil and transcendent lakes, stones imbued with spiritual energy, a vast and distant blue sky, boundless mountains and rivers, magnificent and beautiful gorges, grand temples, and wise lamas. The meadows here are adorned with wildflowers, always filled with a romantic atmosphere of joyful times. The people live in harmony because they hold deities in their hearts, giving them a natural acceptance of fate. This is the mysterious land described by British novelist James Hilton in Lost Horizon, far in the eastern mountains – Shangri-La. In Dzongkhag, the Tibetan name for "a place of auspiciousness and fulfillment," Shangri-La is the Tibetan name for "the sun and moon in one's heart." In 1993, James Hilton first depicted an eternal, peaceful, and tranquil land called "Shangri-La" in his novel Lost Horizon. Scholars and experts at home and abroad, after extensive research, believe that the prototype of "Shangri-La" in Hilton's novel lies within the Dzongkhag Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. On September 14, 1997, the Yunnan Provincial People's Government held a press conference to announce to the world that "Shangri-La is in Dzongkhag." Since then, Shangri-La has become synonymous with Dzongkhag, and people flock to it in droves, seeking their own inner Shangri-La.