Raid on Cikou Church
Western missionaries were not always welcome in Yunnan. And when in 1867 they opened a mission in the upper Mekong valley, on the gates of Tibet, they incurred the wrath of Tibet's rulers.
The watermills in Fengqing's Gumo village operate just like a thousand years ago.
Even if Chinese civilization has developed more against than with nature, the Mao years were a particular exercise in environmental destruction. In one case-study Shapiro tells the story of the draining of the northern part of Dianchi Lake, one of the first steps turning Kunming's lake into the fetid cess-pool it is today.
A number of Chinese historic texts covering life and politics in Yunnan have survived over the centuries. I have translated a few of them.