Footsteps of Joseph Rock

Footsteps of Joseph Rock mainly introduces who is Joseph Rock, what are the footsteps of Joseph Rock, why retrace the footsteps of Joseph Rock, which will make you better know footsteps of Joseph Rock.

Who is Joseph Rock

Joseph Francis Charles Rock(1884 – 1962) was an Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist. He was born in Vienna, Austria, went to Egypt at the age of 10 with his father, and later wandered about in Europe. But on an impulse, he emigrated to the United States in 1905 (New York) and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1907, where he eventually became an authority on the flora there. He first taught full-time (there were two others) at Mills College (now known as Mid-Pacific Institute), and was placed on leave in Sept. 1908 for health reasons (he needed to be out-of-doors). As the Territory of Hawaii’s first official botanist, he joined the faculty of the College of Hawaii. The name was changed in 1920 to become the University of Hawaii in 1911, established its first herbarium, and served as its first curator from 1911 until 1920, when he left the college to spend the next few decades exploring the botany of Asia.

During the Ngolok rebellions(1917-1949), Rock witnessed repeated battles by the Ma Clique’s Chinese Muslim army against the Ngolok Tibetans in Xiahe County and Labrang Monastery. The Ma Muslim army left Tibetan skeletons scattered over a wide area, and the Labrang monastery was decorated with decapitated Tibetan heads. After the 1929 battle of Xiahe near Labrang, decapitated Tibetan heads were used as ornaments by Chinese Muslim troops in their camp, 154 in total. Rock described “young girls and children”‘s heads staked around the military encampment. Ten to fifteen heads were fastened to the saddle of every Muslim cavalryman. The heads were “strung about the walls of the Moslem garrison like a garland of flowers.”

In March 2009, the University of Hawaii at Manoa named its herbarium after him. Works and collections by and from Rock are held in the Library of Congress.

What Are the Footsteps of Joseph Rock in Yunnan

What an intriguing figure Joseph Rock must have been, this stern, solitary foreigner in suit, tie and pith helmet, riding into the mountains of Yunnan.

Rock lived for nearly two decades beneath the 5,600-meter Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. He described it in 1925 as a “conglomeration of mud huts and a market place,” but it has reinvented itself since a 1996 earthquake as one of Yunnan’s most popular tourist destinations, with an old town of cobbled lanes, guesthouses and restaurants. Perhaps also for the benefit of tourists, many of the local Naxi women wear traditional outfits, with their stiff leather star-emblazoned capes. His two-volume history of Yunnan’s Naxi minority is still consulted by academics

The Main attractions in the Steps of Joseph Rock

Most Popular Hiking Tours in Steps of Joseph Rock

Why Retrace the Footsteps of Joseph Rock

If you ask Chinese people where Shangri-La is they will not point to other places but more likely to northern Yunnan, and that is because of Joseph Rock, an Austrian-American botanist who explored the area in the 1920s and 1930s. From his base in Lijiang, he ventured out on plant-hunting expeditions in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, publishing the stories of his travels in National Geographic magazine.  Since it first appeared in British novelist James Hilton’s Lost Horizon in the 1939, Shangri-La has been associated with the mystique of a place which could not possibly exist here on Earth. There are the lofty and continuous snowy mountains, endless grasslands, steep and grand gorges, azure lakes and the bucolic villages always leaving a deep impression on visitors. To some extent, Joseph Rock is the first person that makes the world know Lijiang and Shangri-La.

All three places are neighbours. Zhongdian used to be the name of a county in Yunnan province, Adunzi is now within today’s Deqin county, also in Yunnan. But Muli county, though adjacent, is part of Sichuan province.

At present, more and more people plan to take a tour along the footsteps of Joseph Rock. Therefore, the footsteps of Joseph Rock has been an kind of important tourism resource. Meanwhile, it is the best route to experice the beauty of Yunnan.