The small city of Shilin (石林), located about 70 kilometers southeast of Kunming, is primarily known for being home to the Stone Forest, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of China's most famous examples of Karst landscape. In addition to rapidly building up its tourism infrastructure, the city is also preparing to become a leader in China's alternative energy revolution.

Last week Yunnan Power Investment New Energy Development Company announced that it will be the main investor in a Shilin-based solar energy photovoltaic power station which will be China's largest upon completion. Total initial investment in the station is expected to reach 3.7 billion (US$536 million).

The solar energy base will feature an installed generation capacity of 66 megawatts and will cover an area of 173 hectares. It will be connected to the provincial power grid for consumption by Yunnan residents and businesses. Construction on the facility will begin in October of this year and is projected to be completed in 2009.

Yunnan's high altitude, bright sun and clear skies make it one of the ideal locations for solar power facilities, which are being promoted by China's central government.

In October 2007 the government of Dali prefecture announced that it would cooperate with Yuanchang High Technology Group to build a US$500 million solar base, the largest non-crystal silicon thin-film solar cell power project in Asia.

In June 2007, Kunming was named China's 'Solar City' by the Worldwatch Institute - mainly based upon the prevalence of solar-powered water heaters throughout the city. It is estimated that half of the city's population uses solar water heaters.

Yunnan Normal University in Kunming is also home to the Solar Energy Research Instititute, which was founded in 1971 and plays an important role in China's solar technology research and development.

Image: tianshannet.com

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The first ever completely solar-powered vehicle to attempt an overland journey around the world drove into Kunming yesterday, on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

The Solartaxi – with its space age exterior and bumper car-like interior - stopped to meet with the head of Kunming's Environmental Protection Bureau before heading off for an official reception by Kunming Mayor Zhang Zulin at the World Horticulture Expo Garden.

The Solartaxi set off from its birthplace of Lucerne, Switzerland on its round-the-world trip on July 3, 2007, coinciding with the European Sustainable Energy Forum. Without using a drop of petrol it has so far travelled 26,231 km (16,300 miles) through 19 European cities, the Middle East, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and Laos.

Having visited events such as the Bali Climate Change Conference last December, as well as institutions and inventors working to develop renewable energy solutions, the Solartaxi will stop at Yunnan Normal University's Solar Energy Research Institute this afternoon for a presentation before departing for the Shanghai New Energy Expo on May 9.

The Solartaxi world tour initiator, Louis Palmer, cycled across Africa and crossed the USA and South America by ultra-light plane before deciding to use a solar car to demonstrate that everyone can take a step towards preserving the planet.

"As a regular citizen I cannot change the world," Palmer said, "But I can demonstrate to the world just how dire the global climate situation has become and how many sophisticated solutions to lower the greenhouse gases already exist - which bring with them many other advantages."

The Solartaxi took three years to build with the assistance of over 200 assistants, including The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and three Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences.

The car pulls a trailer equipped with high-efficiency solar panels from main sponsor, Q-Cells. This generates roughly half of the electricity needed to run the car. The other half is generated through solar panels on top of the headquarters of sponsor Swisscom and reaches the solartaxi through the grid – the solar taxi recharges its batteries at Swiss embassies, whenever possible. The grid works like a bank, from where Palmer can withdraw his earlier deposits when travelling by night or on a cloudy day. The Solartaxi can travel 400 km on one charge, reaching a top speed of 90km/h.

"I had no money and no knowledge about how to make this car," Palmer said. "But I met people along the way who were willing to help. Now the Swiss government is supporting me and every country I go to I'm in the newspapers. It is really amazing!"

GoKunming joined Palmer for a ride in the Solartaxi, during which time he shared some of his stories on the road. Since leaving Switzerland, Palmer has ridden with Jordanian princes in the passenger seat, crossed 3,000 km of Saudi Arabian desert in scorching 51 degrees Celsius (132 degrees Fahrenheit) heat unable to drink water because it was Ramadan and driven through Syria accompanied by a VIP-style motorcade provided by the transport minister.

"Something weird happens everyday," said Thomas Gottschalk, Solartaxi mechanic and one of the two permanent crew members. Though Gottschalk says that the perpetual road-tripping experience and constant media spotlight can get a bit intense, with new crew members floating on and off over the ever-changing landscape, the tour has provided him with a unique opportunity to connect with the world.

"I love that through this I can get in contact with local people. Get inside their life; see how life is on Earth," Gottschalk said.

While Palmer hopes to change the world by "rekindl[ing] hope and a zest for life, set[ting] an example to counteract resignation and stimulate reflection," he also gives due credit to tightening pursestrings for surprisingly helping his cause.

"It's great because now people are thinking about the energy and cost of driving because petrol prices are rising."

The Solartaxi tour is the fulfilment of a childhood dream for Palmer. Drawings from when he was 14 years old show the first design for a solar-powered car with which to travel the world. But Palmer puts it down to coincidence.

"What I dreamed when I was a child just happens to be what I am doing now. I think it's amazing that no one has done this kind of thing yet. I don't want to be part of the [climate] problem; I want to be part of the solution. Everyone's just got to do a little bit."

Louis Palmer and the Solartaxi will be at Yunnan Normal University's Solar Energy Research Institute from 2:30 pm today for a presentation.

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Like many Chinese cities, Kunming's education sector is booming. Major universities are building massive new campuses in nearby Chenggong, English schools are heaving with students and a growing number of foreigners are coming to the city to study Chinese. If provincial education officials have their way, some of China's top universities will also reestablish a presence in Kunming, a city they fled to during World War II.

At Monday's meeting in Beijing of the National People's Congress, Yunnan's provincial education minister Luo Chongmin (罗崇敏) proposed the revival of National Southwestern Associated University (国立西南联合大学), a short-lived university that was comprised of staff and students from north China's top schools who fled China's war-ravaged east after open hostilities broke out between China and Japan in 1937.

The university was located on what today is the campus of Yunnan Normal University on Yieryi Dajie. There are several statues and a small pavilion commemorating the wartime university on the Yunnan Normal campus today (see image above).

This influx of professors and students from Tsinghua University and Peking University in Beijing and Nankai University in Tianjin had a profound effect upon Kunming's development as a city. After the war, the schools packed up and headed back to Beijing and Tianjin, but many of the intellectuals and other refugees that had come to Kunming had grown fond of the city and Yunnan and decided to stay.

This population from the north that adopted Kunming as their new home had a major demographic influence on the city – despite being one of China's southernmost cities, Kunming's local dialect is generally considered to be a 'northern' dialect.

Luo proposed on Monday that the new incarnation of National Southwestern Associated University be a collaborative effort between Tsinghua, Peking University, Nankai and Yunnan Normal University. Combining the educational resources of the four schools under preferential government policies would contribute greatly to the development of both Kunming and Yunnan, he argued. So far there has been no official response from the universities or any government organs.

Last Friday, Kunming's grade school students descended on Yunnan Normal University for Kunming's own patriotic holiday, "12-1 Day", the remembrance of a professor and four students shot and killed by Kuomintang forces during on Dec 1 (12-1), 1945.

The YNU campus houses their bodies in a memorial that includes a museum and a garden. The street outside the main gate is named Yieryi Dajie, or 12-1 Street, in their honor.

Each class had prepared a recitation to honor the fallen and lay an offering before their tombs. The children then filed through the museum and wandered the grounds.

"My students come here to remember these heroes and learn our history," said Li Jun, a Chinese teacher at Middle School 30.

Every November teachers devote class time to preparing for the field trip. "It's a very important part of the school year," Li told GoKunming.

Wen Yiduo, 16, arrived early at the memorial. Later in the afternoon she would lead her classmates from Yunnan Broadcast School in a pledge commemorating the martyred communists.

"I'll read it in front of the class, but all of us at the school prepared it together," said Wen. The words had been written in carefully spaced columns along a sheet of red poster board.

A large number of noncombatants in Yunnan were killed while Kuomintang, Communist, and Japanese forces fought for dominance of the mainland more than half a century ago. Yunnan Normal University's campus was then the wartime refuge of three northern Chinese universities, including Beijing University.

State-owned Guangming Company of China recently formed a partnership with German government aid group Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau to build 30 solar energy plants in Yunnan Province. The facilities will generate up to 300 clean kilowatts, enough power for 900 to 1,500 homes.

The central government tasked an advisory panel from the Solar Energy Research Institute of Yunnan Normal University with the project's success. Dr Xie Jian, deputy director of the Institute, was selected as chairman.

Dr Xie has worked with the Japanese, American, and German energy ministries during his 30-year tenure. He often lectures on the market viability of clean energy while on the conference circuit, invoking Kunming's reputation abroad as the Solar City.

"It's a bit more expensive, but people in Kunming want to use clean energy; they think it's a good choice," Dr Xie told GoKunming. "As the technology becomes more efficient, it will be used by businesses as well."

About half of the provincial capital's households heat their water with solar power, he said.

Beijing's financing of the international project may indicate that public funds, one possible catalyst for the broad application of solar energy, will be available for similar projects in the future.

Chinese Gongfu Association of Yunnan Normal University invites nonmembers to study gong fu. Chairman Cheng Jian Guo leads daily classes drawing from Shaolin and Wudan Gongfu (aka Kung Fu).

GoKunming met with Cheng while he led thirteen students through calisthenics in the predawn chill of his classroom, a section of synthetic rubber next to Yunnan Normal University's track.

Backlit by the rising sun, Cheng traced a tao lu, or form, whose leaps and poses teach the foundation of Shaolin Gongfu. He walked through the ranks of his students while they mimicked the sequence.

For some there were corrections: a posture stiffened, a foot nudged outward. Cheng repeated the movements at half-speed before the beginners.

"Everybody can learn, you must only be interested," he said after the fifty-minute session.

Foreigners seem to shy from the early hours and Mandarin instruction. The attendance record for a foreign student is held by an Israeli who lasted a month.

Cheng, a third-year biology student, is quick to highlight the benefits of gong fu.

"This art is not only useful for the body; with careful study it creates a younger and stronger spirit," he said.

Classes run weekdays, 6:40 to 7:30 AM, and weekends, 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The cost of attending beyond a free trial class is a six-month membership for an affordable 60 yuan.