adamk i agree with you.

if you have ever been to china and stayed for any length of time you know what it is becoming.

it's not nice.

i used to live in dali. one could explore the mountains at any time.
now you have to pay a lot of money to step foot on the mountain and there are teams of bicycling police trying to catch people without tickets.

eventually any place left in china with a trace of natural beauty .... will be blocked off to non ticket holders.

it is bad enough that you can't walk on the grass in most parks in china.

it is also terrible that any minority group that exists in china, is bought and sold for tourism purposes.

i once went up to the northwest to find a minority village which was not common.

once i got there i saw that the "village" had been constructed specifically for tourists.

the "minority" people lived in their normal village outside once performance hours were over.

by the way, in dali no infrastructure has been improved since they started charging big money for tickets, and started having police patrol on bicycles to catch people.