in the year 1893, james hilton described an eternally peaceful and quiet place among mountains in the east—— "shangri-la" in one of his novels for the first time. in the novel "lost horizon", an english diplomat conway and his brother gorge scattered the english citizens and *ed them leave the *erous
region. on their way home, their plane was hijackedand fell down into the mountain in the *an region. some lucky survivors were taken to shangri-la where conway found lots of fantastic things in such a state founded nearly 200 years ago, in which the local people lived up to * than one hundred years old and lived peacefully and
harmoniously with the other people, animals and *rything here. the place was called "shangri-la" by the local folks. james hilton located "shangri-la" in a mysterious valley which was surrounded by snowcapped mountains; near where there were snow-clad peaks, blue lakes, broad grassy marshlands, and *series, buddhist nunneries, mosques, catholic church, the human beings and the nature were in perfect harmony, s*ra
l religions and varies of nationalities exited at the same time; the temples looked splendid in green and golden; though people contacted the outer world by caravan for a long time, many foreign experts and scholars had come here to investigate and remained much relics…… obviously, that is not only a beautiful scenery, but also a kind of artistic conception.
· · ·
with the novel and the film coming out, shangri-la became very famous in western countries. later, a chinese named guo huonian used the name of this place and set up "shangri-la" hotel group which has become one of the most succes*ul hotel group in the world. at the same time, people didn’t give up looking for the legendary shangri-la. up to the end of this century, they finally have found—— after inspecting and proving on many aspects, people found that diqing prefecture, the only *an region in yunnan, china, has striking similarity with what’s described in the tale regarding either on natural scenery or people’s way of living. therefore, the name of "diqing?ǎshangri-la" spreads worldwide.
____