Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery or Songzanlin Temple – Photo by Matteo Bosi

Perched on the slopes of the Himalayas at an altitude of over 3.000 mt, at the most northern point of the multi-ethnic region of Yunnan, as well as the crossroads of people with an extraordinary folklore and the entrance gate to Tibet: this is the city of Zhongdian, better known as Shangri-la. It is the chief city of the (majority) Tibetan prefecture of Diqing.

The history of this name is not the history of the place. Or better yet, it became so. This is where it would be really appropriate to start with “Once upon a time”, yes: once upon a time there was the writer James Hilton and his novel Lost Horizon ; and then there was the director, the famous Frank Capra and his masterpiece of the same name.

The story tells about a perfect city, wrapped up in and well protected by the Himalayas, with a civilization that secretly lived in harmony hidden away from the greed and selfishness of the modern world. Only the story’s protagonist came to fully understand the community’s mission.

The mysterious fascination of this place that for a long time has lead several to track down the remote places in China, has today been widely recognized as Zhongdian of Yunnan (although others try to make the same claim). [Read more…]