S素年錦時
It was the British writer James Hilton's novel, The Lost Horizon, some 50 years ago, that brought fame to an unknown and uncontaminated place- Shangri-La - a household name. The novel described in great detail the stunning scenery in the area: the azure sky, the breathtaking beauty and the hospitality of unsophisticated people who welcome weary travelers to their homeland.In Tibetan, Shangri- La means a place of good fortune and luck. Located in the midst of three rivers; the torrential Jinsha, Langcang and Nujiang, Shangri-La is a sacred scenic region with distinguishing features. Scores of years have witnessed the failure of numerous efforts to seek out and pinpoint the exact location of this dreamland. A few years ago, after years of persistent searching and researching, the government of Yunnan Province finally declared the discovery of Shangri-La and the long lost horizon was recovered in Diqing, this stunning prefecture in Yunnan Province.。
水中央1985
"Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, existence of 7 such places are mentioned as Nghe-Beyul Khimpalung. One of such places is mentioned to be situated somewhere in the Makalu-Barun region.Shangri-la is often used in a similar context to which "Garden of Eden" might be used, to represent an awesome paradise that exists hidden from modern man. It can sometimes be used as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought. For a man who spends his life obsessively looking for a cure to a disease, such a cure could be said to be that man's "Shangri-La". It also might be used to represent perfection that is sought by man in the form of love, happiness, or Utopian ideals. It may be used in this context alongside other mythical and famous examples of somewhat similar metaphors such as The Holy Grail, El Dorado, The Fountain of Youth, and to an extent "white whale" (referring to the white whale chased by the obsessed Captain Ahab in the book Moby-Dick).Politically and geographically, the independent and previously-independent nations isolated from the West, such as Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tuva, Mongolia, the Tocharian Tushara Kingdom of the Mahābhārata and the Han Dynasty outpost Dunhuang have each been termed Shangri-Las.'
