Visit: Sea water pollution on the Singing Sand
Discovery of blue bird living in desert

Visit to Badain-jaram Desert in China

Here is a off-limit district as military base

Hermit crab Do you believe that the sand dunes groan every night ?

Miwa Yes, that's right ! You can hear it now. This is the first in the world !!
Push the following note.
SOUND Booming sound of Badin-jaram ( recorded Aug,1995 )
Our visit to China and USA, but everytime We ended in disappointed.
People said, as legendary the Utopia exists to far beyond mountains.
We trave asking people the way to it,
but we can't discover it today also and we came home with tears.

However a result of The 7th research of world Musical sand ( Badain-jaram Desert ) in 1995 was beyond my expectations. That was so splendid tour, as it is regrettable to talk to you !!


My travel for searching blue bird in the desert


Treasure house of musical sand in China
Circles show sites of musical sand,
red marks show confirmed site by go and see.

China is treasury of musical sand. But we could not meet its genuine sound in 4 times visit. Many places were made to lose a song of purity with an act of sightseeing visitors. A man said that .Our travels for ask true singing sands around the world were resemble closely to travel for ask L'oiseau blue (The Blue Bird) by Maurice Maeterlinck.
At 29 July 1995Cwe started 4th travel to China as attaching a miniature cage making to imitate the Blue bird on my rucksack. My worry was that what I will do if we can not meet to booming sand. Via Shanghai, we made landing in Lanchow ( Northwest in China, capital of Kansu. it's adjacent to the Hwang Ho (Yellow River). ) , and met with staffs of Lanchow. From here we went to entrance of desert geting on a desert car.


There is no road on desert. We had to ride on camel, for half a day.




The load was named ant lion load


Camels, thank you for your trouble!!

Our camp-site was beautiful Bojitoreganour district. Here is an oasis which have small lake. there were beautiful sand hills to have the booming sand characteristic sharp ridgeline.
Almost all dunes may have booming characteristics. We had a booming test of Chinese style. All the members of 14 staff and interpretation ( She served as interpreter for us) ) climbed for a dune to have an urgent slope. And then we sliped down according as Chinese style.



When our 14 all members sliped down from the top (height was 50 m) of the slope , booming occured. After several second from the start of men, great booming (60`70dB) occured and continued from beginning to stop at the foot of the slope. If stopped the moving of men on the middle of the slope, t he surface layer of the sand were sliding down by itself (avalanche) and boom continuously about several minutes . It was some reverberations. Angle of slope was 31° , total slide length on the slope is about 100m. The sound is large enough to hear from 4km or more distant. Most highest sound level was found at 2nd point. We picked up a sample of the sand at middle place of the slope. The sound was just like propeller-driven airplane. We felt the sound as some vibration of the heaven. We call such sounding test as Chinese style booming activity. Long ago, AD 880, in China, such activities was a custom which was known as a large festival at Singing-mountain in Ton-fan,China.
" This is blue bird ! "
I cried. The dominated wind direction at the district was from west to east. Temperature of the sand was 65°C.
Above three point had almost same booming character.
At the evening , by strong wind the sand slid down on the slope of the dune, and produced booming by itself which we heard from 4km distant. We heard the self-booming every evening during our 3 days stayed the place.
The dunes have complete activity to booming and they can groan without any human action. The fact that the sand have such activity is clear evidence to show keeping genuine environmental condition over the desert. This is a rare and typical example of complete harmony between natural sand dune and living of camel, nomads, and keep natural ability of self-purification.
A Mongolian said,
" Booming of sand dune is natural. "
I remember same word , before 20 years ago, heared from a Japanese that "singing of beach sand is natural.
I remember a Japanese maxim,
" After parents died, we all wish to do best for them. "
Now, the desert is a off-limit district as military base. But,because the booming activity which substitute of Ming-sha-shan in Ton-fan is a very interesting festival to tourism , and the big festival will call a wide concern. The booming festival which have about 100 men will be substitute for traditional Min-sha-shan, Ton-fan. The desert will be open to tourism in near future. How to preserve the booming sound? We suggested to Chinese staffs by a document.
" We can find many many blue bird of Maeterlinck in the desert "
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