A wonderful wild life

A Chinese park ranger in Tanzania shares the drama of the animal kingdom in his new book

Camping along the habitat of crocodiles, making friends with lions, and hunting with the aboriginal African Hadzabe people... To nature lovers, Chen Jianxing has the most ideal job in the world - working at the Tanzania National Parks administration, promoting and protecting the African country's wildlife resources. It all started from a childhood dream, as Chen describes in his new book Into Tanzania (Dao Tan Sang).

When Chen was a little boy, he wished that one day he could go to Tanzania and see "real" lions. His dream came true in 2006, when the 36-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province first worked at the Chinese embassy in Tanzania. Three years later, in order to get closer to animals, Chen joined the Tanzania National Parks.

Chen Jianxing writes in his new book, Into Tanzania, about his knowledge of the wild world, travel tips and his personal travelogues about different national parks across Tanzania with some 500 images of scenery and animals. Photos Provided to China Daily

Although Chen had been following documentaries about Tanzania since he was a boy and was quite familiar with the country, everything seemed fresh and new when he finally stepped onto East Africa.

Chen started to record every exciting encounter with animals and local people, and just as the spell of Africa's wildlife has weaved its magic over him all the years, the beauty of Tanzania has pushed him to spread the dream of Africa through his book.

His writings combine his knowledge of the wild world, travel tips and his personal travelogues about different national parks in Tanzania, such as observing prides of lions in Serengeti and ascending to the top of the African continent - Mount Kilimanjaro - with some 500 photographs of scenery and wild animals.

In the book, we learn that for travelers the most dangerous animal on the African savanna is not the lion, but the elephant.

"Every time I drive to Ruaha National Park, I will always find myself chased by wild elephants," Chen writes. "The illegal poaching there has stirred elephants' hatred toward humans."

His most dangerous encounter happened earlier this year, when an irritated elephant stormed out of the bushes, hit the bumper of Chen's jeep and pushed the car back several meters.

"The elephant could throw the jeep upside down if it wanted," Chen recalls. He turned off the engine quickly, and after a while the elephant calmed down and finally let him drive away.

Contrary to common belief, Chen says, lions usually won't attack humans. Years of tracking lions on the East African plains has made Chen an expert on big cats.

"Among all the animals, I love lions the most," says Chen. "Leopards come second."

It's the first book in China that comprehensively introduces the nature resources of Tanzania.

"Chen's story touches me very much. I have never found a young person like him loyal to his wildlife dream since childhood," Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania, wrote in the preface. "I hope more Chinese people would know Chen's story and come to Tanzania in the near future. As the saying goes, seeing is believing."

Chen writes under this pen name "Green Hills of Africa", which is also the title of Ernest Hemingway's travelogues about the continent.

"Nature works in its own way. That is something we need to respect," Chen says. "Sometimes I wish I could just appreciate it from afar."

xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/12/2014 page28)