Today, Dateline concludes a two-part feature on UC Davis faculty who spent their summers performing somewhat unusual research and providing service in venues as diverse as south central Los Angeles and southeastern China. For part one of the feature, which ran Sept. 20, see Dateline's archives at www.dateline.ucdavis.edu.

Brad Shaffer

There were moments during a June research trip to the Gaoligong Mountain National Nature Reserve in China when evolution and ecology professor Brad Shaffer said he simply couldn't believe his eyes.

Shaffer and his scientist colleagues would traipse along the stone-laden Southern Silk Road, an ancient trade route between China and India, when from out of nowhere, they would come upon something magnificent.

"All of a sudden there would be a spectacular 30-foot-tall bridge made from hand-cut stone that had been there 2,000 years," he said. Very Indiana Jones-esque, Shaffer said, yet very real.

But its architectural features aren't the only prizes of the reserve, in Yunnan Province near its border with Myanmar. The subtropical Gaoligon-gshan (shan is mountain in Chinese) region is known as one of the "biodiversity hot spots" of the world, Shaffer said. Over just a few miles Gaoligongshan supports flora and fauna from converging lowland, midland and highland zones.

For 10 days Shaffer, a reptile and amphibian specialist, traveled through the reserve with scientists from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago to conduct a rapid biodiversity inventory of the area for the Chinese government. Leaders there would like to quickly develop ecotourism in the nature reserve, combining its cultural and biological resources, with minimal environmental impact.

"(The inventory) is different than a normal collecting trip. There are no specimens that you come back with," said Shaffer, who participated in a similar inventory two years ago in Peru. "You have to go into a big area and figure out things very quickly."

Shaffer and his collaborators are now in the midst of writing their report to the Chinese government, which has already decided to widen the boundaries of the reserve based on their inventory results. This should allow more of the original biodiversity to return to lowland areas that have relatively greater human populations.

Shaffer was also able to work on some of his own research while on the trip. He collected small tissue samples from each animal he examined and will use that material to study variation in DNA across populations in the rugged Gaoligongshan region. That information, in combination with ecological and environmental data from the field, will provide insights into how species adapt to the complex landscape and climate of the region.

"It helps us think about biodiversity within a species," Shaffer said.

He will speak about his experiences this fall during an introductory course in biodiversity he teaches with entomology professors Peter Cranston and Penny Gullan.

"In terms of teaching, (the inventory) fits right into the course," Shaffer said. •

Michelle Yeh

Michelle Yeh depends on annual summer trips across the Pacific to cultivate her work as professor of East Asian languages and cultures. She traveled to Asia twice this summer and will go again toward the end of September, a pace she describes as quite typical for the season.

"It's a good opportunity to collect material and have exchanges with colleagues in other countries," said Yeh. "But more broadly, you get a feel of what's going on. You can't get that from reading books. It's important to be immersed in the atmosphere (of a country)."

While in Chinese-speaking cities such as Beijing and Hong Kong, Yeh conversed with taxi drivers to get a sense of what common folk were concerned about. She listened in on political jokes in Beijing to get a feel for the currents of that nation, about to face a change in its leadership.

And when Yeh shopped in Hong Kong, she talked with storekeepers about the economic woes the former British colony was facing.

Along with her informal fieldwork, Yeh taught while abroad. In Hong Kong she joined a panel discussion on images of the city in Chinese literature at the Fourth Hong Kong Literature Festival. Later she journeyed to Dalian, a seaport in northeastern China, to lecture at a workshop for aspiring and professional writers.

Yeh said that Chinese writers often work from a limited cultural perspective. "Compared to the U.S., the country is not as open," she said. "They need to have more exposure to what's going on in the world."

Yeh spoke to the participants about different images of love and marriage in Western and Chinese literature. "They weren't familiar with the (Western) concept of courtly love," she said. "That provoked a lot of discussion."

This month Yeh is traveling to Taipei, Taiwan, with Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, whose work she has been translating into Chinese.

She'll also be picking up fodder for her latest venture, a biweekly column, "Life of Poetry," for the literary supplement of a major Taiwanese paper, United Daily.

Yeh will return with valuable insights to give to her students.

"Travel not only generates new course material but also allows me to inform students of the latest developments in Chinese society and culture through first-hand accounts," she said. "Students are fascinated with what's going on in China and Taiwan." •