HUANGSHAN, China — As temperatures neared their midday peak, Hu Xiaosong was doing his regular patrol, at an altitude of more than 5,500 feet, to protect a 1,000-year-old pine tree that he says is like family to him.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.This spectacular, oddly shaped pine is the most iconic landmark on China’s Yellow Mountain, or Huangshan, a major tourist site in the eastern Anhui province.Called the Guest-Greeting Pine, or Yingkesong in Mandarin, it is a symbol of hospitality and friendship, miraculously growing out of solid granite rock at the peak of the mountain.Hu is the tree’s main 19th-generation “bodyguard,” protecting it from severe weather, climate change and overzealous tourists.“I have been in this job for 16 years, and every day I take a patrol to inspect and protect this tree every two hours,” he said in an interview in Huangshan, where mayors from around the world gathered last week to discuss how to protect their cities from climate change and overtourism.When NBC News last spoke with Hu in 2018, he said that while he also protected the tree from monkeys and squirrels, his biggest challenge was getting tourists to leave it in peace.
Since then, the number of visitors to Huangshan — known as the most marvelous mountain in China — has only grown, surpassing 5 million for the first time last year.But Hu says tourists these days are better behaved — and that technology is helping to keep them at bay.“I can feel that the tourists’ overall behavior has improved over the years,” he said.“And we have also added some new high-tech monitoring methods compared with eight years ago.”The Guest-Greeting Pine is thought to be 1,000 years old.Getty Images fileAn intrusion prevention alarm system was installed in 2020, with an app that raises an alert if a tourist is coming too close to the pine.“I can conduct the inspection as soon as I see the alert,...