Sunday, February 10, 2008

Yunnan LiJiang

Hello again Beijing! We just returned from Vietnam over the Chinese New Year Holiday and we are off to join the Chinese Culture Club trip to Yunnan province. It is Saturday morning, February 9th. We leave from Beijing on an auspicious plane:

We stop over at Kunming, deplane, pick up our bags and get in line to check into the flight to LiJiang. It is a tad rural in this part of China; we are far west and a bit north of Tibet. Here is a picture of beautiful LiJiang. The people here are of the Naxi minority. This is a very old city. It resides along a beautiful and pure waterway. The morning hours are for washing vegetables in the stream that flows through the center of town. Dirtier household chores such as washing clothes are saved for the end of the day, so as not to sully your downstream neighbors water. At times the stream is damned up and the streets flood. This is a very unique way to keep the streets clean. The paving stones are smooth from water and use. We are at 7000 feet. Daytime temperatures are in the mid 70's and mid 50's at night.

The famous Pu'er tea is from Yunnan province. The story goes that a long time ago as tea was carried over the mountains to Tibet wrapped in animal skins, about one third would be spoiled from dampness. The Tibetans drink yak butter tea daily as part of their religious traditions and the tea grows in Yunnan (Tibet's altitude is to high to grow tea). The tea that was spoiled was given to and used by the herdsman. It was discovered that this tea was very healthy and became better with age. This is our room at the LiJiang Old Town San He Hotel. Love the single beds. It was clean and the shower had hot water.
Here is a street along the center of town. The market is in the center and all roads radiate out from it. In the evening there are many restaurants with red lanterns hanging out side. Some of the buildings are made of the local bricks (clay, limestone and straw); they are very strong and last a long, long time. There is a famous bridge in the town. It is 500 years old. In ancient times it was a place to find a husband. Young women of marrying age (18) would sit on the bridge and men will walk by (8 to 10 year olds). Women would chose a man and put him in her basket to carry home. Men in this town study, women do everything else. Naxi mens' interests are in art, music, books, painting, smoking, drinking, tea, and falcon hunting. Bear hunting is now banned. Rabbit and pheasant hunting are still permitted. Falcon hunting is still practiced. The captured falcon is released after one month. The women make all of the major decisions. The men in our group seemed to warm to this idea until they learned that the men live to be 62 while the women live to be 72. This is the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5600 meter summit). It is part of the Himalayan mountain range. The Naxi people call their city the real Shangri la. This mountain and the one below keep the village 2 degrees cooler in the summer and 2 degrees warmer in the winter. There is an area on the other side of the main river that is the new town. Ten years ago it was destroyed by an earthquake. It has been rebuilt. this is elephant mountain. It is to the right of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Can you see the elephant resting? This picture is taken from the pagoda high on a hill in the center of town. From the elephant mountain the pagoda looks like a crouching lion. This is very good Feng shui. There is also a mountain that looks like Chairman Mao. We attended a traditional program in the evening. The dancers and singers were amazing. Tom commented that many of the costumes, instruments and songs were very similar to that of the native American Indians. Here the Chieftain arrives. He is preparing to blow through both of these water buffalo horns simultaneously. It was amazing.

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