This'll Be A Long One (AKA Yunnan)

I spent the last 2 weeks of January in Yunnan province, Southwest China with Rob.  He can attest to the fact that besides the gorgeous mountain scenery, what I never ceased to be fascinated by was how distinctive the architecture was, along with customs, language, and attire, in the different regions we visited.  We didn't even have time to see that much of the province, which is home to 25 different ethnic minorities. 

We started in the capital, Kunming, where my freshman oral student and Kunming-native, Amy, served as our wonderful guide.  (Thanks also need to be given to fellow Obie Adam and his roommates for hosting us!)  Here's me with Amy and her father, an artist (马骧）.



Amy is half Hui (Chinese Muslim) on her father's side.   I think she identifies more with her Han Chinese side, while going with the flow when with her Muslim relatives.  Her family, including an uncle, a cousin, a cousin-in-law, and a second cousin (I am still confused about the relationships), generously treated us to dinner at an upscale Muslim establishment, the Dubai Club.  Think burgundy, plush velvet, cloth napkins (what? in China?), way too much food, and awkward yet warm social interactions, and you've got the idea.   I thoroughly enjoyed my first opportunity to play "The Esteemed English Teacher" (or rather, "The Esteemed English Teacher Who Looks Very Young...But Wait, She Speaks Chinese?? Amazing!").

Islam is not that important to her dad, Amy told me, but his relatives still stick to custom and only eat at Muslim restaurants, of which there are many around the city.  There are also a lot of mosques.




Our next top was the Lijiang.  The old town zone of the city is a UNESCO Heritage Site, and it was most beautiful at 8 am before all the tourist shops opened.  You can read about it on Wikipedia -- I was more interested by the area around Lijiang, some of which I explored by bike and some of which I saw during our minibus ride to the most beautiful place I've been to in a long time, Tiger Leaping Gorge.  (The Gorge deserves its own post...coming soon!)  The area around Lijiang and the Gorge (2 hours to the north) has a large Naxi minority population.  Many of the older women were wearing blue brimmed caps, blue skirts, and what looked like a cross between a backpack and an apron on their backs.  The Naxi houses I saw all seemed to be made of reddish-brown stone with wooden fish painted in green, blue, red, or some other color hanging from the roof joint. Here is one of the villages we passed when we started our Gorge hike.



We finished hiking the Gorge in less time than expected, so on a whim, we headed several hours north to Zhongdian, otherwise known as Shangri-La since 2001.  The city's dubious status as the location of author James Hilton's fictional Shangri-La has received competition from other places claiming to be this Tibetan Buddhist Himalayan utopia.  Seemingly dropped down in the middle of a somewhat remote, snow-covered area where yaks grazed, and with its uncharacteristically wide boulevards and very un-Chinese architecture, Zhongdian seemed like a cross between a Wild Wild West saloon town, Tibetan style, and a movie set.  The signs were all bilingual (Chinese and Tibetan), and the buildings were unlike anything I've seen. This is a hotel.



There was also an abundance of drying yak meat.  A bicycle comes in handy.



Zhongdian is home to Yunnan's largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Ganden Sumtseling Monastery.  It is, no doubt, the mystical lamasery of Hilton's Shangri-La.



As a non-religious, non-spiritual person, visiting temples and monasteries, especially those where monks live and practice, tends to make me feel like a nervous intruder and uncultivated heathen who might at any moment upset a monk by forgetting to walk clockwise around the room (as is required in Tibetan Buddhism).  Then again, plenty of Chinese tourists were walking around snapping pictures, and the monastery was running a slick tourist operation complete with a visitor reception center 1 km outside the monastery zone.  I appreciated the opportunity to see some spectacular architecture (the keyword of this post), and I only regret paying my 80 kuai entrance fee to the Chinese government, rather than sneaking in and donating directly to the monastery's construction fund.

The pipes were frozen in Zhongdian, so after one night we headed back south to spring-like Dali, a favored destination for Chinese tourists and western backpackers alike, and a Bai minority stronghold.  Along the way the building styles changed from Tibetan to Naxi to Bai -- white houses decorated with "Chinese looking" paintings, calligraphy, and honeycomb-like designs, either painted or tiled.



Despite the fact that it was extremely touristy, I really enjoyed Dali because people actually live there, whereas in Lijiang the old town was home only to hostels and tourist shops, and new Lijiang, the true residential zone, was an unfortunate slice of dirty, loud, commercialized China.  It was very possible in Dali never to eat a pizza or drink coffee, but those options were there as well.  We opted for affordable and delicious Chinese food for every meal, and enjoyed local specialties including stirfried 树皮, or "tree bark", which I will assume was lichen, and fish and aquatic plants from nearby Erhai Lake. The spread of fresh flora and fauna to choose from, cooked by one woman and her wok, was my favorite aspect of eating in Dali.



My favorite part of Dali was actually getting out of Dali, and riding a bike 2 hours north along Erhai Lake to the village of Shaping, where a weekly Bai market occurs.  The ride sounded idyllic -- flanked by snow-covered Cangshan Mountain to the east (I should say Cang Mountain but let's not get nitpicky) and glittering Erhai Lake to the west -- but in reality it was a long, choked, raised roadway with belching, honking trucks making even a seasoned rider feel nervous (and definitely scaring the bejeezus out of Rob!), with the lake too far away to actually see. However, just being on a bike made me happy, and the end destination was worth it.



If you ever need hot peppers in bulk...



Or baskets to carry things on your back...



I also haggled, unsuccessfully, for a Bai tie-dye （扎染） from this woman, who said she died and embroidered them all herself. As a weaver and an exuberant appreciator of Beautiful Handmade Goods, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and paid a non-discounted but also non-exorbitant price for a beautiful piece that now adorns our apartment. For US $4.50 it felt a bit like stealing.



The market was a fascinating cultural experience, and although there were merchants hawking goods aimed at western tourists, there were also people just doing their weekly shopping. My impression of the Bai were that they have proudly maintained their culture while modernizing and profiting in the 21st century. It seemed that many of the houses I so admired were newly built, with solar water heaters and impeccable white walls, but still in keeping with the traditional aesthetic. And women were wearing their traditional headdresses, yet at least in Shaping, it didn't seem like a tourist gimmick. So many places in China seem fake, and of course, Dali had some of that, but overall, I found it to be a place where, with a bike and some language skills, it is very possible to enjoy "real" China sans wifi and latte.

All in all, Yunnan was beautiful, and I haven't even written about Tiger Leaping Gorge yet!