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Previous: 2 Kunming
Getting here from Kunming took a long and rough 23 hour bus ride over bad roads. I shared a sleeper bus berth with a large elderly gentleman and frankly it was not comfortable. I took a long walk stretch my weary limbs and it was soon dark so I went to bed early at the Jingyang hotel where I had a nice room for only 3.70$US.
Jinghong turned out to be more modern than I had expected. The new bridge that you can see in this photo was impressive for such a small city.
There were very few tourists when I was there in December but it was obvious that the tourist industry was very well developed. This is the midrange Xishuangbanna hotel, more expensive than the Jingyang but not as fancy as the Banna Mansions Hotel.
My one year old guidebook mentioned Jinghong as a sleepy town. Things change quickly in China these days and Jinghong had woken up. Everywhere I turned I saw evidence of entrepreneurship and new business ventures often in the hands of women. Sandra, the girl on the right below, was an ex waitress now was doing very well with the "Forest" cybercafe she opened to satisfy the needs of the growing stream of tourists.
The old temples like this Manting Temple in the southern suburbs were still there but they were mostly empty except for tourists like myself.
Gasa is a Dai village only 20 minutes by bus from Jinghong. I had to walk a long way through dull recently built-up areas to get to what was left of the old village.
These ladies responded positively to my query "Dai tsu, Dai tsu ?" so I took their picture as the first example of the local Dai nationality people even though they were not wearing their traditional costumes.
This old wooden house built on stilts and well protected from the burning sun and pouring rain by its ample roofs is typical of traditional Dai architecture. I think it is beautiful, worn as it is from having been lived in.
In the evening after visiting Gasa, I had a relaxing massage in my room for less than 10 dollars and the next day I took this mini van to Mengyang about 20 kms east of Jinghong where I boarded a second minibus that brought me to the village of Jinuo named after the Jinuo people who live there.
This will give you an idea of the physical environment where the hill people make their living.
Jinuo houses are also built on stilts but they are not as elaborate as Dai houses. The Dai generally control all the best agricultural land in the valley bottoms leaving the steep slopes and mountaintops to the less favored nationalities like the Jinuo. The Jinuo manage not do badly because they grow a high-quality tea called Pu'er tea.
Using only sign language this lady directed me to another house further up the hill where there was a teen aged girl who spoke some English.
The home of the She Che family was also built on stilts but the ground floor was inhabited.
The young girl was not there when I arrived but I was greeted warmly nonetheless.
The the girl's mother and grandmother are looking at a brochure that they showed me about the Jinuo people that number less than 20 000.
When I saw this soot darkened kitchen, I wondered how many generations had been served by this ancient brick stove.
Then, the young girl came and we could exchange more than just smiles. They were surprised, and I think secretly pleased, to see how interested I was in their specific culture. So much so, that the grandmother changed into her traditional dress for my benefit. The husband arrived and put on his traditional Jinuo jacket. Of course I was enchanted as you can see below.
Here is a view of the downstairs living room. I could see that the bedrooms were upstairs.
Meeting this family was a lovely experience but it was also sad to think that the Jinuo identity and specific culture is not likely to survive for still many generations because there are only 20 thousand of them.
The 21st century opens the era of world wide communications that will inevitably have a powerful homogenization effect on languages. Linguists generally agree that half of the 6000 distinct languages still spoken now we'll disappear before 50 years! The odds are high that the Jinuo language will be one of those. The extinction of a culture is as much of a loss as that of a species, don't you think so?
After Jinuo village, I went back to Mengyang and hired a taxi to take me to a nearby Hani village. Here is the courtyard of a relatively prosperous Hani family. I was lucky again for the son was studying English and was pleased to practice it.
The Hani, sometimes also called Akha, speak a Tibeto-Burman language like the Jinuo but there are a hundred times more of them so there is less danger that their culture would disappear.
I was impressed to see how such a primitive loom could produce such intricate and uniform embroidery.
It was really embroidery and not weaving for her flying fingers were handling a half dozen differently coloured yarns for the weft.
The English speaking son came outside to say a few words and to take the picture that follows but he soon went back in the house so as not to lose too much of the TV program he was watching.
It had been a great day for I had been able to meet and exchange, however so little, with two different families whose culture, values and traditions were so different from my own. We exchanged not so much words or concepts because of the language barrier, but we did trade warm feelings of mutual curiosity, respect and good wishes.
