by Jim Goodman
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| Lahu women on the road near Nanmei |
Lincang Prefecture in
southwest Yunnan is one of the least explored parts of the province. Counties in the south are home to
sizable Dai and Wa communities, as well as smaller groups of De’ang, Lahu, Yi
and Bulang. But the northern half
of the prefecture, and Lincang city itself, are generally ignored because
travelers assume there is nothing interesting in the area.
Lincang city, known locally by
its original name Fengxiang, lies south of the confluence of the Nanding and
West Rivers. At 1450 meters
altitude, the city rises on a low hill south of the river junction. Streets branching off the main
north-south street feature still traditional Han shop-houses when I visited
several years ago, but most buildings elsewhere, like the Grand Hotel,
administrative centers and the central bank, were very modern, with little in
the way of Chinese motifs, more influenced by the Shanghai European style.
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| bank in Lincang city |
The only truly attractive area
was South Gate Park in the southwest quarter. The upper part is devoted to children’s rides and
playgrounds, but even here are places where musicians set up to play, while
further on is a two-story old-fashioned teahouse , divided into several small,
classical style rooms with elegant furniture and ink-brush paintings on the
walls. Nearby is a pond with
pavilions and an arched bridge.
Just above the pond is a small
zoo. On display were a pair of
tigers and black bears, two pairs of different kinds of wolves, four red pandas
and a meter-long, web-footed, yellow-toothed badger or gopher that I didn't
recognize. The aviary featured
griffons, cranes, wild chickens, guinea fowl, peacocks and golden pheasants.
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| traditional teahouse in South Gate Park |
After a day checking out yet
another major Yunnan city, I set out on an excursion to Nanmei Autonomous Lahu
District, 48 km west along a high road that followed the West River to its
source and the turned south. The
road still kept to the high side of the Dananmei River, which flowed far below
and divided the hill settlements of the local Lahu. The minibus from Lincang that ran the route to Nanmei once every
afternoon and returned to Lincsng in mid-morning, dropped me off in the
township headquarters, a small place of a school, hospital and several modern government
buildings and not a single hotel.
Fellow riders on the bus kindly
arranged for me to stay in the lower floor of a restaurant, where they had a
single bed and a toilet down the hall.
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| musician in South Gate Park |
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| red panda in the park zoo |
Having spotted a couple of
Lahu women on the way in, and noticing they were dressed in traditional
clothing, I set out for the nearest village, just 2 km north. In contrast to the administrative
center, all the Lahu houses around here were all in the traditional style, of
brick and wood with balconies, railed or fenced, on the upstairs floor, sitting
on the ground on the ground for the most part, though a couple were raised on
low stone piles, with wood tile or corrugated iron roofs.
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| morning clouds over Nanmei Valley |
This village seems to be the
ceremonial center for the Lahu communities in the vicinity. The entrance at the front consists of
long twin stone staircases, with a row of stone blocks running between them and
a small water-wheel sculpture halfway to the top. A big mortar bowl sits at the foot of one staircase, though
made of concrete, and a wooden gateway with an overhead horizontal beam rises
above the first steps.
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| Lahu woman at home |
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| smoking on the road |
Past the water-wheel sculpture
the stairway ascends more steeply to end at a square at the beginning of the
settled area. The village meeting
hall sits here, a very wide building on stone piles, with walls of plaited
split bamboo and lots of tables and chairs inside. An enclosed pond lies beside it, decorated with a small
water-wheel model, though not in actual use. In fact, I didn’t see any other water-wheels in the area,
nor any streams near their fields, where water-wheels might have been
used. Perhaps it was a cultural
symbol, a relic of earlier centuries when they lived on the plains.
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| Nanmei village gate |
The villagers didn’t seem
disturbed by a foreigner in their midst, just carried on with their daily chores,
like preparing a slaughtered pig or embroidering cloth. They were polite and didn’t mind my
interruption or taking photos, but did not invite me in for a drink, the way
the Wa and Yi did everywhere I met them in the prefecture, nor initiate any
conversation.
Nanmei district
is one of the more northern areas of Lahu habitation. During the Han Dynasty a proto-Lahu people known as the
Kunmings occupied the pastoral areas further north around contemporary
Dali. The Lahu evolved out of this
ethnic group and were famous hunters in the Wuliang Mountains, noted for their
skill at killing tigers. The name
‘Lahu’ actually means ‘tiger-eater’ and until today the Dai and other
neighbors, both in Yunnan and in Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, generally refer to
them not as Lahu but as ‘Museur’—hunter.
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| village pond and meeting hall |
As a consequence of the rise of
the Nanzhao Kingdom in the 8th century, the Lahu were forced out of
the plains and moved south to live in the hills. About 460.000 now reside in Yunnan, in Lincang, Pu’er,
Xishuangbanna and Honghe prefectures.
They are divided into several sub-groups, named after the prominent
color of the traditional women’s clothing. I don’t know whether the Nanmei district Lahu were called
the Blue Lahu, but that color dominated the female clothing components, being the basic background color
They wore a long-sleeved,
side-fastened coat that reached to the calves and was split on both sides. Under this they wore a blouse,
knee-length shorts and leg-wrappers.
Most jackets were a medium blue, with some older women preferring black. They were heavily trimmed with bands of
embroidery or thin, appliquéd cloth strips of bright colors on the cuffs, hems,
collar, lapel and shoulder blades.
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| woman smoker and her long pipe |
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| taking a break on market day |
Their shorts were similarly
enhanced around the knees and the leg wrappers even more so. Like the coats, they revealed
individual characteristics that were still recognizably the local Lahu
style. They could be folded over
at the top, studded with little silver discs or completely appliquéd. Most women tucked the front flap of
their jackets into their waistbands to better show off the shorts and
leg-wrappers and their embellishments more clearly. A few dressed without the leg-wrappers.
There seemed to be no
uniformity to the headgear. Most
simply wrapped their hair in a headscarf.
Some piled their hair into a cone and wrapped a peaked white cloth
around it, which draped on each side to the shoulders, and kept it in place
with a colored cloth around the brow.
The most common jewelry was big silver hoop earrings. A few wore silver bangles, but the Lahu
around Nanmei were in general less ornamented than other ethnic minorities in
Yunnan.
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| example of Lahu leg-wrappers |
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| coming into the market |
Back in Nanmei town there is
nothing to do at night, for both shops and restaurants close a couple hours
after dark. I ate dinner just
after sunset, then retired to my room for the night and woke early to see the
morning cloudlets that floated just above the valley. I was wondering what I should do today, whether it would be
worth it to hike down to the villages close to the river just to see if daily
life there was any different from that in the nearby villages I had already
visited.
Then I noticed tables and
stalls being set up in the central square. “Gangai?” I asked
one of the men involved. ‘Dui,” he replied. Yes, it was market day, held in Nanmei
every five days I later learned.
So I stayed another day and night.
Villagers began streaming into Nanmei from about 8:30, from both the
north and south directions. Like
market days elsewhere in Yunnan, women constituted at least 80% of those in
attendance. And in Nanmei they
were manly consumers, for only a few ran stalls themselves or brought goods in
to sell. The Han were the sellers.
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| Lahu women in the Nanmei market |
No other minority nationality
lives in the district, so those attending were nearly all Lahu, mostly females
and all dressed up in their finest traditional garments for the occasion. The parameters of the distinctive local
style allow for much individuation in the trimmings and embellishments. No two outfits were alike. Sometimes the headscarves resembled
others, sometimes not. Teenaged
girls left their hair uncovered.
The hoop earrings were the same on those who wore them, but otherwise
the cut of the clothing components was standard, but the colors, embroidery,
use of silver studs and colors for the appliquéd strips differed completely
from one female to another.
Lahu mall ales were a small
part of the crowd and did not wear anything especially traditional. Boys and young men dressed in ordinary
modern clothes, while older men wore dark blue jackets and trousers. The women provided the color and
to an outside observer like myself, Nanmei on market day was like an ethnic
fashion parade.
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| stalls set up for Nanmei's market day |
By mid-morning the streets
were getting crowded, though it was never very congested. Red umbrellas stood over a line of
stalls along the street south of the square and Lahu women browsed them
individually or in small groups.
Merchants sold rice, vegetables and their seeds, thread, strips of
embroidered or appliquéd cloth, shoes, spices and tobacco, the latter being one
of the most popular items.
Along with rice and maize,
tobacco is one of the main crops in the Nanmei area. And the Lahu love smoking, especially the women. Using small pipes with very long, thin
bamboo stems, they smoke while walking to the market and continue puffing away
while ambling around the stalls.
Older men use pipes with shorter stems, while younger ones prefer
cigarettes. Only among the Wa had
I witnessed such a large percentage of women smokers; in Nanmei virtually every
woman over thirty.
In keeping with the
traditional look, the women carried pack baskets of woven split bamboo, made by
the men of their household, to bring in or take back their goods. A few women led ponies, but other than
chickens, these were the only animals in town that day. There was no buffalo, cattle or
pig market. Except for a couple
small noodle stands and one fellow selling steamed buns, the market didn’t have
any place offering a decent meal.
I went back to the restaurant where I was lodging for lunch, then
returned to the market to find it just as active, and just as leisurely as
before.
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| teenaged Lahu girl |
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| young Lahu woman in the market |
No haggling took place at the
stalls. Nobody seemed to be in any
kind of hurry, either. Women
chatted with each other a long time while they examined thread, bolts of cloth
or sacks of tobacco. I slipped
into the same relaxed, laid back mood myself. If someone got in the way when I was trying to photograph a
Lahu woman, I didn’t bother to jump up and go pursue the shot. Another photogenic lady will come along,
or maybe the other one will return.
Nobody shunned the camera or gestured against me or, for that matter,
paid me any attention at all, men included.
The square remained crowded
past two p.m. and then began gradually thinning. By 4:30 the stalls and umbrellas came down and the last Lahu
shoppers slung their baskets of goods over their backs and headed home to their
villages. It was not the usual
kind of market day experience for me, even in other parts of Lincang
prefecture, where local minorities approached me for a brief conversation or
even invited me for a snack or a drink to continue the encounter. Yet it was still quite enjoyable, if
only for the plethora of traditional clothing.
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| Lahu women at a market stall |
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| Lahu woman and her pipe |
It was also an example of the
uneven influence of modernization on Yunnan’s traditional cultures. Nanmei is not a remote outpost like in
the past. Good roads connect it to
Lincang and some of the Lahu make the journey to the city on their
motorbikes. The district has
electricity in all the villages, televisions in the homes, government offices
and a school in town—all the right influences that have elsewhere eroded
traditional customs and practices.
Yet the Lahu in Nanmei are
far less affected by these developments. They accept modern improvements in
their lives, but have retained everything in their culture that makes them
distinctly Lahu. There must be
more places like that in Yunnan, waiting to be discovered and appreciated. I’m hoping I find them
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| Lahu women going home after market day |
*
* *
Nanmei is the last stop on Delta Tours Vietnam’s journey
through Xishuangbanna and the Wa Hills.
See the itinerary at https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/xishuangbanna-wa-hills
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