Heqing Remake

                                           by Jim Goodman

downtown in new Heqing

       Heqing has never garnered much traveler attention.  The county lies between Dali and Lijiang, northeast of Erhai Lake and the city is closer to Lijiang (43 km) than it is to Dali (145 km).  Both a good highway and a train line run through Heqing County to connect Dali with Lijiang, but the scenery, while pleasant, is not particularly stunning until the traveler crosses the high mountains at the northern end of the county and heads towards the snow mountain backdrop of Lijiang. 

lake in northern Heqing County

       The airport servicing Lijiang is actually just inside Heqing County, but passengers inevitably head for Lijiang and give Heqing a miss.  It’s close enough to Lijiang that day trips are easy, but visitors to Lijiang become so involved with sights there, even when they recognize the artificiality of so much of what they see, that they don’t consider excursions anywhere else.  Meet Bai people?  They can do that in Dali.

       Most of Heqing County’s people are Bai, especially in the plains and towns, but they dress differently and practice some different customs than the Bai around Dali.  The women favor more subdued colors and Heqing hosts no Third Month Fair nor any Torch Festival action.  They celebrate other festivals, yet live in houses similar to those in Dali, follow Bai traditions in general and cultivate.

Bai women returning from the fields

       Heqing city lies on a long plain backed by mountains to the east and west and higher ones to the north.  According to local mythology, the plain used to be covered in water until a monk subdued the dragons causing the flood and enabled human settlement.  Over a thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Dali Kingdom Era, settlers founded the city.  When they erected the first pillars, pairs of cranes alighted on them and congratulated the people for their victory over the dragons.  So they named their city Heqing—“he” for cranes and “qing” for congratulations.

taking home the hay

       The Mongols conquered Dali in the nid-13^th century, though that probably did not affect Bai life in Heqing.  When the Ming Dynasty ousted the Mongols’ Yuan Dynasty in 1366, Yunnan became the last Mongol stronghold.  But in 1381 the Ming general Ma Ying defeated the Mongols near Songgui, south of Heqing city and drove their forces out of the province altogether.  The Bai of Songgui commemorate this with a Horse and Mule Fair the 22^nd day of the 6^th lunar month.

       Throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties many Bai from Heqing sought work in Lijiang city, whose Naxi residents hired them for manual labor considered beneath them, mainly as porters and house builders.  Village Naxi built their own homes, using stone foundations, wooden beams, tiled roofs and sun-dried, mud-brick walls in a style distinct from that of the Bai.  But urban dwellings aped the Han Chinese style, used more wood, with fancy carved gates and other embellishments.  Not carvers, carpenters or masons themselves, Lijiang residents employed Heqing Bai for this work. 

old-fashioned city restaurant

noodle making in the old town

       Eventually migrant Bai workers also settled in several villages in Jinshan district, east of Lijiang city, on what is considered the best agricultural land on the plain.  Today Jinshan is an Autonomous Bai District, with houses in the Dali-Heqing style, clothing like that worn in Heqing, Bai traditions still followed and a farming output that exceeds that of their Naxi neighbors.

local Bai girls in Heqing

Yi woman from Liuhe in Heqing

       Heqing remained quite peripheral to political developments until the 20^th century.  He Long’s Red Army division passed through here in 1935, winning hearts and minds and then went on to Shigu, crossed the River of Golden Sand and continued to Zhongdian to spend the winter.  Until the Communists won the war in 1949, Heqing experienced conflict between government forces and pro-Communist guerillas and the rise of powerful bandit gangs that plagued the last years of Nationalist rule.  Particularly annoying was that led by Lokyun, an ex-army officer who claimed to be a revolutionary ‘third force,’ opposed to both the communists and the government.

White Yi women in Heqing for market day

       His gang seized Yongsheng that year and demanded submission from Heqing and Lijiang.  Heqing’s leaders welcomed Lokyun, whose army then seized all the rich people to hold for ransom and ransacked all of Heqing’s houses.  Lijiang people, suspicious of these ‘revolutionaries’, resisted.  Aided by Tibetan allies, the Naxi thoroughly defeated Lokyun’s attack and killed most of his soldiers.  Lokyun regrouped eventually, but never returned to the Heqing or Lijiang area.

       Nearly five decades later I made my first visit to Heqing.  Having already been everywhere in the Lijiang Plain, I decided on an excursion to the original homeland of the folks I met in Jinshan.  About 25 km south of Lijiang the road crosses into Heqing County and enters the long plain, running between a pair of small lakes halfway between the boundary and the city.  Bai villages stud the area on both sides of the road, but the flanking mountains exhibit so sign of settlements.

shop-house in the old town

       Village houses look somewhat different from those of Naxi villages, though they use the same materials.  They resemble those of rural Dali, minus the marble and with less use of stone, set close to each other, with a high back wall, usually windowless, Dali-style arabesques painted beneath the apex of each roof end and a small lion mounted over the roof’s center.  For wealthier house owners, especially in the Bai neighborhoods of the city, the compound gate will feature carvings under the roofs, sometimes of vegetation or animals.  The entrance door will have an arch above it, perhaps paintings on the wall and banners inscribed with Chinese characters hanging down at each side of the door.

       Heqing then had two distinct sections, old and new.  In between stood the venerable red-walled, three-tiered Yunhe Tower, originally erected during the city’s foundation.  The broad street south of the tower was filled with very ordinary style modern buildings, with the last traditional homes at the far end under process of demolition.  But traditional Bai homes and shop-houses still dominated the two streets north of the tower.  Noodle-makers, potters and carpenters plied their trades outside their houses in the small lanes of the quarter.

Bai merchant weighing her goods

bamboo conical cap stall

       Bai women of all ages dressed in traditional style, basically consisting of a long-sleeved blouse, side-fastened vest, trousers, apron and cap or turban.  The older women favored dark colors, mostly black and maybe a dark blue blouse.  Younger women usually donned white blouses, lighter colored trousers and a red, maroon or black vest.  Gray ‘Mao caps’ with bigger brims were the commonest headgear.

       The Bai women of Songgui district, who frequent the city, especially for market day, dressed the same except for the headgear.  Young and old wore a kind of large round black beret, with a jeweled starburst ornament s attached to the left side of the brim. 

copper ware section

       The most colorful people in the city were women of the White Yi minority, from Liuhe Autonomous Yi District in the mountains east of Songgui.  Their distinctive clothing item was a calf-length, long-sleeved tunic, in various shades of blue with contrasting bands on the sleeves.  It split at the waist, with a thin strip hanging down in front and the wider part draped over the back of the hips.  They wore ordinary blouse and trousers underneath and a wide, multi-colored sash belt wrapped several times around the waist.  On their heads they wore a black bonnet that hung over the back of the neck, with colored trimming on the brim.

      They were also the most engaging people in the city.  The Bai were polite and friendly everywhere; the Yi waved hello and approached me to have a conversation.  Their command of Chinese wasn’t much better than mine, so we were able to communicate.  Compared to the shy and skittish Yi around Dali and Ninglang, this sub-group was refreshingly forward.  They were overnight in the city for market day next morning.  More of them came to town on the first buses out of Liuhe next day, all in traditional outfits, but often with non-traditional plastic pack baskets or bright yellow backpacks sporting the Marlboro logo.

       Market day began early and by mid-morning was already crowded.  Bai villagers started arriving shortly after sunrise, some to set up stalls, some to purchase fruits and vegetables at their freshest.  Most wore pack baskets of split bamboo, some with a wooden shoulder board, which was occasionally enhanced with painted designs.

Heqing Bai woman selling garlic

Songgui Bai girl

       Market day stalls, layouts and services spread throughout the old quarter and spilled over into the area around Yunhe Tower.  Sellers set up on both sides of the streets, usually hawking a single item.  It was summer, so lots of fruits—peaches, sour plums, apples, bananas, strawberries, mangoes and pears.  The food market was full of rice, maize, vegetables and meat and, as in Lijiang, women were the butchers.  Various wafers, breadsticks, candies, steamed buns and other snacks were available, though for drinks one had to enter a restaurant.

       Articles of clothing were on sale everywhere.  Some were modern items like trousers, jackets, t-shirts, shoes and baby clothes.  Others were ethnic-oriented—Bai vests, long-sleeved blouses, plain and printed aprons, Bai caps, cloths for the brims and bolts of cotton cloth.  Bai women here are not so jewelry-minded, confining their ornaments mainly to small silver earrings and jade bangles.  Silver clasps and chain necklaces were available at stalls and much fancier stuff at the antiques displays.

spinning board with animal figures

       Besides a range of merchandise, market day also provided services, like shoe repair and sewing machine work near the food market and tooth extraction, blood pressure readings and fortune telling in the new town.  One man managed a stall with a board painted with twelve kinds of various air, land and water creatures (not the ones of the zodiac) in a circle and a movable dragon-headed pointer in the middle.  I didn’t learn whether it was a game board or some sort of fortune telling device.

       Local Bai handicrafts were also part of the market scene; not the embroidered or tie-dyed items common around Dali, but more everyday use goods.  Potters sold everything from teapots, cups and saucers to big storage jars, glazed and painted.  A large section next to the food market displayed copper and brass pots, pans, vases, dippers and utensils.  Bai metalworkers have a regional reputation for their wares and such items are not only part of a Bai household, they are exported up to Lijiang and Shangrila.

       Other crafts were not Bai specialties, in fact common throughout the province, but part of everyday rural usage.  In one of the old town lanes women sold rain capes made of palm bark fiber, quite in demand now that the monsoon had arrived.  Around the corner from the tea market, the street leading east of Yunhe Tower was the basketry section.  Stalls here offered carrying baskets of different types, conical steamer covers, brooms and winnowing trays.  Most trays were ordinary size, but a few were two meters in diameter, mainly used in the fields.  Some of the sellers wove new baskets while they tended their goods.

locally made baskets and winnow trays

       Market activity persisted until late afternoon, when folks running the stalls and layouts finally began packing up to go home.  The basket makers heaped their goods into a tall pile that they carried on their backs.  Other merchants piled their wares in big baskets or rice bags.  Some toted these on their backs, while others put them in a tractor-trailer to return to their villages.

       Combined with strolls in the countryside, where farmers were busy planting rice, witnessing this vibrant market day scene made my Heqing excursion delightful and worthwhile.  The only negative note was the sight of old houses being destroyed and swathes of rubble near Yunhe Tower.  What kind of new construction was due?  Was the remainder of the old town doomed?

       When in Lijiang again a few years later I made a day trip to Heqing to satisfy my curiosity.  The transformation was startling.  The entire downtown area around Yunhe Tower had been completely rebuilt, but not in any boring anonymous modern way.  Even the nondescript buildings of the new town had been replaced.  Now houses lining the main streets were attractive two and three story buildings that showed obvious Dali influence, but in a distinctly different style.

Yunhe Tower in the 90s

modern Bai house in new Heqing

       Except for one street with all gray houses, the new constructions, designed by a Kunming company, featured whitewashed walls liberally embellished with black paintings under the roof apexes and on the walls.  They had angled tiled roofs, sometimes in pairs, and upper story multiple windows with wooden frames.   Arched doorways and other motifs reflected the inspiration of traditional Bai architecture.

       Yunhe Tower had been renovated and the area around it cleared and made into parks.  A classical two-tiered archway stood at the end of the street south of the tower.   And a big new temple was under construction in the northeast quarter.  Altogether, Heqing was a city that looked better than it did before its modern development.  Nowadays, that’s something rare.

Yunhe Tower post-renovation

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Refuge in Yunnan: the Tragic History of the Miao

                                                                 by Jim Goodman

Miao in the Laomeng market,Jinping County

       Besides the creation of the universe and origins of the gods, Chinese mythology also narrates battles among the gods themselves over control of heaven and earth.  These culminated in the final victory of the Yellow Emperor over his challenger Chi You, a demon deity with a bovine bronze head, four eyes, six arms and a human body.  The long and tumultuous final battle took place at Zhuolou, near the present provincial border between Hebei and Liaoning.

       Both sides had allies.  The Yellow Emperor’s support came from gods and ghosts, bears, leopards, jackals and tigers.  Chi You had his brothers, demons and devils and the Miao.  The Yellow Emperor prevailed and killed Chi You and most of his army, including the Miao warriors.  It was also a territorial victory, for now the Yellow Emperor’s people, the Han, would occupy the lower Yellow River Plain and make it their heartland, pushing the Miao further south.

Miao girl in Mengzi

older Miao woman in the Mengzi market

       Chinese used the term Miao back then, and for many centuries afterwards, to identify any people who lived south of them who were not Han.  Even today ethnologists and some of the sub-groups themselves dispute the classification as Miao all the different people who have been grouped as such, making the, China’s fifth largest ethnic minority.  Yet Chi You is part of Miao mythology, though as a sagacious king and not, as the Chinese would have it, an oppressive monster.  And he’s still revered as a war god by both Han and Miao.

Miao women at the Duoyi River

      Nevertheless, the myth establishes that animosity between Han and Miao dates back to ancient times.  Under successive dynasties the Han continued to expand south, constantly confronting indigenous Miao and other peoples in the way of new settlements.  Because they consistently clung to their own culture and traditions and did not adopt Chinese ways, the Chinese considered them uncivilized barbarians and felt no compunction about evicting them.

       Throughout the Song and Ming Dynasties the same scenario played out repeatedly in the central provinces of Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou.  Han migrants would encroach on Miao land.  The Miao would drive them out and repulse local military attacks.  But then the Han government would send in a much bigger force that eventually defeated the Miao and forced them to abandon the area.  Some moved out of the region entirely, all the way to western Sichuan and northern Guangxi.

Miao girl embroidering at Haizibian, Wenshan

Miao woman gathering edibles in Haizibian Lake

       The Miao were never a nation, nor ever tried to become one.  Authority lay with each clan chief, not with an overall sovereign.  Yet out of the dreary pattern of encroachment, revolt, repression and expulsion, a new Miao myth developed—the Miao King.  Heaven would send him and he would be recognized by certain signs and powers, unite all the Miao clans around, drive out the Han and reestablish the old order.

Miao house in Haizibian, with the loom on the upper floor

       This pattern continued under the Qing Dynasty, especially in Guizhou in the 18^th century.   Always successful initially, for the Miao were defending their own territory, not seeking to expand it, in the end they always lost.  In this period, some migrated out of the region altogether, to northern Vietnam and Laos or faraway Yunnan.

       While they were no longer subject to periodic Han land grabs, the Miao experience in Yunnan varied depending upon where they settled.  Northeast Yunnan is heavily Han-dominated, though the Han government turned over administration of the hill areas, and tax collection, to nobles of the Yi ethnic minority.  The Miao of Zhaotong Prefecture suffered more under the Yi than they had under Han officials in Guizhou or Hunan.  Besides taxes and forced labor, they were also conscripted to serve as soldiers in the Yi nobles’ incessant feuds with each other.

Miao woman prepares herself for market day in Tongchang

Miao woman on the way to Tongchang

       By the late 19^th century they were on the verge of revolt, only awaiting the emergence of a charismatic figure to proclaim he was the new Miao King.  But the situation was different this time, for the Qing Dynasty was in terminal decline, forced into granting concessions to Western powers, one of which was the right of foreign missionaries to proselytize in the country.  Among its many assignments, the China Inland Mission dispatched Samuel Pollard and James R. Adam to Zhaotong, who concentrated their preaching among the downtrodden Miao.  Pollard even devised a script for the Miao language.

Miao village near Tongchang, Jinping County

       The Miao took special interest in the story of Christ, identifying emotionally with the tortures of the crucifixion, so like those inflicted on them by the landlords and bureaucrats.  Attendance at the sermons mushroomed.  Mass conversions soon followed as whole villages enlisted in the new religion.  At the same time they awaited the Miao King, so obviously predicted in the missionaries' story of the Second Coming.  Some even conjectured that Pollard himself was the Miao King. 

       Meanwhile the Miao coming into town in such massive numbers aroused the suspicions of both Yi and Han. A campaign of repression of the Christian Miao commenced, burning villages, seizing property, beating, torturing and imprisoning them.  Yet the more severe the persecution the more the Christian movement spread.  It was not long before virtually all the Miao of Zhaotong Prefecture had embraced Christianity.  The movement even spread to the Miao in Wuding and Luquan Counties, north of Kunming, under the stewardship of Arthur Nichols of China Inland Mission.

Miao women in Mrngla for market day

Miao in Mrngla, Jinping County

       Just as the situation reached the boiling point in late 1904, Pollard intervened.  He persuaded the magistrates to issue proclamations protecting the Christians. Things simmered down for a while but the landlords launched a fresh campaign in 1906-7.  Again the missionaries obtained proclamations from the magistrates, this time sent directly to the Yi lords.  Pollard and Adam themselves visited the lords to urge their compliance.

twisting hemp thread while in the market

       Han officials resented the foreigners' interference and talked openly of expelling them.  When Pollard found out he threatened them with reports to their superiors, a threat that implied their dismissal.  The local officials at once backed down and even promised to take no action against the Christians.  Hostilities continued off-and-on for the next several years.  But gradually some of the Yi also became Christians, while the millenarian aspects of Miao Christianity faded, as did expectations of the Miao King's imminence.  Yet the missionaries' prestige was so high the Miao remained faithful adherents of the new religion.

       Elsewhere in Yunnan, migrant Miao met with a different experience.  Most moved into Honghe and Wenshan Prefectures, in counties where the Han were not so numerous, which were already densely settled by other ethnic minorities like the Hani, Yao, Dai, Buyi, Zhuang and other Yi.  Neither the Han nor any single ethnic minority dominated the area as in the northeast.  Miao culture was not under stress and missionaries had little or no impact.

Miao on the road to Laomeng

selling firewood in Jinshuihe, Jinping County

       Much of this part of Yunnan had been occupied for many centuries before the Miao arrived.  For the most part they had to make do with the narrowest valleys and stony soil--lands nobody else wanted.  A diligent, practical and adaptable people, they managed to eke out a living in such environments, raising corn, millet, sugarcane, vegetables and hemp.  And where they could settle on more fertile lands they became expert agro-engineers, creating extensive terracing for growing rice, as in Pingbian and Jinping Counties in Yunnan and around Sapa in northern Vietnam.

       With a history of resisting or fleeing forced assimilation, the Miao were shyer and more reclusive then their neighbors, rarely marrying out of their own sub-groups, and tenacious about preserving their culture and identity.  Though in recent decades they have become more involved with the society around them, and no longer face aggressive designs on their lands, this remains a chief Miao characteristic, exemplified by the almost universal preference of the women for their traditional clothing.

Miao leg wrappers

      For most Miao sub-groups in Honghe or Wenshan the most striking component is the bulky, pleated, indigo batik skirt, appliquéd with lavish embroidery.  The colors and batik patterns may differ from one sub-group to another, and one group wears plain pleated white skirts, but the shape is the same and no other ethnic group wears a similar skirt.  Some don a plain black jacket, but for most the rest of the outfit is also heavily embroidered and includes leg-wrappers, a wide belt, apron, jacket and some kind of headgear. 

       Perhaps one reason Miao women are so attached to their traditional costumes is the great amount of time and effort expended to produce them.  The process begins with the cultivation of the hemp plant, the dried stalks of which can be turned into thread, but only after a long, laborious process.  The women strip off the skins of the stalks and tear them into thin strips.  Then they bundle and beat them until all foreign matter is removed and start twining them into something resembling thread, a common spare time activity at home, walking to the fields or sitting around a market stall.  That done, the next step is to wind them onto the spinning wheel and further twist the threads.

       Following that, loops of spun thread get bleached by repeatedly boiling in water and lime.   Then women mount the thread on a large winding frame to prepare the warp threads to put on the loom.  Now it’s ready to be woven into a strip of cloth, usually 30-40 cm wide.  After that they lay out the cloth on a table to begin the batik process, a form of resist dyeing, by applying beeswax in complicated patterns, dyeing with indigo and removing the wax.  The patterns appear in white.  The final step is to cut the cloth into appropriate lengths for a skirt, stitch narrow folds together while it is wet and after it is dry, remove the stitches for permanent pleats.

festival dance for Trekking the FloweryMountain

       It’s still not ready to wear.  Women add narrow bands of heavily embroidered cloth to the sides and hems of the skirt, obliterating much of the batik designs.  They also add these bands to the jacket, belt, apron, cap and leg-wrappers.  Drawing on a vast repertoire of traditional cross-stitch patterns they may also create new ones, for it is in these details that individualism comes into play.  Young women spend much time improving their embroidering skills, for they are highly regarded in Miao society.  Cultivation of this art requires certain character traits—diligence, a sense of beauty, attention to detail, skill with the hands—that are desirable in a prospective wife and mother.

       Traditionally Miao youth were free to socialize and engage in romance, though parents arranged their weddings.  Should romance blossom into love the couple sought parental approval, but if they didn’t get it they might take the option of elopement and make a new home for themselves somewhere far away, alone or joining another couple or two who also eloped.

       Courtship was usually a group affair in the beginning stage, especially at big public events, though it could also occur spontaneously in the fields or at a rest stop on the way back from a market.  Antiphonal singing was a favorite method, groups responding to the songs of each other.  It was common at the festivals, particularly the event called Trekking the Flowery Mountain, celebrated by several villages together, held in southern Yunnan the 3^rd to 5^th days of the first lunar month, honoring a pair of mythical lovers.

the Flower Pole for the festival

Miao girl dressed up for the festival

       For this event villagers select the bravest boy and most beautiful girl and erect a tall Flower Pole at the festival site. The girl presents the boy with a ball of red silk and a reed pipe.  He must climb the pole and deposit them at the top.  After descending to the ground he returns to inform the girl of his success, holding a flowery umbrella.  The crowd encourages them to get closer until in the end he retreats with her behind the umbrella.  The crowd cheers, hoping that true love sprouts behind that umbrella.  If the couple does fall in love and wed, that will be a happy marriage and bring good luck to the village.  On selecting the couple in the first place the villagers collectively play the role of matchmaking parents.  So if love indeed is the result of their selection, it is seen as a tribute to their collective wisdom.

       Besides various rituals performed by the elders, the festival features song and dance shows, the music of lutes, flutes and reed pipes and antiphonal singing.  Girls begin with a common folk song.  Boys respond with the next stanza.  Eventually they will invent new stanzas expressing their feelings and compete to come up with imaginative lyrics.  The older folks improvise lyrics within a set rhyme scheme and sing about nature, agriculture, Miao history and legends, also in a call-and-response style, which becomes a test of traditional knowledge.

       Many romances might result from this.  But more important to the participants, the festival is a celebration of being Miao, of being a people whose traditions and culture have persisted, despite tragedies and displacements, ever since the time of the Yellow Emperor.

festival participants, Trekking the Flowery Mountain

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for more on the Miao, see my e-book The Terrace Builders

Delta Tours Vietnam organizes trips through Miao territory in Honghe Prefecture.  See the itinerary at https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/honghe-prefecture