by Jim Goodman
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| taking home the hay |
The Mongols conquered Dali in
the nid-13th 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 22nd day of the 6th 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.
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| old-fashioned city restaurant |
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| 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.
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| local Bai girls in Heqing |
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| Yi woman from Liuhe in Heqing |
Heqing remained quite
peripheral to political developments until the 20th 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Bai merchant weighing her goods |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Heqing Bai woman selling garlic |
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| Songgui Bai girl |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Yunhe Tower in the 90s |
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| 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.
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| Yunhe Tower post-renovation |
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