Beyond Shangrila: the Mountains of Deqin

    

                              by Jim Goodman

 

       Mountains in Yunnan rise higher the further northwest you go in the province.  They top more than 4000 meters in Dali Prefecture and over 5500 meters near Lijiang.  There are other 4000+ peaks in Ninglang County and upper Nujiang, but the biggest of them all lie in Deqin Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, for most of its territory is geographically the southeastern tip of the Tibetan Plateau.  Here the mountains stand over 6000 meters.

       The most accessible and popular part of the prefecture is Shangrila County.  It used to be called Zhongdian until 2001 when, to promote its tourist potential, the government claimed it was the site of the Shangrila of James Hilton’s famous novel Lost Horizon and so officially changed its name.  With its broad plain, traditional Tibetan houses, lovely monasteries at Songzhanlin and other places and friendly people, it certainly appeals as an idyllic escape from the commotion of wherever the tourists came from.

       The Shangrila hype notwithstanding, the village of the novel had a very different setting, in a valley with a triangular-peaked snow mountain towering over one end.  Shangrila lies at about 3100 meters and from various points in the county, especially in winter, one can see some snow around the mountains beyond the plain.  But they are not very high and to see anything resembling the mountain described in Lost Horizon one has to go further on to Deqin, the next county north.

       Not long after leaving Shangrila city, after passing Napahai Lake, the landscape abruptly changes.  From here on the topography is all mountainous, with no more broad expanse of relatively flat land.  The road runs along the higher parts of the mountain slopes that, in the early 90s during my visits, were largely denuded of trees, with stray hamlets clinging to the hillsides. Then it descends to cross the Jinshajiang, the River of Golden Sand that is the moniker for the Upper Yangzi, and soon pulls into Benzilan, the first major town in Deqin County.

       There were two Benzilans then.  In the lower one, the original Tibetan settlement, the houses lined a ridge overlooking a small plateau that served as farmland and pastures.  The upper one was the commercial center along the main road, full of shops, hotels and restaurants catering to travelers on the Shangrila-Deqin route, most of whom stop here for lunch.

       From Benzilan it’s up into the mountains again, where the slopes are high and barren again, although not necessarily due to deforestation.  Many gradients are so steep they never supported forests anyway. But streams run down them and there, on modest gradients, Tibetans built their settlements that are patches of green in the otherwise dusty brown landscape.   Around 15 km from Benzilan a turn-off takes one a short distance to a dramatic view of a bend in the Jinshajiang,  The river makes a loop 2/3 the way around a conical hill  protruding from the vertical cliffs on the eastern bank.

       Back to the road, the next stop north is the monastery of Dongzhulin, 103 km north   of Shangrila, at an altitude of 3000 meters.  The original monastery lay further away from the road and was built in 1667 during the reign of the Kang Xi Emperor, who himself was interested in Tibetan Buddhism.  In the 19^th century Dongzhulin housed over 900 monks and 12 Living Buddhas (reincarnations of famous lamas).  It was here that the French missionary Père  Renou disguised himself as a trader and stayed to learn about Buddhism and to speak the local dialect in order to, after he left the monastery, proselytize Christianity among Deqin’s Tibetans.

       Dongzhulin became associated with the Tibetan Revolt in 1958, allegedly storing arms for the rebels, and in retaliation government forces leveled the monastery.  In 1985 it was rebuilt in its current location, a splendid traditional-style building, four stories high and supported by 82 thick wooden pillars.  The ground floor houses large images of various deities like Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gulugpa (Yellow Hat) monastic order, Avalokitesvar, Manjusri and others.  Portraits of celestial beings, demons, benevolent and wrathful deities fill the walls.  The 3^rd floor features huge images of the Maitreya Buddha, seven meters high, and Sakyamuni, ten meters high.  The other floors are for reciting sutras and performing private rituals. 

       In the early 90s Dongzhulin had about 300 monks and one Living Buddha.  There was also a Buddhist nunnery attached to it.  Nuns follow the same rules as monks, shave their heads, wear robes, recite sutras, etc, but have the option of staying in the nunnery or living at home.  Most stay in the nunnery across the road in Shusong. 

        From here it’s another 80 km or so to the county capital and halfway there the road runs through a forest and over a pass at 4000 meters.  The peak of Baimashan looms to the left of the road.  Though only 4292 meters high, it is perpetually covered in snow.  The pastures on the edge of the forest are prime yak grazing areas in the summer months.  The whole area is a protected nature preserve, home to foxes, deer, leopards and bears.  The poplar trees and parts of the pine groves turn yellow in autumn and local species of the maple tree turn red.

       From the pass the city is another 35 km through stony hills with thin patches of forest and scarcely any human habitation until just before the city.  Formerly called Atuntse, and known to local Tibetans as Jui, Deqin is about half the size of Shangrila and at around 3400 meters a slightly higher altitude.  It is sited on slopes that funnel precipitation down to a stream at the lower end of town that eventually empties into the Lancangjiang (Upper Mekong).  Most of the buildings then were modern concrete structures, with a quasi-Tibetan style in the upper end neighborhood and no style at all elsewhere.

       The only remaining wooden buildings were around the central market, which was about half the size of Shangrila’s but less ethnically diverse, for nearly all the city’s residents are Tibetan.  Several shops here and on the main street specialized in Tibetan clothing, crafts and jewelry.  City residents and villagers come here to sell off heirlooms, furs and herbs and purchase Tibetan belts, scarves, carpets, woolen cloaks, brocaded silk, fur hats and ornaments of coral, turquoise and silver.

       Most Deqin women, though, didn’t seem to be as fond of wearing traditional clothing as in Shangrila County and when they did the outfit resembled  more the style of Lhasa, with an ankle-length dress and a long striped apron in front, rather than the ensemble popular in Shangrila County.  On the whole, they were not as outgoing or engaging as their counterparts in Shangrila/Zhongdian, but invariably polite and cordial.

       Deqin has a mosque, not for Hui but for Tibetan Muslims who converted to Islam when part of Hui-run caravans in the past.  The population is overwhelmingly Buddhist, but the devout had to journey to villages beyond the city, as Deqin had no big monastery of its own anymore.  During the Qing Dynasty, especially in its last decades, lamas from high-ranking Tibetan families ruled Deqin as their private fief.  Around the end of the 19^th century two new developments began to challenge their practical autonomy.  Under pressure from France, the Qing government allowed French missionaries to proselytize in Tibetan areas.  At the same time the government inaugurated a land reform policy in these same areas.

       Both of these threatened the lamas’ authority.  Land reform would target their own family holdings and conversion to Catholicism would undermine their religious leadership.  In 1904, the British colonial Government of India authorized the Younghusband Expedition, a military invasion of Tibet ostensibly designed to prevent the Russians from taking it.  London disapproved of the move and the following year Younghusband’s forces withdrew.

       Among the Tibetans the incident provoked outright rebellion against anything and anybody foreign.  In 1905 a widespread uprising began at Batang in southwest Sichuan, where the lamas instigated attacks on the foreign missionaries, all their converts and Chinese government officers.  Victims suffered grisly deaths, especially the priests, and the rebellion spread to Litang and Kangding in Sichuan and down into Yunnan in Atuntse/Deqin.  Massacres of priests and their followers took place in Deqin and Cikou, the French mission in the Lancangjiang valley south of Deqin.  Marauders mounted the severed heads of the priests on the Dechenling Monastery gate in Deqin.

       Chinese government forces halted the rebels’ advance on Xiaowieixi, the next Christian settlement south of Cikou.  They then marched on Deqin, isolated and surrounded the lamas in Dechenling and finally slaughtered everybody inside and burnt the building to the ground.  Chinese officials took charge of the administration, but eventually married local women and stayed on after their service was completed.  Surviving Christians rebuilt their demolished church in Cizhong, a little north of Cikou, this time in a French village style.

       The main reason travelers go to Deqin is not for the city’s few attractions, but for the view of the nearby snow mountains. On a clear day this is truly magnificent.  Leaving Deqin the road heads towards the Lancanjiang and after climbing out of the city’s valley and into the countryside, doming to Dong village and the modest Feilai Temple, surrounded by grain fields.  Inside the main hall is a large statue of the mountains’ guardian deity.  In the annex, when I visited, the carcasses of freshly killed goats hung from the rafters.  As the monks were presumably vegetarian it wasn’t their food.  Some Bon, pre-Buddhist sacrifice? I wondered, but never did find out.

      Lovely  Taizishan Snow Mountain, 6054 meters altitude, is visible from the approach to Dong.  A little further on, at a small break in the forest, is the most celebrated viewpoint.  Looking west one can clearly see Meili Snow Mountain, at 6740 meters altitude the highest in the province.  From its peak a long wide glacier runs down in front.  This is the most accessible glacier in Yunnan and in later years tour companies promoted one-day hikes to it and back or overnight camping at the glacier’s foot.  Adventurous travelers could also go on extended treks in the nature preserve around the mountain.

       On my visit the viewpoint also featured several chortens and strings of prayer flags, adding a religious aspect to the scene.  After a few years the government built a high wall between the road and the viewpoint with a ticket booth in front of its only door.  The entry fee was 150 yuan.  On my visit it was free.

       The road continues along the Lancangjiang Valley all the way to the Tibetan border, passing both forested and barren areas and through tunnels chiseled out of the cliffs.  It is a good example of Yunnan’s road engineering skills, though occasionally subject to landslides, which are always quickly restored.  Herder take their yaks along the same road and wherever fatal accidents have occurred, people have erected chortens on mounds of stone slabs inscribed with Tibetan prayers.

       About 30 km north of Deqin the road swerves away from the valley to cross the Adong River.  Upstream stands a major hydroelectric plant and a switch pulled here daily around midnight plunged Deqin and vicinity into darkness.  Further up, 64 km from Deqin, lies Foshan, a nondescript town from where the Lancang River is the provincial boundary between Yunnan and Tibet.  Just past Foshan is the rather prosperous village of Nagu, famous for the ancient stone coffins found nearby, but unfortunately they had been removed to a museum by the time of my visit.  Another 40 km is the Tibetan border, with an old Naxi settlement on the way, a relic of the early Qing Dynasty when Naxi troops from Lijiang guarded the border.

       While the mountains south of Taizishan are not as high or dramatic, the scenery all the way to Cizhong is quite impressive.  A road from the south end of Deqin winds along narrow gorges cut by the Lancangjiang’s tributary streams, offering sporadic glimpses of the snow peaks, passes through three tunnels and then makes eight distinct bends on the descent to the riverside town of Yunling.

       From Yunling the road runs along the Lancang River, with excellent views across to isolated villages, monasteries perched atop ravines, deep gorges cut by streams, splendid tall, thin waterfalls spillling over sheer cliffs, and occasional thick forests that burst into a variety of colors in autumn.  Around Yanmen, 30 km south of Yunling, Nagu-like stone coffins have also been found, including remnants of ancient pottery and bronze artifacts.

       A little downriver on the opposite bank lies the county’s last major attraction—the Catholic Church at Cizhong.  Tibetans comprise 3/4 of the population, with Naxi at 20% and Han 5%.  The altitude is sufficiently lower here so that Cizhong farms can grow rice instead of barley.  Viniculture, introduced by the French missionaries, is also prominent and Cizhong has a reputation for its wine.  Tibetan Christianity never revived in Deqin, but here in Cizhong, in spite of 1905, it survived.  Its congregation is mostly the older generation, but its very existence puts Cizhong on the list of what-to-see for any traveler seriously exploring Deqin County.

    

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For more on Deqin and the Tibetans, see my r-book Living in Shangrila

 

Yaks in Yunnan

                                                                          by Jim Goodman

yaks grazing in Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan

       The road running from Lijiang, which sits on an elevated plain at 2400 meters, to Shangrila, high up on the Tibetan Plateau at nearly 3300 meters, offers some of the greatest scenic variety in Yunnan province.  After leaving Lijiang the road cuts through hills speckled with Naxi villages to the Jinshajiang, then turns upriver as far as its confluence at Qiaotou with the Chongjiang, a cleaner, swifter river than the usually muddy, sluggish Jinshajiang.

       From Qiaotou Shangrila County begins and about 20 kilometers north the road passes into Yi territory, characterized by log cabin hamlets and potato and maize farms high up on the slopes, gurgling streams below and pine forests all around.  After another 15 kilometers the road begins winding its way uphill until it reaches a chorten with strings of prayer flags attached, marking the entry into a broad, high, rolling plain.  This is the southeastern corner of the Tibetan Plateau, studded with villages of whitewashed houses and flat tile roofs, with huge wooden drying racks in the fields and thickly forested mountains behind them.  And in the pastures between the settlements and along the rural streams roam the yaks.

yak on a village path, Shangrila County

       Bigger than the largest breed of cattle, with a hump over the shoulders and cloven hooves, these domesticated yaks are yet smaller than their wild yak progenitors.  Long gone from Yunnan, and now found mainly in northern Tibet, southern Xinjiang and Ladakh, India, the wild yak males are 1.5-2.2 meters tall at the shoulders and 2.5-3.3 meters long, with a tail of 60-100 centimeters.  They can weigh from 300-1000 kilograms.  Females are smaller, about one-third the size and weight.

       No doubt in prehistoric times people living at high altitudes hunted wild yaks for their meat.  Eventually they realized the animal could be of greater use to then if they domesticated it, which ethnic Qiang herdsmen achieved about 4500 years ago.  This proved to be quite successful.  Nowadays estimates of the wild yak population range around 15,000, while domesticated yaks number in the millions.  They are classified as a separate species—bos grunnians, the ‘grunting ox’, after the sound it makes, rather than the ‘moo’ of cattle.

spring plowing

       Domestic yaks are somewhat smaller than their wild cousins, but are still pretty bulky, males weighing up to nearly 600 kg, females usually about 250 kg.  The male’s horns extend 49-100 cm, slightly curved upward at the tips.  The female’s horns are straight and 27-64 cm long.  Yaks primarily use their horns to dig through snow and ice to get at the edible plants underneath.

       The layer of atmosphere at this altitude is about two-thirds the density of that at sea level and even significantly thinner than that at Lijiang.  Visitors coming up from lower altitudes notice this right away in their breathing, suddenly a little laborious, especially if walking around or uphill too much.  The usual advice is to take it easy the first couple days until the body is used to it.  Presumably, the same thing happens to lowland animals brought up here, though that’s rare anyway.

milking a yak

       Yaks, and their human keepers the Tibetans, are already physically adapted, for they have bigger hearts and lungs.  Yaks are also better fitted against the cold than people, who must don layers of clothing to insulate themselves.  Yaks have a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and their chests, flanks and thighs are covered with long, shaggy hair over a thick woolen undercoat.  Able to withstand sub-freezing temperatures in the winter, they can suffer from heat exhaustion when temperatures climb above 15 degrees Centigrade.  Likewise, they can become sluggish, with breathing difficulties, if taken to the denser atmospheric layer below 2600 meters altitude.

selling yak cheese in the Shangrila city market 

       Mating season is July-September, with a single calf per mother born in April-June.  The newborn yak calf can stand and walk ten minutes after birth.  After about five years they are fully grown and usually live about twenty years.  They do not eat grain, but feed on grasses, herbs, leafy plants and occasionally lichens and mosses.  Because they ferment the food slowly, they only consume 1% of their body weight daily.  Cattle, by comparison, with a faster digestive system, require 3%. 

       People also cross breed yaks with cattle, producing a slightly smaller animal called the dzo.  The male dzo is infertile, so the female may later be mated with a full-blooded yak.  The Shangrila plain has many of these, but still has a vast number of pure yaks.  All types are used the same way as draft animals and sources of food.

yaks on the road north of Diqing

       Tibetans use their male yaks for heavy tasks like pulling plows and hauling logs.  Being bigger and stronger than the females, they are the pack animals carrying loads on the caravans.  The females are more valued for their milk, with its high butter fat content, from which Tibetans produce butter and cheese, essential parts of their diet.

       Usually men milk the yaks and women turn the milk into butter and cheese.  To make butter they pour milk into a meter-tall wooden tube and churn it with a pole until it reaches a certain temperature.  Then they add a little cold water (warm in winter) and the butter floats to the top and congeals.  Scooping it out, they next press it into round cakes in cold water.  To make cheese they heat the milk over a low fire, which separates it into curds and water.  After cooling, the resultant curds are strained into a cloth and dried into lumps of cheese.  Each area produces a different taste.  That of Shangrila is slightly tart, while that of Diqing tastes best when boiled and served in melted butter.  That of Benzilan, where they add sugar to the milk, is rather sweet.

yaks in winter on the Shangrila plain

       Most rural families own one or two yaks, or at least a female dzo.  Yaks are tame by nature, easy to train and don’t require breaking in like horses.  When not put to work they roam freely to feed and can be easily led back to the owner’s compound.  They are kept in a separate shed or occupy a ground floor room of the house, as the family living and sleeping quarters are on the upper floor.

       The life of a yak follows a seasonal pattern.  During the winter they stay on the Shangrila plain.  The only work required of them might be to haul timber to the site of a new house.  In the spring farmers yoke a pair of yaks together to pull a plow across the barley fields.  A woman guides the animals in the front, while a man operates the plow behind them. 

Yaks in Baimashan

       Spring is also the time the yaks shed their downy undercoat, which people comb out to collect, then process into a fiber similar to cashmere.  The long outer hair makes belts, ropes and bags.  The undercoat and outer hair grow back during the summer.

       Besides the farmers’ family yaks, herders manage numbers of them in the open spaces between the villages, especially in the glens around Bita and Shudu Lakes, east of Shangrila city, Napa Lake to the north and the valley beyond Songzhanlin.  These yaks won’t be put to work as draft or transport animals, but instead are raised for their meat and hides.  In the summer the herders take them up into the mountains, to elevations over 4000 meters.  Baimashan, between Benzilan and Diqing, is a favorite destination.

yak herders' summer camp in Baimashan

      Each family takes charge of up to 40 animals.  They must stock up ahead of time on rice, barley flour, tea and other provisions, for the nearest villages are often quite distant.  To ensure they have the means to ignite fires they carry chips of resinous spruce, and pieces of flint and steel.  They build temporary shelters for themselves, either simple log cabins or tents, often reinforced with a stone foundation.  The rains having brought out fresh grass, flowers, herbs and plants to the pastures, the yaks fatten quickly and the cows yield lots of milk.  In October herders bring them back to lower altitudes, like the Shangrila plain, to stay for the winter.

dueling male yaks

       Herds can be as large as 200 animals, but they are usually much smaller, of 10-20 females and their calves.  Males stay solitary or in groups of four to six.  They can be cantankerous towards each other, sometimes fighting by ramming their heads and pushing the opponent until he gives way.  At night the females huddle together, with their calves in the center, to protect against the cold.

yaks in Yao Shan, Ninglang County

      Besides Shangrila and Diqing Counties, yaks also live high up on Yao Shan—Medicine Mountain—in northern Ninglang County.  The herders here are Yi and the yaks are raised for their meat, hides and milk products and not put to work.  Yak meat is very nutritious, full of protein and with low fat content—3.9%, compared to 9% for chicken and 24% for beef.  The hairy hides make warm blankets and the tails are sold as flywhisks.  In areas short of firewood, dried yak dung serves for fuel.  People also use the skulls as house decorations, sometimes inscribing them or the horns with prayers.

skinning a yak in Shangrila city

       Beyond their ubiquitous physical presence on the Shangrila plain, the importance of yaks in the lives of the local people is plainly evident on a trip to the city markets.  Tibetan women sit behind tables laden with lumps of yak cheese and discs of yak butter.   Nearby stalls sell yak tail flywhisks, belts and bags made from yak leather, slings and pouches of yak hair, tubular wooden churns for making yak butter, combs and pipes carved from yak horn and rows of dried skulls.  Vendors sell fresh meat as well as strips of dried yak meat jerky. 

yak jerky on sale in Shangrila city

       When receiving guests into their homes Tibetans traditionally set them by the fire or other warm place and prepare refreshments.  The hostess will churn some butter, add hot tea and serve the standard Tibetan drink—buttered tea, believed to warm the body better than tea without butter.  A bowl of barley flour and a plate of cheese slices come with the tea.

       Yak products are also found in the temples.  Monks use yak tail flywhisks to shoo away insects indoors.  Rows of small yak butter lamps line the altars in front of the images, some of which are yak butter figurines painted with bright colors.  Butter images melt when the temperatures warm up.  Like the sand mandalas swept away after their ritual use, they are thus symbols of impermanence and new ones made for the cooler months.

yak tails, Shangrila city market

       When welcoming visiting dignitaries, high officials or renowned lamas, or at the start of an important festival, Tibetan communities will stage a yak dance.  Two performers dance under a single yak skin, one at each end.  They cavort while surrounded by spectators and occasionally dash into the amused crowd and scatter them out of their way.

       Yaks are also part of Tibetan mythology as embodiments of gods and demons.  The wild yak was an obvious inspiration in ancient times.  It was unpredictable and prone to violence much more severe than the head-butting contests of domestic yaks.  It was a dangerous prey, too, and so difficult to hunt that those hunters who did succeed were feted as village heroes.

making butter tea for the guests

yak skulls, Shangrila city market

       In the usual Good vs. Evil contests, the Lords of Heaven may assume the form of a white yak, in one story a huge white yak that emits blizzards from its mouth and nose.  Black yaks, with fiery eyes, are the incarnation of the demons of Hell.  In the Tibetan epic of Gesar of Ling, the goatherd Palé happens to witness a duel between a white yak and a black yak.  When he sees the latter is about to win, suspecting it as a demon in disguise, he kills the black yak. 

yak passing by the barley drying rack in autumn

       The surviving white yak reveals itself to be Gyamzhin, the Lord of the Gods, and offers half his palace or half his kingdom or whatever his rescuer demands as reward.  Palé requests that one of Gyanzhin’s sons be sent down to rule over Ling.  Eventually Heaven sends Gesar to be born in Ling.  Among the adventures Gesar has in his career are periodic duels with yak demons.   

       During the winter festivals at Songzhanlin and Dongzhulin, as well as the Horse Racing Festival the fifth lunar month in Shangrila city, masked lama dances are part of the program.  The skits depict some kind of gods vs. demons battle and both sides wear horrific masks.  And on Hell’s side will be at least one performer in the mask of a black yak demon.

       When the dances conclude and there’s a pause before the next event, the audience breaks up into small groups for refreshments.  Most likely this will be buttered tea from a thermos and pieces of jerky and cheese.  They might even consume it while sitting on a yak leather mat.  Yaks are in one way or another connected to practically everything Tibetans do.  It’s hard to imagine what they would do without them.

herder milking a yak in his sumer Baimashan camp

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We’ll see plenty of yaks on Delta Tours Vietnam’s route through northwest Yunnan.  See the schedule at https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/northwest-yunnan