The Other Side of the Azure Mountains—Shaxi to Xiaguan

                                   by Jim Goodman

outskirts of Shaxi, on the Heihui RIver 

       Before highways began linking up various parts of Yunnan in the 20^th century, and trucks started delivering goods everywhere, caravans were the means to carry out long-distance trade.  While they plied over trails on traditional routes connecting all parts of the province, one of the most important was the famous Tea and Horses Road, running from Xishuangbanna in the south, through western and northwestern Yunnan and into Tibet.  Its name derived from its principal trade items—Pu’er tea from southern Yunnan and horses from Tibet.

       Many towns along the route became popular stopovers for the caravans, providing lodging and places to tether their animals.  Among these was Shaxi, in Jianchuan County, northern Dali Prefecture.  The usual way to get there was proceeding north of Xiaguan, at the south end of Erhai Lake, with the Azure Mountains (Cangshan in Chinese) on the west side, then passing out of the valley, through Eryuan County and to Sword Lake, just south of Jianchuan city. 

Yi woman crossing the old stone bridge

typical Shaxi old town lane

the old theater on the market square

      At the junction here a road turns ssw along the Heihui River, which empties into Sword Lake, and soon enters a broad plain dominated by the town of Shaxi.  Never very big, it was nevertheless fairly prosperous until the virtual end of the caravan trade after 1949.  Yet in its slow modernization over the next several decades, Shaxi still retained its old quarter of cobbled lanes and traditional Bai houses, former lodges for the caravan operators and dilapidated, but not destroyed, temples and other public buildings.  It was the last of the caravan stopovers that still looked like one.

       Shaxi is basically a farmers’ town, but from the beginning of the 21^st century it took on a new identity as a popular tourist attraction.  The provincial government launched restoration programs, renovating the old temples and the theater on the market square and promoting its historic connection to the Tea and Horses Road.  The town has a new section of boring concrete buildings, but it is a minor part of Shaxi and such architecture doesn’t appear in the traditional quarters.  New houses have gone up, but in classic traditional Bai style.

Shaxi Friday market

Bai women run stalls on market day

      The town sits on the west bank of the river and a little above the water.  Two bridges cross the Heihui.  One is for pedestrians, centuries old, a classic arched stone bridge with sculpted lion heads at each end and on the side over the highest point of the arch.  The other, for vehicles, is an ordinary level bridge in the 1950s style, with elliptical arches and plain columns at each end.  It looks out of synch with all the old-fashioned buildings within sight in every direction.  But at least it is outside the town proper, where the traditional look has not only survived, but has been enhanced.

Bai woman in Shaxi

Yi woman in Shaxi

       The population is mixed Han, Hui and Bai.  Most of the houses are mud brick with tiled roofs.  Others, like the former boarding houses, are manly wooden.  Some of the richer Bai live in houses with carved gates, more use of stone, and painted decorations under the apex of the roofs like those in Dali or Jianchuan.  Shade trees line the main streets in the old town and trimmed shrubs sit in pots in front of the houses.  Passageways through the lanes pass under the arches of neighborhood gates or of houses that straddle both sides of the lane.

ancient sculptures in a Shibaoshan grotto

       A quiet, almost sedate atmosphere prevails in the old town, where vehicular traffic is basically absent, except for bicycles and the occasional tractor-trailer.  That all changes on Friday, Shaxi’s market day.  Residents of the town, joined by villagers from the vicinity, set up stalls in the old market square and along practically all the lanes in the old town.  The local dentist has an outdoor stall that day, too. 

       Products on sale vary considerably.   One section will feature carved doors and windows, chairs and stools, another all kinds of carrying baskets, yet another tools and horse trappings.  One lane will fill with grains, spices, vegetables and fruits and the next one will offer shoes and clothing.  There will be noodle stalls for those who want lunch and steamed buns and other snacks available at small stands.

stone vagina, Shibaoshan

camel head rock, Shibaoshan

       Market day draws the valley’s Han and Bai, but also many Yi from the mountains, as well as a few Lisu, Naxi and perhaps itinerant Tibetans selling medicinal herbs.  The Yi are the same Nuosu branch that dominates Ninglang County.  Yi women are the most colorful people in the market, with long, bright, tri-colored skirts, decorative jackets and wearing either a large black rectangular hat or a flat, embroidered cloth held in place by hair braids.  And if it’s cool weather, the outfit includes a dark felted woolen cape.

Shaxi countryside

       In late afternoon, when villagers start returning home, leading ponies packed with their goods, the scene evokes the time of the Tea and Horses Road.  The caravan trade expanded from the 10^th century during the Song Dynasty, for the latter needed the horses to deal with enemies on its northern frontiers.   Shaxi may have been a caravan stopover by then, though no relics exist from that long ago.

       Nearby Shibaoshan, however, is the site of religious monuments from the Nanzhao Kingdom, with stone carvings from around 800.  Shibaoshan is a tall, steep hill in a wooded rural area, remarkable for the pagodas built into its cliffs and the grottos with stone sculptures.  These date from the Nanzhao and Dali periods before the 13^th century.  They include a seated Buddha flanked by his two favorite disciples, a standing Guan Yin, various multi-armed guardian deities and small Buddha images.

       The most unusual is a stone vagina.  Local women come here, especially when they get pregnant, to pray and to rub the stone.  They believe this act will ease the pangs of childbirth.  Shibaoshan is also host to the three-day Bai Singing Festival at the end of the 7^th lunar month.

Bai woman in Changyi

Yi woman in Changyi

       In the caravan heyday Shaxi was a stopover for groups on the way to and from Tibet.  Merchants might also pick up salt here from nearby mines.  Going south, they needn’t detour to Eryuan and Dali to reach Xiaguan, but could simply continue down the valley of the Heihui River over what used to be called the Bonan Road.  The road is never very high above the river, nor does it cross any hills.  Villages are visible in the flanking hills and all along the riverbanks.

the old mosque in Yangbi

       The road passes through western Eryuan County and the last village before entering Yangbi County is Changyi, which holds its market day Saturday.  Bai and Yi, as in Shaxi, are the main participants.  Except for furniture, most items on sale are the same as in Shaxi, with the exception of walnuts, a specialty of Yangbi County.

      Yangbi is a Yi Autonomous County, with at least four Yi sub-groups living in the hills, which make up most of its territory.  Until a generation ago the Yi lived at a level of basic subsistence.  Then the government introduced the planting of walnut trees.  Yangbi is not the only place in Yunnan cultivating walnuts.  Dayao and Gongshan Counties also have them, for example.  But the soil in Yangbi seemed to be particularly good for walnuts, producing a thin-shelled, tasty, slightly sweet nut, and soon Yangbi became dubbed the “hometown of walnuts.”

Yunlong Bridge, Yangbi

       Nowadays walnut plantations cover 71,000 hectares in the county.  The annual output has reached 50,000 tons, valued at one billion yuan.  Government statistics claim that as a result 70% of the county’s population has been lifted out of poverty.  Harvesting begins in September and to coincide with it the county government stages a month-long Walnut Festival in Yangbi city.  Events include rites to the Walnut God, food-tasting events (and not just walnuts), cooking competition, markets and rounds of singing and dancing performances.

       As the road crosses into Yangbi County the towering peaks of the Azure Mountains rise to the east.  In the caravan era Yangbi city, originally called Shangjie, was an important junction on the Bonan Road.  Instead of going on to Xiaguan or north to Shaxi, caravans could turn west here to Yongping and Baoshan.  The city has a modern section of nondescript concrete and steel buildings around the city stadium, the main venue for festivals.  But it also has an extensive old quarter, largely Hui-inhabited, full of traditional tile-roofed wooden houses.  A fine old Chinese-style mosque sits on a mound above the old neighborhood.

Yangbi old town

Stone Gate Pass behind Jinniu

       Homes are not as elegant as some of the Shaxi dwellings and the cobbled lanes have not been renovated in recent years.  But a walk through it is evocative of an earlier era.  Continuing past the mosque, the lane terminates at the old Yunlong Bridge, the main river crossing for caravans going west.  A suspension bridge with wooden planks laid across iron cables, dating from the early Qing Dynasty, it doesn’t have caravan traffic anymore, but is still in use by villagers living across the river.  On the other side, earlier this century Yangbi Han Buddhists erected a small Buddhist shrine and a pagoda above it.

Xi'er River in Xiaguan

       From Yangbi city the road swings southeast along the river, in this county renamed the Yangbi River, until its confluence at Pingpo with the Xi’er River that flows east to Xiaguan and into Erhai Lake.  The road swerves much closer to the Azure Mountains on this stretch and at Jinniu is a steep cleft in the hills called Stone Gate Pass, now being built up as a scenic attraction with the construction of a walkway along the base of one of the cliffs.  At Pingpo the road turns east along the Xi’er River, passes the southern end of the Cangshan range and glides into Xiaguan.

       Now the capital of Dali Prefecture and the biggest city in western Yunnan, Xiaguan began as an 8^th century fortified settlement, founded by King Piluoge of the new state of Nanzhao, to guard the southern entrance to the Dali plain.  Taihe, further north, established in 737, served as the Nanzhao capital until it was moved to Dali in 779.  Xiaguan lies at the southwest corner of Erhai Lake, backed by high mountains with its suburbs sprawling into the foothills.

Nanzhao warriors on a fresco at the General's Temple

       Over time it outgrew Dali and was a major stop for caravans heading north on the Tea and Horses Road to Tibet, as well as the Southwest Silk Route to Dehong Prefecture and on to Burma and India.  By the turn of the 20^th century it was also a major tea-processing center.  Its commercial importance increased with the construction of the Burma Road during the Sino-Japanese War to enable the transport of supplies of all kinds from British-held Burma to Yunnan.

       After the war and the foundation of the People’s Republic, Xiaguan’s growth and development expanded.  New industries appeared such as power generation, food processing, papermaking, cigarettes, cement and marble processing and polishing.  The factories are scattered, though, and not concentrated in one polluted area.  The Xi’er River runs through the city center and residents sometimes come to fish with poles from the walkways on the banks or with nets cast from rafts or boats they take out on the water.  A few parks lie along the river and a very large and well-developed one occupies a long offshore island on the lake.

the General's Temple, Xiaguan

       Xiaguan does not feature the old buildings, monuments and relics that characterize Dali or Weishan.  It does, however, have a pair of sites associated with Nanzhao’s history.  On a hill in the western suburbs stands the General’s Temple, dedicated to General Li Mi, who is not a local hero but instead was a Tang Dynasty commander of a huge Chinese invasion force in the mid-8^th century.  This was the third attempt by Tang China to subdue Nanzhao and, like the previous two, it ended in total disaster.  Li Mi lost his entire army and in the end drowned himself.

       The victors gave the dead a proper funeral and interred the corpses, or maybe the ashes, inside a tomb in Tianbao Park, in what is now the western quarter of the city.  It’s just a stone mound with some exterior inscriptions and probably never contained as many remains as the records claimed.  But it’s Xiaguan’s only true Nanzhao relic.

       Many generations after Li Mi’s demise, his descendants established a shrine to his memory and to invoke his protection of the area.  In the Ming Dynasty a three-part temple replaced the original shrine.  Nowadays many local Bai devotees come here to make offerings, especially at the mid-autumn festival, Li Mi’s birthday.  Considering that the Bai were, along with the Yi, the victors over Li Mi’s army, it seems odd that they would be making offerings to him.  But Bai country folk are devout by nature and upbringing and may not even be aware of the historical particulars regarding the object of their worship.  To them, he’s a protective deity and that’s enough.

Yangbi old town and valley

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 Delta Tours Vietnam arranges a journey through western Yunnan that includes a stop in Shaxi.  For the itinerary see https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/western-yunnan       

      

       

The Third Month Fair in Dali

                                                   by Jim Goodman

    Of all of Yunnan’s many annual festivals, the Third Month Fair in Dali ranks as the biggest.  In a good year around a half million people swarm into the city for the event, beginning on the full moon (15th day) of the third lunar month and running at least one week.  While the festival features a variety of entertainment—concerts, stage shows, songs, dances, horse races and equestrian shows—its main draw is the variety of goods, especially medicinal herbs, for sale in the special market created for the event at the foot of Zhonghe Peak of the Cangshan Mountains, just across the road from the old town’s West Gate.   A great number of the Bai and Yi minorities from Dali and surrounding counties come for the fair, but the crowd is dominated by Han from all over China, here not so much for the shows as for the opportunity to buy items like rare medicinal plants, for which the province and the Dali vicinity have long been famous.

northern entry gate to the fairgrounds

    The Third Month Fair is also one of the oldest festivals in Yunnan, having originated back in the 7th century during the reign of Xinuluo in the early days of the Nanzhao Kingdom.   The state was small then, basically just present-day Weishan and Midu Counties, and it would be another hundred years or so before Dali became its capital.  According to local legend, the plain beside Erhai Lake at that time was under the control of a monstrous demon named Luosha.  On the full moon day of the third month the goddess Guan Yin came to the area in disguise, tricked and imprisoned Luosha in a sealed cave and freed the local Bai people from his ravages.  In gratitude, every year on this day the people came to the foot of Zhonghe Peak, the site of Guan Yin’s triumph, to honor her and leave offerings.  As festivals imply crowds, and crowds draw merchants, eventually the event morphed into an annual trade fair that eclipsed its original religious significance.
    A more romantic account ascribes the origin of the Fair to a love affair between a fairy princess and a local fisherman.  She was the third daughter of Erhai’s resident Dragon King, who fell in love with and married a poor, but industrious and honest fisherman named Ashan.  Some months after their marriage, she invited him to accompany her to the Moon Festival, changed into a dragon and flew him there.  Changing back, she walked with him past a fantastic landscape, the likes of which he had never seen, to a pair of blue trees, 
    Suddenly people began arriving from the four corners of Heaven, riding lions and phoenixes and then setting up a fair.  Stalls offered coral, gemstones, pearls, clear liquor and rare elixirs and special food from the mountains and the seas.  After getting over his initial bedazzlement, though, Ashan noticed the market didn’t offer any farming tools or fishing gear, which disappointed him.

herbs and spices on sale at the Fair

    He mentioned that fact when narrating his adventures to his fellow villagers when the pair returned to earth.  He suggested the people set up their own fair for farmers and fishermen.  His princess wife seconded the idea and then proposed they simply move the Moon Festival to Earth.  Villagers then planted two trees at the foot of Zhonghe Peak and inaugurated a modified Moon Festival of their own.  Supplementing the rare and precious items from the market on the moon, the people added farm tools, livestock, fishing gear and medicinal herbs.
    Simply because people started coming from great distances to attend, the Fair grew in duration from a single commemorative day to a whole week.  And to keep the crowds in a good mood to stay longer and buy more goods, Fair organizers enhanced the event with various kinds of entertainment.  In recent times stages have gone up at each end of the market area and a stadium built north of the fairgrounds for the group dances, horse races, archery contests and equestrian shows. 

Dali West Gate, decorated for the event

    Nowadays the Fair is bigger than ever.  Thanks to airplanes, trains and buses people can reach Dali easily from all over the country.  Old town merchants this week hear the Chinese language spoken a hundred different ways.  Besides the chance to buy medicinal plants and animal parts that they cannot find in the places they live, they come for the attraction of Dali itself.  Lying at around 2000 meters altitude, backed by the Cangshan Mountains with 4000+ meter-high peaks, adjacent to the blue waters of Erhai Lake, a walled city with significant historic value, with its classic Chinese and Bai-style architecture, Dali is one of Yunnan’s premier tourist destinations.   And in April the weather is warm and balmy, hardly ever raining, when it’s still cold in most of China.
    The city gets all spruced up for the event and merchants start setting up a day or two earlier on the slope outside the western gate.  Just opposite this tower a smaller gate marks the entrance to the northern road to the fairgrounds, while four blocks south another gate marks the southern road up the hill.  Shops or stalls line the roads gong up to the fairgrounds, which is just below the wooded area.  But activity remains rather slight until after the official opening at the stadium on full moon morning.
    The stadium starts filling up by sunrise, but for those too late to get inside Dali TV films the event, so they can watch it on their hotel televisions for the next few nights.   After the speeches the show consists of several performances by large dance troupes of Bai or Yi in costumes that combine the elements of several sub-groups.  None of them are actually traditional, but instead modern creations, choreographed in forms of bursting stars, geometric patterns, etc, sometimes with three troupes at once.  The equestrian shows that follow are more interesting, with riders climbing on the shoulders of the jockey and each other, sometimes seven on a single horse.

Tibetan herbal medicine vendor

    The show concludes by noon and the crowd then swarms into the fairgrounds.  Besides medicinal herbs, concentrated at the southern end of the grounds, stalls offer various kinds of food like dried beef and mutton, sweets, pastries and pickled vegetables, as well as farm tools, nets and musical instruments, with a few restaurants set up at the north end.  While most of the crowd consists of Chinese Han visitors, ethnic minorities make up a large portion, mostly the prefecture’s Bai and Yi sub-groups, but also those from further away, like Naxi from Lijiang, Tibetans from Shangrila, Lisu and Miao.

Dali Bai girls running a stall

    Dali Bai women are the most recognizable, for their ethnic style of clothing-- white pants, long-sleeved, side-fastened red, blue or green tunic with matching apron and red and white headdress with a long white tassel--is one of the main images used in tourist literature advertising the place.  They tend to wander the fairgrounds in groups of three up to fifteen, often dressed in matching color tunics.  Bai women from Jianchuan wear a maroon vest over a blue blouse, a longer apron and a cap of several layers.  Those from Heqing are less colorful, maroon vest over white blouse and an army cap.
    The largest group of Yi is the still very traditional Tuli sub-group, from the hills south of Xiaguan and from Midu and Weishan Counties.  Their women dress in bright colors, green and red dominating, and wear tall turbans, plain black  or heavily embroidered and decorated.  Other Yi groups, such as the dance troupe, hail from Yangbi County, just over the Cangshan Mountains, notable for the lavishly embroidered aprons the women wear.
    The southern part of the fairgrounds is the busiest, a zone dominated by stalls hawking medicinal plants, spices, seeds, herbs and animal parts.  Tibetans run many stalls here, also

Bai women from Jianchuan

colorful Tuli Yi woman

selling, besides herbs and exotic animal parts like seahorses and starfish, butter churns, decorated yak and buffalo skulls, saddle carpets and animal pelts of fox, red panda and leopard cat.  Yi, Bai and Han also manage stalls here, their herbs packed in big bags with the tops open and the odors of their contents wafting into the air, making this area the most fragrant in the Fair. 
    While entertainment proceeds regularly throughout the week at several venues, the second morning features one-time only performances by local Bai and Yi.  The Bai put on a spectacular dragon dance, with two dragons, one black, one golden, with women carrying the dragons.  One woman baits the dragon, which moves around in

Bai Dragon Dance

Bai Fan Dance

various patterns, sometimes ducking its head under its writhing tail, or coiling under its raised head.  Other dances feature red lions and the use of props like riding whips or fans.  The Yi perform ring dances, women on the outside, men on drums and gourd-pipes in the middle.
      Both shows are over by noon, and the area doesn’t see any more, but a short distance away is the mini-stadium set up for performances by village orchestras from the vicinity playing traditional dongjing music.  The groups number about 25 and usually include at least one female musician, who may double as singer.  Each orchestra performs about an hour, two in the morning, three in the afternoon. 
    At the other end of the grounds, near the top of the southern entrance road,  are two more entertainment venues.  A huge tree stands near the edge of the medicine stalls and from a makeshift stage in front of it Bai and Yi singers, male and female, solo or in duets, take turns performing, with a small Bai troupe puts on dances in between the songs.  And about 70 meters down the slope other troupes and soloists perform on a regular stage, with curtain, flanking one of the market lanes.
    The staged dances are sometimes traditional, sometimes new, even if in ethnic dress.  Bai troupes of women dance with props like parasols, fans lutes and water jugs, each set choreographed differently but often ending with one lady hoisted high above the rest of the group clustered at her feet.  Miao girls perform wearing typically Miao pleated skirts and fancy silver headdresses from Guizhou province.  Yi troupes from Yangbi put on various shows, soloists perform on flute or gourd-pipe and a group of local Han girls do a modern dance in short, tight, slanted skirts and matching, off-the-shoulder halters—the sexiest stage costume of the week.

Non-ethnic dances are also part of the show.

    The stage shows take place in the afternoon and, after a short break, again in the early evening.  But nothing stays open very late in the fairgrounds and attendance is much smaller.  During the day, though, it can be difficult to move around on the main market lanes.  People are constantly stopping to examine goods or jamming up to watch the stage shows, putting their children on their shoulders to give them a better view.  This blocks the view of those behind them, of course, but other than that, in general the crowds are well-behaved.  Nobody is in a hurry, nobody pushes, and nobody tramples on the feet of others.

Dali Bai troupe on stage at the Fair

    It’s no wonder, then, that the Third Month Fair grows in popularity every year.   The physical setting alone is one of Yunnan’s most splendid and the area is replete with genuine attractions that bring in tourists year-round.  The abundant presence of ethnic minorities in their best traditional clothing during the Fair sprinkles the crowds with color and accents the already exotic atmosphere of the event.  The array of goods on sale and the variety of both merchants and customers makes a day’s wandering through the fairgrounds one of continuous fascination.  And as a bonus, a visitor might just find that special herb or plant that will treat or cure a long-standing ailment.  That alone would make the trip worth it.    
                    

dongjing orchestra singer

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