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Dali is an old walled city on the edge of Lake Erhai, whose inhabitants are mostly Bai ethnic minority. The women still wear their native dress, which is either white with lots of embroidery, or blue batik. The town is pretty touristy, but mainly along only three streets (one of which is called Foreigner's Street because there are so many hostels and Western serving cafes). I really enjoyed getting to know the owner of one of the Bai restaurants (not on Foreigner's Street). Marley spoke excellent Engish, was incredibly friendly (probably because I kept going back) and is an amazing cook. She invited me to go to market with her, and gave lots of info about the city and the people and their customs. What luck.
Other than the conversations with Marey, the best part of Dali was bike riding in the countryside. I had read that there was a 3 day "Pagoda Festival". But no travel service, hostel, hotel, or even Marley had any information about it or even knew about it. So I decided to strike out to see if I could find it. I had no idea what I was looking for, nor where, but I figured
it would be some sort of adventure anyway, even if I never found anything.
First thing I notice is the omnipresent mini-pickup trucks. None of them have an engine that is covered. And they belch out the foulest black smoke and all sound like they will never make it to the next street. They are everywhere here in Yunnan.
There is lots of rice grown around the area. It was a first for me to wander around the paddies, watching the various farmers starting from the first smoothing of the paddy, to first hand planting, to scattering new rice, to using some sort of spray for either pest control or fertilizer.
I knew I wanted to go to Xizhou. But the Chinese are so bad a maps, when you have one, it is nearly useless. I eventually found it. It was the first time I've seen a market have a large sitting area with low tables and tree-stump stools where the people get their food from different venders around the edge of the square, and then just sit with friends and eat. Just as I was about to get something, I heard a soprano sax and some
singing and shouting coming along a street leading to the square. I looked up and saw some women waving tree branches while singing, and other women dancing in their blue costmes twirling long yellow silk scarves with both hands. They danced through the middle of the eating tables into another street. Some of women lingered behind and seemed to be flirting a lot with the men who happened to be sitting there, much to everyone's amusement. Then another group of women in a corner of the square started singing and doing a circle dance. Another group started, and I decided to take off.
The various villages along the way around Lake Erhai each were interesting in their own way. From the largest town (factories with computer driven machines turning out embroideries) to a middle sized village (creating plaster from the hillside) to a small villlage (the vats of blue dye for batik just outside the front door) to three house compounds (women hand sewing, and men carrying wood on their backs).
I'd given up on finding the 3 Pagoda festival by now, and was on the way back to Dali. I happened to notice a pine bow arch
over a narrow road about 50 feet from the main highway. So I decided to just find out what was happening. It was one heck of a peddle up the hill for about two miles. And then there were lots of cars, minivans, and donkey carts parked all over the road, completely blocking any way of riding. So I walked my bike into 3 Pagoda festival. It was a hoot. Singing and dancing and a small market all leading up to a pagoda which was not on any map I found. Ovbiously I had gotten there a bit late. The temple had ashes about 4 feet high in front of it, and incense was still burning, and several women were throwing cleanings-up on the ashes and lighting fires. One wizened old lady stopped me and began speaking Chinese a mile a minute. Fortunately, it was pretty basic, so after several repeats, I got that I needed this particular ball that she had hand made, because it was the kind of thing that would bring me peace and happiness in my life. I know it was a sales pitch.....but she was so sincere, and she had such warm eyes, that I
just had to give her 75 cents. She laughed, and the women around her gave me thumbs up. She put it around my neck (I later found out you wear it from your belt) and I went off on my way. Men were giving haircuts, men were making candy suckers of the year you were born (the dragon was amazing), and women were making market and singing and dancing.
Happy that I had found my festival (albeit late), I biked through the ricepaddy-cornfield barriers back to Dali straight to Marley's restaurant. She sat with me while I told her about the day and amswered a lot of questions. After cooking, she stopped back by the table, and said, "I can't believe I forgot this. Today is a very special day for the Bai people. Only after you talked about your day did I remember. You'd think I'd mark it on the calendar. Today is the one day of the year that the Bai people can sleep with anyone they want and there is no consequences, even in marriage." I laughed a lot, remembering the flirting that had been going on in square of Xizhou.
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Ray
non-member comment
What a great tradition those Bai people have! Too bad you found out too late.