A day out at villages south of Jinghong - Xiding and Zhanglang

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We met our driver, Mr Jong, in the dark at 7am outside our hotel. We were going to Xiding Markets, a two and half hours drive away thus requiring an early start. Markets are always busiest earlier - by lunchtime often traders are starting to close down stalls and people are heading off for the long haul home. Xiding market, held every Thursday, is one of the largest in the province. As the sky lightened we were aware of workers, hoes over their shoulders, heading into the fields. It was very foggy but as the sun rose higher the fog began to lift. The road was lined with large flat rice paddy fields - the workers were in the process of clearing the fields of the previous seasons rice harvest waste.

Eventually we started climbing into the hills and the scenery, and our view, improved. Xiding is only twelve kilometres from the border with Burma and the region is home to three of China's minority groups. The Dai people are the prominent group and we could see many of their wooden houses, raised above the ground, dotting the mountainsides. We also passed plenty of lush jungle scenery and could see terraces spreading down the hills to the valley floor. Rice, tea and rubber seemed to be the principal crops grown. The other groups are the Hai (Akha) known for their heavy silver headdress and the Bulong, dark skinned and originally from Burma. Mr Jong pointed out some women walking along the road as being from the Bulong group and they did look very different, dressed in their black indigo dyed tunic tops, three quarter length trousers and turbans. The Bulong people always have their heads covered.

It was around 9.30 amwhen we drove into tiny Xiding, an ugly cement style town, with dirt roads and a general look of run down grubbiness. The streets however were buzzing. It didn't take long to spot some of the Akha women wearing their heavy silver headdresses. They were really stunning. And they were happy to allow me to take photos, though it was hard to get good photos due to the constant ebb and flow of the crowds. There seemed to be different styles to their headdresses, some had triangular shaped backs, others were bonnet shaped. All were covered in dozens of silver button like discs, chains and all were strung with strands of red, blue and orange beads. A couple of the stalls were selling the headdresses - for upwards of 4,000 yuan (AUD$650) - and I was able to lift one up. Underneath is a heavy metal frame which is placed over a padding on the head. I would hate to wear one - they were very heavy! And today the beads are only plastic, not glass, and the discs fine silver foil pieces - unlike originally when I'm sure heavier silver pieces would have been used. With their headdresses the women were wearing royal blue tunics - all had strands of red, orange and blue beads around their necks.

The main group at the market - they seemed to be running most of the stalls - were the Dai people. Most of them were dressed in western style clothes - we were to see the Dai people in full costume a few days later. The Akha people were easily recognisable amidst the crowds by their head scarves (seemingly worn in lieu of the heavy headdress) which where worn over their head, two ends of the scarf tied together under their chins, the other end of the scarf hanging down their back. Many of women also wore these scarves around their ornate headgear to protect it. The scarves were ugly - mass produced loosely woven polyester in red and white squares. They still all wore the beads though.The Bulongs were scattered throughout the crowds, looking very conservative in comparison, in their dark clothes and turbans.

Most of the men had found better places to be and were huddled together at the fringes of the market, sucking on their long bamboo pipes or sampling rice wine. It was not a tourist market - strictly local products were on sale - though I did purchase one of the over the body shoulder bags all the women were carrying. For the quoted price of 50 yuan I now have a dark bag, with a cross stitched colourful pattern on the front and beads hanging off the bottom. Another item to store away in my memory box...We both love markets and enjoy watching the people mingle, socialise and haggle. Nothing seems to be purchased without the expected haggling. As usual meat stalls, in all their grey splendour, were attracting large crowds. The 'butchers' were all pretty adept at using meat cleavers - I'm surprised nobody lost fingers as all we heard all morning was the constant crack of bone being cut.

We saw a couple of ladies carrying a mattress which had been bought from the towns only tiny furniture shop through the market crowd. We were even more amused a couple of hours later when we passed the same women supporting the mattress as they took it home, over the bumpy roads, in the back of a tuktuk. As a change from the usual noodle soup which is on sale everywhere at markets here , a rather bland looking rice dough ball was being boiled and consumed. Most unappetising looking - give me the noodle soup instead.... I felt very sorry for a young teenage girl who spent at least two hours sitting in a collapsible aluminium garden chair while primitive dentistry was undertaken. Garden pliers, toilet paper and a few plastic trays of teeth seemed to be all that was on the dentists table. Certainly no form of sterilisation was available.

I started noticing all the different and colourful bags the women were carrying so started photographing them. Check the photos out below. Some were similar to the one I had purchased, others were finely woven plastic threads (which was for sale at the market) - so finely woven they would take a very long time to make. Yet others were made from empty grain or vegetable bags recycled into very trendy looking bags. And of course the usual back baskets - no woven plastic strips here - made from bamboo. After a couple of hours amidst this chaos of colour and noise of Xiding Market we returned to our car. Mr Jong then took us to visit the Bulong village of Zhanglang which was even closer than Xiding to the Burmese border.

The Bulong people are farmers and still live close to the poverty line in China. They were however very welcoming and certainly used to travellers as some of the treks run by the Mei Mei cafe operate with home stays in Zhanglang. The road to get there was very rough and upon our arrival we spent the next hour walking the dirt footpaths between the houses. Houses were made of split bamboo with tin roofs, and were on stilts with animal pens underneath. I watched three women catching up on gossip as they took turns to pick head lice from each others heads. Over the years we've seen this often. The older women all had long stretched ear lobes caused by the weight of the heavy silver earrings they only wear nowadays at special events. They also had badly stained teeth from chewing betel nuts. I always find it slightly awkward to look at a woman with red teeth and red betel juice running down her chin. It looks too much like blood...

From the village we retraced our steps before Mr Jong stopped at a small Dai restaurant in a tiny town where some charming Dai ladies cooked us a very tasty and cheap lunch. We had to request they stop cooking as we were full - the table was covered with food and it only cost 80 yuan (just $13) to over feed three of us. I sat with a young woman who had a three week old son in a sling against her body. The child's umbilical cord was sewn into a tiny bag which was adorned with miniature silver charms and then sewn onto the tiny bonnet he was wearing. After lunch we visited the octagonal Jingzhen Pavilion (20 yuan entrance) which was built in the eighteenth century to quell an angry herd of wasps. Sadly the pavilion was in a sorry state of repair - a pity as it was very pretty.

There was another monastery on site where a group of happy chatty women (if only we could understand what they were saying) were in the midst of laying cement foundations for a new building in the complex. It was a training temple for boy monks And there were many shy young monks watching us from around the door frames and through windows. Evidence of their schooling in the form of abandoned yellow plastic sandals, cheap open exercise books, bamboo stools and a blackboard were on the temple verandah. The boys had gone back 'home' for lunch which some of the older boys were preparing in the dark kitchen of the monastery. I loved the entrance stairway to the pavilion - it was lined with statues of cheeky faced little Buddhas!

From there we began the long drive home, stopping for a quarter of an hour to visit a small tea producing village where Mr Jong showed us the tea leaves drying on special drying racks made of bamboo above the houses. Next day we were to visit another tea village with Mr Jong which was in the opposite direction of where we had been that day. It had been a long but very worthwhile day. Great scenery, colourful market scenes, friendly people and a tasty lunch. The day finished as all days in Jinghong did - enjoying a glass of cold Aussie wine as we watched the relaxed pace of the local life in Jinghong pass by.

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Photos

Another lady happy to have her photo taken.
She posed - then lost her lovely smile for the Chinese ID card photo smile

Head covering 1 front
These hats are built over a metal frame - the weight of the hat is very heavy - and today they are only decorated with light weight plastic beads and tin decorations. Not the heavier glass beads and silver coins that once would have been used

Shoulder bag 2
I bought this one!

Shoulder bag 4
Finely woven from very fine plastic string - a lot of the women in the market were making them as they sat behind their stalls

Comments

[GRACIELA]

MARKETS
It´s amazing how markets all around Asia are so similar and fantastic. The best way to know a city is to visit its markets. Lovely pictures, dear traveller. Hugs from Argentina. Graciela.