Beyond the Clouds to the Kingdom of Women

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Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.



It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the male has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction. The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.

Valerie Solanas, S.C.U.M. Manifesto 1967





Yunnan literally translates as 'South of the Clouds.' It was my latest stop on my multi-year world trip. Yunnan is a region of great natural beauty and diversity. Nearly 50%!o(MISSING)f its inhabitants are non Han-Chinese. These ethnic minorities include the Bai, Naxi and Mosuo. The Mosuo are often claimed to be the last practising Matriarchal Society. (Note my emphasis - I'm fully aware of other claims such as the Minangkabau of Western Sumatra).



There are lots of myths and misconceptions about the Mosuo. Some of these misconceptions are peddled by travel agents in order to attract male tourists. It's not the matriarchy that interests these male tourists. The Musuo are also famous for their 'Walking Marriage'. Mosuo sexual partners do not set up home together. The men visit their girlfriends at night. Some male tourists (most of the tourists to this region are Han Chinese) visit in the hope of a 'walking marriage' of their own...



I'll deal with this issue and other impacts of tourism on the Mosuo culture later in this blog. Despite the matriarchal nature of Mosuo culture I doubt that Valerie Solanas would have approved of their cultural practices. (Valerie Solanas was famous for 15 minutes when she shot the American 'Pop' Artist Andy Warhol in 1968).

Kunming - Spring City

At the end of the last blog entry I left you in the city of Nanning about to catch a train to Kunming. I hung around the city of Nanning all day on the 22nd of May waiting for the evening overnight sleeper train to Kunming. Finally at 4.25pm the train pulled out of Kunming station. I had paid for a hard sleeper. They don't have 1st and 2nd class on Chinese trains. Instead you can have a 'hard' seat, 'soft' seat, 'hard' sleeper or 'soft' sleeper. The most expensive option is the soft sleeper. The hard sleeper gets you a bed for the night in an open train carriage. The beds are bunk beds 3 to a row. But there are no doors or private compartments. Basically you are sharing a train carriage with about 70 other people. I found the bed uncomfortable, it was too short and too narrow and I was kept awake by the snoring of some of the other 70 odd passengers. I didn't sleep much all night.



Finally we arrived in the city of Kunming at 6am. It was still dark, so I waited at the train station until the sun rose. Then I walked a couple of km into town. When I finally booked into a cheap hotel I went straight to bed. I was dog tired. I lost most of the day recovering from my lack of sleep on the train. Kunming, known as Spring City is the capital of the province of Yunnan.It has a pleasant climate all year round and its closeness to neighboring provinces such as Guizhou, Sichuan and Tibet, as well as its shared border with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam make it one of the most popular holiday destinations in China.



I stayed a few days in Kunming, a city which has an atmosphere very different from most cities in China, although like most other cities it seemed to be desperately modernising. Whole districts of the city seemed to be in a state of demolition and rebuilding. Yunnan has a sizable Muslim population, and Kunming has a Muslim area. Much of that area seems to have been demolished to make way for yet another shopping mall I expect. I did though finally find some Muslim restaurants on the edge of the area that had been demolished. The traditional Muslim area is next to the centre of the downtown of the city. The city centre itself has been pedestrianised. The mosques in the Muslim area are still standing, although none of the mosques made particularly good photographic subjects. The oldest of the mosques which was 400 years old has been re-built in a particularly uninspiring style. It looks like any other cheap tiled building that can be found anywhere in China. I wandered around Kunming for a few days visiting parks and the Yuantong Temple. The Yuantong temple is a 1000 year old Buddhist temple.

Dali

On Sunday 27th of May I caught the bus out of Kunming to Dali. Dali old town as opposed to Dali City (or Xiaguan) is one of Yunnan's most popular tourist sites and home to the Bai ethnic minority. It is an ancient city, but to be honest I didn't like the place.



My bus was a very comfortable air-conditioned vehicle. It passed through stunningly beautiful mountain scenery. The 4 lane highway passed little scenic villages and bored its way through mountain sides. After 5 hours the bus dropped me off in the new city of Xiaguan. I shared a taxi to the old city with a couple of other tourists. When I arrived in the old city I was assaulted by hordes of touts trying to show me to various guest houses. I ignored them, I had plenty of time to walk around and find a place.



Accommodation touts weren't the only problem in the city. In one particular street I was constantly hassled with the request

"You want smoke, you want hash?"

Which maybe explains this bit out of the Lonely Planet

"Dali is the perfect place to tune out for a while..."

My thought was, do I look like a stoned out hippy? Frankly the hassle from the touts and the drug pushers put me off the place. I thought if its the sort of place that travellers hang out getting stoned out of their tiny minds, I want out. It's not my scene. I was surprised because I hadn't expected the dope smoking scene. Since leaving the town I've found this quote on the web about Dali:

There are also multiple "coffee shops", such as those in Amsterdam, where foreigners smoke marijuana that grows in the hills surrounding the town. This has caused some tourists to have an extended stay in this beautiful old town...

Frankly, it caused me to shorten my stay.



The city also has been gentrified to make it more appealing to tourists. The southern part of the city has seen extensive renovation. That is the wrecking ball has demolished parts of the genuine old city and rebuilt a new old city. The city is also full of tour groups with tour guides dressed up in Bai costume. I spent 2 nights in Dali, walking around the city and visiting the 3 Pagodas and Chonshong Monastery. The way that parts of Dali have been re-built and that Chongshong Monastery has been built from scratch are part of a fabrication of history and culture to appeal to tourists. Most of Chongshong Monastery behind the 3 Pagodas was built from scratch in 2005. You can almost smell the new paint! It was built using plans of the original. The only genuine part of the complex that has survived from antiquity (with many renovations) are the 3 Pagodas. To add insult to injury visiting the Chongshong Monastery (the 3 Pagodas are within the same complex) was expensive. It cost 120 Yuan, twice the price of my room in the city. This for a visitor attraction that is mostly a recreation, not original. The experience reminded me of something written by Guy Debord.

All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

(Guy Debord; Society of the Spectacle]


Although Guy Debord's work is almost unreadable I think he meant that we live in a world where all sense of the genuine has been lost and at times, the duplicate or the fake is valued over the genuine or the original.



This is a particular problem for China because so much of its ancient culture was trashed during the 'Cultural Revolution'.

Lijiang

After a couple of nights in Dali I took the bus to Lijiang - another beautiful scenic route. When I arrived in the old city it was raining. I didn't do much for the rest of that day. The next day the 30th of May I spent in the Black Dragon Pool Park and the museum to the north of the Park.



The old town of Lijiang is another ancient town, which has been given a UNESCO World Heritage listing. It has an extensive ancient water system fed from the Black Dragon Pool Park. This water system still works. The place is though very busy - full of tour groups, mostly Han Chinese. The area is exotic for the Chinese tourists because of the large number of people who belong to Chinese National Minorities. The largest of these groups in Lijiang are the Naxi.



The Naxi culture is a blend of Tibetan, Han Chinese and indigenous elements. Among some Naxi (Nakhi) remnants of a matriarchal family structure were evident until recently when it changed to a patriarchal structure. As the heads of the family, the women gave inheritance to the children either through the mother, or to the nephews through her brothers. The Naxi have their own religion in Dongba and their own unique pictographic script. The Naxi have also adopted Buddhism and Taoism. "The Dongba religion is based on the relationship between nature and man. In Dongba mythology, "Nature" and "Man" are half-brothers, having different mothers".

The Master

In the evening I went to see the Naxi Orchestra, which is one of the few things that you can do in the evening in Lijiang! The Naxi Orchestra play a type of traditional music that has almost been lost in China. During the 'Cultural(sic) Revolution' several members of the orchestra buried their instruments to preserve them from rampaging red guards. The Orchestra was re-founded in the early 1980's after Xuan Ke, the leader of the orchestra was released from jail. Xuan Ke spent 21 years in jail for his dedication to 'culturally unsound' music.

Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future"

Ba Jin, (Chinese script = 巴金 ) Chinese novelist (1904-2005).




The performance was outstanding. Above the stage were some black and white photos of original members of the orchestra, most of them now dead. Many of the members of the Naxi Orchestra were no spring chickens. We were introduced to the members of the orchestra aged over 80 - a large proportion of people on stage. The oldest person on stage was 88 years old. There were some younger people on stage as well, so some younger people are still interested in preserving their culture. Many of the instruments being played were also ancient - one was over 200 years old.



During the first hour of the concert the introductions were done by 2 women. Then one of the women announced "Xuan Ke - the master of the Orchestra". All the orchestra applauded and a little old man walked on stage.



Xuan Ke struggled with the cable of the microphone as he walked on stage. He fumbled with the cable, taped the microphone, looked at it quizzically then as he appeared to read something on the side of it said -

Ah, I see Japanese. That explains it!



Actually, I'm not supposed to be here. I had a stroke. My doctor said I can't appear on stage.

He stayed on stage for the rest of the performance.

Dr Ho

I spent several days in Lijiang. I hired a bike and visited the surrounding countryside including the village of Baisha which is at the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. It was the original capital for the Naxi before Lijiang was settled. It has a number of ancient buildings and palaces which contain some ancient frescoes. The village was also made famous by the travel writer Bruce Chatwin. In the village is the 'Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Chinese Herbal Medical Clinic. Bruce Chatwin made its owner Dr Ho famous. I visited the clinic - I saw the good doctors daughter. She handed me some stuff which included a testimonial from Michael Palin . (Yes, the Michael Palin of Monty Python fame!)

Tiger Leaping

Gorge


I also took a trip out to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It is the longest, narrowest and deepest gorge in the world, cut between 2 mountain peaks. According to local legend a tiger jumped over the gorge by stepping on a huge rock in the middle of the river. (Maybe that big rock you can see in my photo.) I didn't hike along it for several days. Instead I took a local Chinese tour.



The guide on my tour spoke no English. She also didn't stop talking the whole time. I couldn't imagine that there was that much to say about the area! I didn't understand 99%!o(MISSING)f what she said. It didn't matter. The scenery was spectacular. I found that there were some Chinese tourists that spoke a little English, they were very helpful. I enjoyed the trip, I finally found myself in a proper Chinese tour group with a tour guide that carried a little flag! It seems to be compulsory for Chinese tour guides to carry little flags! The lunch was included in the trip. It was very good and it was nice to have a proper Chinese meal. Chinese food is meant to be eaten collectively - eating Chinese food on your own doesn't seem right. You need a group of people in order to get the variety of dishes. Everyone collectively picks out what they want from the collective dishes with their chop sticks.

Lugu Lake

On Sunday 3rd of June I left Lijiang. It was a five hour journey by bus to Lugu Lake. The journey was spectacular - the road wound its way up and down high mountains. When I arrived in the main tourist village of Luoshui. I jumped into a collective taxi with some Chinese tourists. Our taxi drove to the little
settlement of Lige. My new friends Liya Feng and Xiaobo Liao spoke very good English. In fact, when I mentioned Leeds Liya knew where I was talking about. She has lived in Sunderland, further to the north of Leeds. She later showed me her Sunderland University Student Union Card! Liya and Xiaobo were very helpful.



As promised I will now expand on some of the misconceptions about the Mosuo, the matriarchal society that lives in this area. One of the most famous aspects of Mosuo culture is their practice of 'Walking Marriage. This is a direct quote from the Lugu Lake Mosuo Cultural Development Association website -

Walking Marriages

Probably the most famous - and most misunderstood - aspect of Mosuo culture is their practice of “walking marriages” (or “zou hun” in Chinese), so called because the men will walk to the house of their ‘partner' at night, but return to their own home in the morning.



The Mosuo generally live in large extended families, with many generations (great grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.) all living together within the same house. For the most part, everyone lives within communal quarters, without private bedrooms or living areas. However, women between certain ages (see the section on “coming of age”) can have their own private bedrooms.

Traditionally, a Mosuo woman who is interested in a particular man will invite him to come and spend the night with her in her room. Such pairings are generally conducted secretly, so the man will walk to her house after dark (thus the description of “walking marriage”), spend the night with her, and return home early the next morning.

While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes - and in fact, having only one sexual partner would be neither expected nor common - the majority of such couplings will actually be more long term. And few Mosuo women will have more than one partner at a time. More than one anthropologist has described this system as “serial monogamy”; and, in fact, many such pairings may last for a lifetime. ( In recent years, a lot of information about the Mosuo has portrayed their culture as a sexually promiscuous culture in which women change partners frequently; this is addressed in greater detail in our “Myths & Misinformation” section.)





Even when a pairing may be long term, however, the man will never go to live with the woman's family, or vice versa. He will continue to live with and be responsible to his family; she will continue to live with and be responsible to her family. There will be no sharing of property.

For more information visit the website, from this underlined link.



My visit to Lugu Lake was restful and the area is beautiful. The little village of Lige was free of the hassles of many of China's tourist sites. It might be different in the main village of Luoshui which has been more developed for tourism. I gather that the myths about the Mosuo women being 'easy' has had a noticeable effect on Luoshui. I didn't see it but Luoshui now apparently has its own red light area, where imported Han Chinese prostitutes dress up in traditional Mosuo costume. So, some male sex tourists can full fill their fantasy. But its a fantasy, a little fake make believe world for some sad men.

From Lugu Lake to the city of Chengdu

I left Lugu Lake on the 5th of June. My new Chinese friends Liya Feng and Xiaobo Liao were very helpful in helping arrange the next part of my journey across the border into the province of Sechuan.



My edition of the Lonely Planet says of the journey that I took out of Lugu Lake:-

Some travellers have tried crossing over to Lugu Zhen on the Sichuan side, from where there is bus transport to Xichang on the Kunming-Chengdu line. But be warned: its a remote route with no accommodation. You'll need to bring a tent, a warm sleeping bag and all provisions.

Not true! I couldn't have worked out the route on my own. The help of Liya and Xiaobo was invaluable. I couldn't have expressed myself adequately in Chinese. My friends were able to ask locals how I could attempt the trip. The people who ran my hotel were also very helpful.



On the morning of the 5th the hotel ran me to the top of the hill above the village. A woman waited with me for the bus. At 9.25am the bus arrived. The woman from the hotel stopped the bus and spoke to the driver. The bus went to the town of Yanyuan. Which is a small town 3 hours bus ride from Lugu Lake. There are lots of buses to the city of Xichang from Yanyuan. In fact, it wasn't a difficult journey. The roads are paved all the way, even if they do wind up and down high mountain passes. (It might be a difficult route in the middle of winter). There were a number of villages between Lugu Lake and Yanyuan, with shops and markets. I noticed a guesthouse as I arrived in Yanyuan, so there is accommodation between Lugu Lake and Xichang. (I don't know if they would take foreigners). When I arrived in Yanyuan the driver spoke to a woman on the bus who showed me to the bus for Xichang. (That's obviously why the woman from the hotel spoke to the driver). In all everyone was extremely kind and helpful towards me. I like the Chinese!



Finally after a 7 hour bus journey through spectacular mountain scenery I arrived in the small city of Xichang. The bus station is at the opposite side of the city to the train station. The train station looks brand new but it is outside the city centre. I bought a hard sleeper ticket at the train station. I then had 5 hours to kill in the city before I could catch my overnight train to Chengdu in Sichuan, which is where I'm typing this blog. Chengdu is of course famous for its Giant Pandas. More about that and much else in the next episode...

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Photos

Pig Trough Boats on Lake Lugu - the "Kingdom of Women"
The Mosuo who live on Lake Lugu are often described as matriarchal. The boats are used for fishing, transport and in the 'Walking marriage'. Women and men do not live together. Women can choise as many partners as they like in their lifetime. The men visit women overnight. There are many myths about the Mosuo culture - some of it promoted by tourism operators to attract male visitors - see the main text of this blog.

Smell the new paint! Chonsheng Monastery, Dali.
The brand new/ancient temple, re-built 2005.

Donga manuscript
Donga religion is the heart of traditional Naxi culture. Note the pictographs,