Ximeng county

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Awa is what the Wa people call themselve in Ximeng, quite often I saw the sign "awayi.com", my frist instinct was..."away-I.com"...nngggg...it should be some kind of education website, perhaps...studying abroad or something, but later I saw a building with this sign and it also written in Chinese "Wa textile and garment", so...it should be...awa_yi...Wa people clothes! will look at the web site later when I get internet. New Ximeng(@1100m) is the new capital town for Ximeng county, a simple township with a pretty lake, a walking path round the lake provided pleasure half day trip, the main sight inside the lake area is the "Long-Mo-Ye" an Awa shrine where they kept buffalo heads that was an offering each year for protecting the Wa people. Awa used to be head hunting tribe, so offering head also an important ritual in the old day. said the last head hunting activity was recorded at May 1958 in Ximeng. so in Long-mo-ye there also the head offering pole, and of course...no head was in sight! Another sight is the place where they kept the unique Awa wooden drum, but it was a new build place with couple of thatch huts, some symbolic statues for photoing...typical tourist imposed. anyways...the 25 yuans entrance fee was worth I would say.
Ximeng is one of the two Wa autonomy state in China(the other one is Cangyuan), even with that many Wa population in the region, I couldn't even seen one...just a single one woman dress in costume(never count on man), but you could find books in the shop written about how great was their culture and costume, how they worship and praised their traditional, especailly when facing a camera! same like every where in China when coming to minority matter, they will created a zoo like so called cultural village, a showroom or a museum(of course...charge you money)exhibited whatever they thought was beautiful but without compassion, and again...written how they love and proud of their tradition and culture so and so...!!! haha....hahahaaaa....why??? I could understand why museum exist...because...museum want to show us something not existed anymore, something that was already dead...long gone! but...their tradition, their culture and their costumes, it is still there, still alive!!! but they only wear it on their mouth.

Mengka also known as old Ximeng, stood at 1800m sea level, a small mountain town reminded me of the area between Nepal and India, the setting of the town, the buildings, the small lane between houses, even the market has that kind of atmosphere underneath a canopy roof. Ximeng is an Wa region but I hardly seen any costume dressed Wa people, like Menglian county, half of the county border line were shared with Burma, and it was rather easy to bump into the border check point, like I went to Yuesong village this morning with the minibus, and it kept going with some passengers that was live over the border, until I saw the soldier stopped our car before the borderline that I knew I might get into trouble. but the soldiers were really friendly and told me that was my furtherest point on this line, after enquired about why I came here for, he pointed me back about a kilometer where a Wa village might suit my interest. That was infact the old Yuesong village where most houses still in thatched roof and matted wall, but...no one dress any costume! I didn't expected anything anyways, so I walked through the village and up the small hill to the other side, and it turn out to be a nice hike into the field. people are quite friendly only the dogs are bit annoying. every morning there will be sea-of-cloud in the valley, but the problem was I couldn't located a place to get a good shot of the view. behind Mengka town a nice reservoir where you could walked in pleasand pace, actually there was an old ruin of a Buddhism shrine could dated back about 150 years ago, now...you could only see a concrete slate written that "here is the site of the Buddhism temple". but I did noticed there was 2 mud like stuppa stood behind someone's fence.

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Photos

Awa
the only dressed Awa I had seen