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Expected the expect! had been contacted with the official in Lida since last month, everytimes they confirmed the Yi festival will be on the 10 of May, when finally I arrived in Funing and made contact again on the 9th May, "there will be no festival on the 10th" was the answer through the line. damit....they said this year not enough finacial to held big celebration, so it will be only the usual festiavl in Longmai, and "Lida perhaps will make a small ceremony on the 12th May" the man said, but I had fitted this tight schedule together for this trip, only got a day of time in Lida, then I need to travel to Guangnan for another festival. now...the first move hit the blank wall...bad luck! so...the May 10 became an empty day, so instead of hangout in the heated Funing, I better travel up to Guangnan a day earlier as the festival actually start on the 10th evening in Guangnan open with an huge performence show(which I wasn't keen on watching). which turn out be a disaster with all booked up hotel and rocket high room rate..."200...300...600..."but within the sea of greedy businessmen, one reasonable price stood up,
a storeroom style room for 40 yuan, an real bargain and I took it after find out there wasn't any other choice in this town. "just one night" I keep told myself as there will be plenty of room the next day. The evening show was an unwelcoming, commercial event, no ticket no admittance attitude. the area around the stadium were blocked by unfriendly policemen, the so-call opening show for the festival was only for certain people who had connection or could afford to buy the ticket(heard it was about 100 yuan/ticket), anyways...I wasn't interest to see it!
After an sleepless night and a wet pillow(sweating), my spirit sink to below the lowest level. But with a brand new day and the real festival came up, people began to gathered around the Matijing(horse hoof well)by 8am, waiting for the ceremony to start. The name of this festival is Wanggujie, dedicated to infanta Anhua, the younger sister of the last king of South Song -Yonli, they were escaped the attacked by the Qing empire and came into Yunnan about 400 years ago, infanta Anhua stay behind in Guangnan because of sickness while his brother carried on the journey, but she deid
after hearing the news from Kunming about the murdered of his King brother, she was buried right at this spot of Matijing on the first tiger day of Lunar April, The well belong to the village name Burning village, as the village always caught fire and lives lost. but miraculously no more fire broke out since the tomb of infanta Anhua had been erected, and the local change the name of the village into Pinganzhai(the safety village) since then and built a temple further up a small hill for her. every year on this date people came here to pray and asked for safety and prosperity and a good year, then carried the spirit of the infanta up to her temple in a festive atmosphere. so this morning Matijing was already crowd with people by 9, a parade of people were leaded by drum and gong, troop of headmen from Pinganzhai with a man carried sedan, offerings and a 200kg pig . and after the praying and offering ceremony, and after there was insects climbed into the sedan(mean the spirit of infanta Anhua had been inside the sedan) then the whole parade marched through the main street to the temple,
the scene were full of colourful costume, from the authentic Zhuang attire to the artificial Hualuo costume, they took the effort to introduce most of the tribal ingredient into the scene, the Miao, the Yao, even the Dai from Muchang. It took quite a long time for the one km marched to the temple as they had to dance their way through, also there was kind of movie making in within and it cost time to pre-arrange the set. once inside the temple there are more performance, Chinese opera, musical instrument...a lot of thing were going on. unfortunately a suddened heavy rain cut short the festival, they said they will continue tomorrow if the weather is ok. anyways...I was more than happy for today event and satisfied.
note
there is also lantern show at the Lotus lake in the evening during the festival
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