Mengjian and the Yellow Wa people

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One of the main reason about visiting Gengma area is the Huang-Wa(yellow Wa), an unique Wa sub-group not like the other Wa in Yunnan, as you could figure out from their name...yellow...their costume are in yellow colour(legend said they used to grow yellow cotton which was original brought in from Burma by their ancester), and the rest of the Wa in Yunnan are in Black, the language they speak are more similar to the Dai than Wa. Mengjian(@550m) situated about 80km from Gengma right by the Nandinghe river surrounded by banana trees. and most of the Huang-Wa live in the area 17km further up mountain in Dazhai(@1300m). A shabby temple stood by the road side before enter the village, an shabby old man who hardly able to speak and walk live in the small wooden hut by the temple, he probably the last monk in the temple, local said no one wanted to become a monk anymore, in the old day the Huang-Wa here practised Buddhism like the Dai, every boy should go to temple become monkhood once in their life time, but now...faith had vanished..."modernisation" they would say! they not celebrated any buddhism ceremony, "only the water festival" the local said. and that was the only time they would put on their costume. A small platform had been built in the only flat space in the small village also for that once a year event, and most of the time occupied by vendors on market day. Small village with small space held small market, it ended well before 10am or perhaps because of the rainy weather. I did saw one old Wa woman in costume, very simple attire, light yellow tight long sleeve shirt with a patch of dark colour run around the lapel, and long skirt in same light yellow with a line of red at the bottom rim, and they wear legging. Market back in Mengjian was bit bigger, I could see more Huang-Wa came down here for market, actually there was some Wa relocated down near Mengjian 30 years ago, only 2 kilometer from town, which used to be a space for the Wa that live up in Dazhai to kept their provisions, and little by little people began to live there then it became a village and they name it Liangcang which mean "barn". and beside the majority Dai community, there are Han with big headdress like those in Gengma, and one woman claimed she is Ben Zu,"not Wa, not Dai" she said. I had no idea what is Ben Zu but they dressed just like Dai!
I saw some action inside the temple in Mengjian, women came to offered foods to the temple, which was a standard ceremony within the 3 months priod between the closed-door and open-door festival, every 7 days senior people will came to stay inside the temple to study and pray, and believers should brough offering to the time. "3 more times will be the day of open-door festival" one woman told me. I knew it and that was one of the reason I came to this part of Yunnan this time, only I want to looking for a open-door festival of other minority other than Dai...yes...I want to see more interesting costume as the Dai dress are a bit boring to me!


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Bus Gengma to Mengjian 17 yuan
Minibus Mengjian to Daizhai 10 yuan

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