Liz Gill shares some of its attractions, many of which are hands-on
When it said ‘water splashing festival’ I imagined strolling among some tinkling little fountains, an adults’ version maybe of those children scamper through in parks and city squares. What I got was a full-on water fight and one of the maddest hours of my life.
Perhaps we should have been alerted by the need to swop our clothes for long skirted, lightweight pink outfits (the Chinese, of course, bring their own) before being handed a fairly sizeable bowl and directed out into a large arena with a giant lotus at its centre.
First came a parade of big floats culminating with one bearing a glamorously dressed couple who were to give the starting signal. There was no warm up: pitched battle began immediately with water being scooped up and hurled from all directions by every participant, old and young, egged on by cheering spectators. This was literally immersive entertainment.
I tried to give as good as I got though I did retire to the edges at one stage having received an eye full and a mouth full – it’s hard to keep your lips closed when you’re laughing so much. I had a slight nagging fear about what I might be ingesting in all this melee but there were no unpleasant consequences.
As the waves subsided the MCs led us in a sort of line dance banging our bowls and shouting shui shui shui – water water water. We then sashayed around the arena, conga-style, before getting an extra soaking from the totem pole-like towers. I finally staggered into the changing rooms, exhausted but adrenalin charged.
The attraction at the Dai Ethnic Garden in Xishuangbanna is a scaled down version of the big three-day Water Festival which happens at New Year, usually in April, and which has its origins in religious rituals celebrating the power of water to cleanse spiritually as well as literally. Throwing water over someone we learn is a way of wishing them good luck and prosperity.
For me though it was simply the most extreme version of what seemed to be a vital component of Chinese tourism – participating in a whole range of activities. This is a work hard, play hard culture.
So in our visit to three of the cities in this most south westerly province which borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar we also tried tie-dying, paper-making, copper beating and pictograph writing.
The latter where drawings replace letters is a system used by the Dongba, the priests of the Naxi people, a position which passes from father to son and combines religious and ceremonial roles with healing and pictography. The system is similar to those used by the Ancient Egyptians and Mayans but is now the only one in the world still in active use.
We first learn about it in a fascinating museum in Lijiang which features Naxi history and culture with some beautiful traditional costumes as well as the pictograph books but we also have a go ourselves a few days later under the tuition of a Dongba. He starts by drawing some of the 1400 characters and we have to guess their meaning; he then asks us for words which he draws before setting us off copying a phrase of well-wishing. Afterwards a couple of us ask him to do the pictographs for grandparents and grandchildren. It is a sweet souvenir.
We are similarly proud of our other creations. At the copper workshop we try out a 500 year-old skill guided by a master whose family have practised the craft for generations. Before we start he shows us raw copper – a block of stone with green veins – before we choose thin strips which will become a bookmark, a dish or in my case a spoon.
We sit at big wooden blocks which have both a metal stump and indents to help us shape our artefact. We tap away with our hammers with the occasional gentle adjustment from an assistant until we have the right shape. It is then polished and embossed with our names. We all seem disproportionately pleased with ourselves.
It is the same at the tie-dying workshop where we twist, knot or roll a headsquare or a sponge bag into various shapes and secure them with twine – again under the careful supervision of more skilled hands than ours – before plunging them into great vats of blue dye. The professionals then beat them hard to remove the excess dye before allowing us to proudly unfurl them.
The dye is from the isatis root which our ancestors would have known as woad, painting their faces with it before charging into battle.
It is a strange sensation to feel part of such a continuum, a feeling also experienced where we help out with paper-making, taking it in turns to soak, steam, pound and spread the cellulose from the bark of a local tree and to turn it into something so resistant to moisture and insects that it can last a thousand years.
All these activities are celebrations of some of the traditions of the ethnic minorities in the province, traditions which were once under threat but which are now encouraged and cherished as components of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Yunnan has the highest number of such minorities who make up a third of its population, each with their different language, music, religion, clothing, food and drink. There are 25 such groups, 15 of which are found only in Yunnan, but we have only had time to explore three: the Dai in Xishuangbanna, the Naxi in Lijiang and the Bai in Dali.
It is here that we try out what seems to have become a widespread holiday experience in China – dressing up in the traditional costumes of the area. It is not a new custom – our guide shows us an old black and white picture of himself as a boy in front of costumed parents – but today’s social media and ubiquitous smart phones have made it almost obligatory.
After choosing my costume I sit down to have a make up artist buff and polish my skin to an almost deathly pallor. Unlike European tourists who want a tan, the Chinese want the opposite and wear huge hats and carry umbrellas and parasols to protect against even a ray of sun.
My outfit is crowned with a fabulously extravagant headdress and some more-is-more jewellery before I join other members of the group, all of us looking self-conscious but swanky.
We see more dressing up when we go to watch the sunrise at Longkan Wharf a few miles outside Dali on Lake Erhai. Although it is still dark the place is already heaving and the food stalls are doing a brisk trade. There are the inevitable drones and phones, of course, but there is still something hushed and almost reverential as the crowd watches the sun, silhouetted against a line of trees on the horizon, climb up between a dip in the hills to bathe sky and water in grey, blue, pink, gold. Afterwards young women in ballgowns and couples in their wedding finery strike poses at the edge of the water.
These, however, are modest compared to the extravaganzas we watch on a visit to the staggeringly beautiful Blue Moon Valley below the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, so called because the range’s 13 peaks mimic the spine of the beast.
Here it has become fashionable to have ‘wedding’ pictures taken six months before the actual ceremony. Some sort themselves out; others opt for packages costing up to £4000 for the clothes, flowers, hair and make-up, a stylist and a photographer.
What happens, I ask our guide, if the bride and groom then split up before the big day. They tear the photo in two, he tells me and keep half each. He adds that everyone is happy: the couple, the companies who offer the package, the villagers who see money flowing into their area (there is a charge just to enter this national park), the government who gets the taxes – and the environment. “If that gets spoiled no-one would come.”
Participation has been a key feature of our trip but we have had chill-out times too, eating delicious food (though I did demur at sampling crickets and larvae from the street stalls) and watching displays of dance and music
Most extraordinary was Impressions of Lijiang. Directed by Zhang Yimou, who choreographed the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, the show, staged outdoors at an altitude of 10,000 ft, draws its huge cast from 500 local people, all amateurs, to tell the story of their lifestyle and traditions. The scale was stupendous. How better then to stress the importance of the ancient Tea Horse Road to Tibet than to have 100 horses canter around the top rim of the amphitheatre.
Fact Box
China Southern Airlines flies daily from London Heathrow to Guangzhou with connections to all major Yunnan cities. Return fares between £500 and £1000.
For tour operators to Yunnan see the Chinese National Tourist Office website https://www.cnto.org.uk/travel-trade/
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