Towns and Temples

Simply because they are commercial centres, the major urban zones in Dehong are where most of the prefecture's Han live. Traditionally the Dal are farmers and while they did have their administrative centres where the local Dai chieftain (sawba in the Dai language) resided, urban occupations attracted only a small proportion of the population. Except for the tea cultivators who immigrated into the hills above Lianghe, the Han who came to Dehong sought work in the cities. Today these cities still have their native Dai neighbourhoods and some monuments and public buildings in the Dai style. And all are surrounded by the fields and fish ponds of neighbouring Dai villages.

Of the cities, Wanding and Lianghe exhibit the least ethnic Dai influence. Wanding was a sleepy border village until the late 1930's, when it suddenly became the key link between western China and the supply depots of British-held Burma. The original bridge was rebuilt after the war and is rather small and ordinary-looking today. Beside it a long, wide mural depicts the 1954 crossing on foot by Premier Zhou Enlai, General He Long (of Long March fame) and the Burmese Prime Minister U Nu. Dai and Jingpo dancers and musicians flank either side of the dignitaries.

Untypical of Dehong, much of the town climbs the northern slope of the hill behind the commercial centre where the bridge is. At the top stands the Zhengyang Gate, entrance to a large park containing gardens, groves and the Heavenly Lake reservoir. From here one has a good view of the valley across the border and the hills of Myanmar.

Lying adjacent to Tengchong, Lianghe County drew most of the Han peasant immigrants to Dehong in past centuries. Villages on the plain are Dai and a string of Achang settlements lies in the foothills to the east, but the higher townships are Han, as are the majority of the city's population. The most interesting city building is the former sawba's residence, on the main road in the eastern sector, comprising several courtyards and a garden, with rounded entrance ways. The Dai-style Mengde Pagoda, on a small hill in the southeast quarter, is only 20 years old, put up in the wake of the religious revivalism sparked by the launching of the reforms in 1979.

Yingjiang, 50 km southeast of Lianghe, has more of a Dai feel to it. The city is built around a reservoir and at the main intersection is a very Dai-style, three-sided elephant sculpture. Dai inhabit the adjacent village, between the city suburbs and the Daying River. At the end of this long, straggling village, past its graveyard (Dehong Dai bury their dead), a path runs to the knoll where sits one of the prefecture's most splendid pagodas-the Yunyanta. Rising from a square base lined with small, subsidiary pagodas, Yunyanta has a white mound, brass spire and filigreed silver crown. A plain pagoda sits across the field from it, with a small red temple behind it. As in Myanmar, the monks in Dehong generally wear red robes.

At the end of the Yingjiang valley the road turns south, crosses the Husa River, climbs a mountain range, then descends to the long plain of the Nanwan River, the heartland of Longchuan County. The county seat used to be at Chengzi, a small, nondescript town in the centre of the county. But the city of Zhangfeng, 33 km southwest, is the capital now. It is much bigger and more important commercially for its site on the main highway and its proximity to Myanmar, about 8 km west. The main market and minibus-taxi stand is beside the two huge trees just off the highway about mid-way through town. Open market is held every five days, attracting Dai, De'ang, Lisu, Jingpo and Burmese.

At the southern end of Zhangfeng, where a lateral road turns west to the border village of Laying, lies the city's outstanding Buddhist monument-Sanxiangta, a white pagoda under a peepul tree with three trumpeting elephants at its base. Northeast of the city, on a dirt road 12 km to the edge of Jinghou town, on a small hill with nearly 300 steps to its summit, stands the pagoda known as Guangmu. In the usual style of a white mound and bronze spire, it was erected in 1632 on the spot Dehong Dai believe to be the birthplace of their Buddhism. Dai villages lie at intervals on the road back to Zhangfeng, each with its own, wooden temple. Their exact positions in the village are signaled by the tall poles standing in their compounds, with long banners fluttering from them.

Just 35 km south of Zhangfeng lies the bustling border city of Ruili. its gleaming white skyscrapers visible from the pass 13 km north. Many of these towering buildings, however, are clustered on the small patch of Chinese territory across the Ruili River before the border post. Or they belong to the Chinese-dominated town of Muse inside Myanmar. Central Ruili itself is not so full of them. It has tree-lined avenues, mostly of royal palms, allowing for shady sidewalks. And at the arboreal roundabout where the main avenues meet stand stone sculptures of the Dai minority mascot-the peacock.

Most big new buildings are concrete, glass-and-tile monstrosities, but a few establishments have bamboo and wood facades and interiors, catering to the evening socialites who like a quiet drink with a magazine to read or a board game to play. The original government binguan is one of the most attractive buildings in town, utilising Dai architectural motifs in a garden setting. Just a block away is the extensive market zone, with hundreds of small, mostly one-room shops and food stalls. It stays open late at night, as does the downtown area in general, with numerous outdoor grills and fruit stalls on the main avenues.

Ruili attracts lots of Chinese tourists, who come to purchase jade ornaments from the many itinerant Burmese traders in town at any given time. They also cross into Myanmar to take a quick look at the temples there and return with the satisfaction of having, albeit in a small way, visited a foreign country. Burmese residents in Ruili run several restaurants and as Burmese men wear lungyis, similar to sarongs, but usually plain or in checked patterns, they are an instantly noticeable presence in the city.

Beyond the border aura of Ruili, the county is blessed with attractive scenery, with low mountains flanking the northern side of the long, narrow plain, sundry streams flowing into the Ruili River, and several important Buddhist sites. Several km east of Ruili is the Jiele Pagoda, nearly 40 metres tall. Its thin, tapering spire is covered in glazed orange tiles and looks like a stack of bowls of diminishing size. The pagoda went up in the mid-Qing Dynasty and is supposed to contain some bone fragments of Lord Buddha.

From downtown Ruili to the border a couple of temples lie-between the southern suburbs and the river. One is typically Burmese style, on wooden stilts, tin-roofed with ornamental awning. The other is the newly constructed Golden Duck Temple, partly funded by money from Thailand, so its main hall is more in the Thai style, though rather spare. The central Buddha image is gold-plated bronze, in the Sukhothai style of 14th century Thailand.

In the southwest, off the Ruili-Nongdao road, are three more of the county's important temples. The first is in the village of Hansha, just past Jiedong, about 5 km from Ruili. The wooden building, with painted silver roofs and fancy awnings, stands beside a huge banyan tree, with a thick bamboo grove at its rear. The big painted Standing Buddha inside is in the Chinese style. But the furnishings, gilded chairs and other furniture, are typically Dehong Buddhist style. Walnuts, fruits and cigarettes are kept inside for guests, who might be surprised when the monks encourage them to have a smoke inside their house of worship.

Another 7 km down the highway at Shunha a branch road winds across the plain for a few km and then climbs the hill to Leizhuangxiang Temple. The brilliant white pagoda on the south edge of the summit is visible from the highway. And from the pagoda itself the view encompasses the valley and river all the way back to Ruili and beyond. A modest temple compound occupies the back part of the summit, where five monks and fifty novices live.

The third important monastery on this route is in the village of Denghannong, about another 7 km past the Shunha turn-off. The Damenghan Temple compound lies to the rear of the village. It is a red wooden building with silver-painted roofs, elevated on stilts, and with a long, roofed corridor to the entrance. Inside is a gilt Standing Buddha in the Burmese style, gilt banners hanging from the ceiling and posters of events in the Buddha's life tacked on to the walls. About half as many monks and novices reside here as at Leizhuangxiang.

From Ruili it's 100 km northeast to Luxi, the prefectural capital. The highway veers ever further away from the border, ascends slightly in the Santaishan area, then dips to the plains again, passing through Fengping, where a new temple and pagoda were constructed in 1986, and then runs the last 10 km to Luxi. The Dai name for this city is Mangshi, but most Yunnanese know it as Luxi, which means "west of the Lu." In western Yunnan people frequently substitute the consonant 1 for an initial n. The Lu is thus the Nu River, or Nujiang.

Luxi was an important Dai administrative town in the old days, under its own sawba, with authority over the plains and hills to the north and south. Modern Luxi was simply added on to the western side of the original Dai town. Just beyond the northern entrance, marked by a stone peacock sculpture, several Dai villages dot the plains beside the Mangshi River. The northern and eastern quarters of Luxi are still mostly Dai neighbourhoods and all the temples and pagodas are east of the main business district avenue. So is the government guest house, tastefully built in the local Dai style in a tranquil, park-like setting near the river.

The architecture of the new city is not totally in the anonymous modern style, for Dai style roofs cap some of the taller buildings. On Youyilu, the connecting lane along the river between the government guest house and Tuanjiedajie, the main business street, new rows of shop houses were recently constructed, all roofs in individual Dai styles, the facades painted in bright pastel colours.

At the south end of Tuanjiedajie the roundabout encloses a small park and two great banyan with twisting branches supported by epiphyte-grown roots that drop straight to the ground. At the north end the roundabout there features the peacock mascot monument. On a pyramidal, red pedestal, two tall, slender peacocks are mounted, one crouching, one standing in a long, elongated curve-a unique rendition among all the peacock sculptures in Dai towns in the province.

The city seems conscious of its role as the capital of a multi-ethnic prefecture. In the centre of the downtown area a new park replaced a market area. Besides the space needle in the centre, the southern side of the park features large stone sculptures depicting men and women of the Dai, Jingpo, Achang, De'ang, Lisu and Han nationalities. In the southwest quarter is the Nationalities Park. In addition to the Zhou Enlai Memorial Hall, the park features a garden, small zoo, the painted poles of the Jingpo Munao Festival and a Dai village exhibit. Around a small pagoda are a few old-style Dai bamboo and thatch houses, a well, a shed and a staff of young men and women who periodically practise or perform dances in the yard.

The Dai Buddhist sites are all north and east of the new central park. The nearest is just past the Youyilu junction with Tuanjiedajie, in the compound of the No. 1 Primary School. In a corner of the schoolyard stands Shubaota, which means Tree-Wrapped Pagoda, an accurate description of what it is. One of Dehong's typically magnificent trees took root on the pagoda itself and grew around and above it. Now its roots and part of its trunk have crawled over the surface of the monument, completely covering parts of it.

The old town's three temples lie northeast of Shubaota. Puti Temple, on Zhengnanlu, is a red, wooden, elevated structure with silver-painted roofs, a circular entrance and interiors in the local Dai style. Similar in style, though not elevated and in a lovelier setting about 150 metres down Wuyunlu is Wu-in Temple.The compound sits beside a big yard with towering trees and an enshrined well. A white pagoda with painted gold spire stands within the courtyard. The temple's central Buddha image is crowned, in the chakravartin style (Universal Ruler). The third temple, on the main road a block east of the Wuyunlu turn-off, is Foguangsi, the Light of Buddha Temple. This one differs somewhat, constructed in the Han style in the Qing Dynasty, with ornately carved struts and roof awnings. A pagoda also stands in the courtyard.

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