Eastern Prefectures

Yunnan's eastern prefectures-Zhaotong, Qujing and Wenshan border Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi, which before the Yuan Dynasty were the southwestern provinces of the Middle Kingdom. The geography and climate of the east is more like that of neighbouring provinces than the rest of Yunnan. So is the social composition. The Han are the majority in every county, but many counties have a big enough ethnic presence to give them autono¬mous status, including the whole of Wenshan Prefecture. Yet the bulk of the ethnic minorities in the east are mi¬grants from further east, in contrast to those elsewhere in Yunnan, who mainly came in from the northwest, and in the Wa and Bulang case the south.

Coming from western and then central Yunnan, the eastern prefectures seem like a zone of transition from Yunnan proper to Guizhou and Guangxi, or to Sichuan across the Jinshajiang. Wonderful scenery, odd landscapes and colourful ethnic costumes still appear along the way, but the traveller may feel they do so after pro¬gressively longer intervals of the ordinary, the dull and the modern. And in truth, after crossing the provincial borders, the exotic becomes much less commonplace.