Upper Ailaoshan Mountain

Xinping, Yuanjiang, Mojiang

Typical Ailaoshan scenery begins in western Xinping County, where the Chuxiong-Mojiang highway enters Yuxi Prefecture. Xinping city lies some 65 km east of the Red River, next to a valley cradled by rolling hills. It is not particularly interesting, with just one nice park with pools and pavilions and a small old town in the western quarter. Though it is the administrative seat of a Yi and Dai Autonomous County, few of either minority are ever in town. Most Yi live northwest of the county seat, while the Dai are the main inhabitants of the Red River valley.

The road west out of Xinping ambles through low-lying hills until it crosses the river. The high slopes of Ailaoshan rise steeply on the other side. The road joins the Chuxiong-Mojiang highway (which has surprisingly little traffic) and stays a couple of hundred metres or more above the river. Dai villages of 20-30 houses cling to the slope, their houses of unbaked brick, like boxes, two stories, with flat roofs. Animals live on the ground floor and people on the next.

As the river cuts a deep gorge in western Xinping County, Dai villages are sited on the slopes above. Rather than the broad fields of the river-side, characteristic of Dai settlements further downriver, Xinping Dai built narrow terraces on the slopes and con-tours of the lower part of the mountains and reinforced them with stone. They channeled the water from the streams tumbling from the heights and ran it through their settlements and into the terraces. Isolated from the main areas of Dai settlement in the south, they were also beyond the conversion line when the Buddhist wave swept into Dai areas in the 12th-15th centuries. Xinping Dai, and all Dai in the Red River valley, have retained their original animist beliefs.

Further downriver the valley widens and flat tablelands sometimes extend several km on the right bank.Dai villages, with the same architecture, dominate the riverside above Yuanjiang, especially around the market township of Dongwo. Yuanjiang town sits on the biggest right bank plain, a few km south of the bridge. It is one of the lowest and hottest cities in the province. In spring strong winds sweep through the vicinity, bending the trees and raising the dust on the country lanes. Ex- cept for one old stately pavilion beside a pond in the centre of the city, virtually every building in Yuanjiang is modern. Traditionally dressed Huayao Dai from the villages upriver and Hani from the hills south are frequent visitors, though, adding a bit of colour to the streets.

The most interesting town in Upper Ailaoshan is Mojiang, the next stop southwest of Yuanjiang on the highway to Jinghong. Mojiang is also connected with Chuxiong and the approach from Manbang, where the road from Xinping crosses the Red River, passes through the most scenic stretch of this part of the range. The road climbs high above the river and just before the county boundary enters a high plateau in Malu town-ship, home to a Yi community from the same branch as in western Chuxiong Prefecture. Both men and women wear the goatskins and the women wear an embroidered apron, often embellished with silver studs, and big black turbans.

Past this plain the road again hugs the high ridge above the river and soon offers a long view of the moun¬tains, unfolding one after another to the southeast. A roadside market village lies just beyond this viewpoint, drawing Malu Yi and three kinds of Hani on its market day. Then the road enters a forested stretch, with the serpentine lagoon of Buka Reservoir, perhaps the pretti¬est man-made body of water in Yunnan, lying in the woods below.

Emerging from the forest the road enters the settled highlands of Ailaoshan, home to the Woni branch of the Hani nationality. The titian culture is very visible here, with rows of terraces descending the slopes just below the villages. The latter are usually sited on ridges, promontories, or just below the woods that swathes the tops of the mountains. Houses are in the typical rural Yunnanese style and clustered close to each other.

Woni women tie their hair in a topknot, pile it over the forehead and cover it with a tall cloth wrap with long black fringe hanging down the back. Over a long-sleeved blouse and trousers they wear a side-fastened, short-sleeved coat, waist-length in front, knee-length in back. Either the entire coat is dyed deep indigo blue, or only the vest part is blue and the rest is white. In that case the ends of the sleeves are embroidered in cross-stitch patterns and the back embellished with different designs and patterns stitched in red and green.

As the road descends to Bixi it passes out of Hani territory and soon enters the valley around Mojiang city. Formerly known as Talang, it is a mostly Han-populated city that the Hani largely stay away from except on market day, every five days. It lies in the lap of surrounding low mountains, with a couple of small hills within the urban area, old neighbourhoods in the east-ern quarter and a shady park on the eastern outskirts, with a pond and several pavilions.

Mojiang's main claim to fame, however, is that the line of the Tropic of Cancer runs right through the city. A park honouring and identifying the precise route of this line occupies the top of the hill on the southern side of the city. Six large carved sandstone pillars stand in 'a niche two-thirds the way up the entrance staircase. At the top of this stairs is a circle of Stonehenge-like pillars, about 1.5 metes high. Behind this, on the summit, a white ziggurat stands over the line, which is marked in red brick on the white walkway and runs under an open niche at the ziggurat's base. The brick-marked line then passes an ornamental sundial, a tall chromed pillar, and terminates at a great domed building at the end of the park.