Weather and the Work Cycle

With its mountains, high plateaux and northern counties all part of the temperate zone and its low-lying valleys and southern hills part of the tropics,Yunnan's climate varies from one end of the province to another. Yet one factor is common to all sections: Yunnan is on the monsoon route, which means summer rains everywhere, from the tropical rain forests of Xishuangbanna to the Tibetan Plateau in Diqing Prefecture. The eastern part of Tibet is also within the monsoon's reach.

But some parts of Yunnan are wetter than others, just as some parts are colder. But with so much variation in the province's ecological environments the weather patterns mean different things to different people. In general, though, the rural work cycle is determined by the passage of seasons, requiring different work when the weather changes. During the dry season, November to April, a range of activities takes place, which do not during the rainy season from May through October.

After the harvest of the crop raised during the monsoon farmers plant those crops which are not so dependent on water-wheat, sugar cane, certain vegetables, etc. General field work is intermittent, freeing men for construction jobs and women for weaving or embroidery. Crafts in general attract more labour in the winter than in the summer. Trade is brisker, too, including long-distance trade. Winter is the season Tibetans, for example, journey from Diqing to all corners of Yunnan to sell forest products like plant and animal parts used in medicine.

For most in the province the main crop, the one they spend the most time upon, is rice. And as rice cultivation requires a lot of water, farmers raise it in the rainy season, which is therefore the busiest time of year. Some of the plains farms are irrigated and can produce a second and even third crop per year. But for sure one crop will be rice raised in the rainy season. And even those who don't grow rice plant their own staple in the monsoon months, be it the barley of the Tibetans, the corn of some Lisu, or the potato of the northern Yi.

Yi woman drying the corn

Before the rains come, the plains and terrace farmers prepare seedbeds of rice plants. When the rain floods the paddies the farmers transplant these seedlings, often working in large groups. Men mostly do the digging, women the planting. After the planting the fields must be weeded at least twice, and smaller vegetable plots attended to throughout the season. Outdoor work is rather muddy the first part of the season, but after mid-monsoon the rains gradually diminish. It rarely rains non-stop all day or for several days in a row even at the monsoon's peak, but even less so the latter half of the season. Sun-shine returns ever more often, ripening the crops.

By September in the plains and lower altitude valleys like Nujiang and the terraces along the Red River, the rice is ready for harvest. So is most of Zhongdian's barley. This month and next farmers are busy cutting, threshing and winnowing the grain. On the dry-rice farms of the hills the crop takes another month to fully ripen, but by the end of October hill farmers are at their harvest.

In mid-autumn the fields have all been cropped and farmers, mostly the men, now plough the fields, either preparing for a winter crop or just giving the earth a post-harvest turnover before letting it lie fallow until spring. Collecting fodder and firewood is the women's job at this time. But that's a year-round chore, anyway.

Farms with irrigation may follow a different work cycle, including those where only one crop can be raised per year. The terrace-builders of Ailaoshan, for example, whose fields are permanently flooded with water, plant rice as early as March. That's partly because the water that rice plants require at the beginning of their growth is already there and partly because the type of rice grown takes a month or more longer than that grown in the plains.

Not all the non-urbanites are farmers, of course, for in the mountains of the north many of the inhabitants are at least semi-pastoralist. For individual Tibetan, Lisu, Naxi, Yi and Miao families, herding is the main occupation. Such people follow the seasonal cycles as set by the needs of their animals. In Diqing yak herders take their animals to pastures on the higher slopes of the mountains every summer, then bring them down to the valleys and plains when it's too cold to graze, the snow line is lower and not many plants are left in the high-altitude pastures. Yi herders do the same with their goats and sheep in the northwest and northeast and shear them twice yearly. In contrast to herders, those who fish for a living depend less on seasonal changes than on the day-to-day weather.