The Tibetans in Zhongdian

Following the course of the Chongjiang from Qiaotou, the road turns past a fabulous, deep, wooded gorge, then winds past Yi villages in the high hills, makes one last ascent through the woods, and then suddenly reaches the Tibetan Plateau. A long, rolling plain bounded by thickly forested mountains stretches before the eyes. Villages checker the plain and great drying racks, shaped almost like chairs for giants, dot the landscape and stand surreally in groups beside the villages. Occasional pagodas, like small steeples mounted on domes, stand on the lanes between the settlements and off the main road.

The inhabitants of these villages are members of the Khamba branch of the Tibetans and their lifestyle has all the characteristics of highland Tibetan culture further west-barley cultivation, yaks, monasteries, etc. But Zhongdian's attributes render its Tibetans among the most fortunate of their race in all of China. Zhongdian's Tibetans can count on the annual monsoon for their barley, wheat and vegetable crops. Plenty of grazing land is available for their animals. The forests are a nearby source of timber, herbs and edible fungi, particularly the valuable mushroom the Japanese know as matsutake. They particularly relish it and sponsored the development of its local trade, which dominates the summer market scene.

Being so high, an average of 3500 metres, the plain can be cold in winter, with snowstorms possible even in late April, but more often the weather is clear at that time. The snow stays on all the lower peaks until late spring, when the fields are being sown. The rains bring the flowers, both in the mountain forests and in great swaths upon the plains. As the rains diminish the grain ripens, the fields are yellow and in the adjoining pastures a small bush turns fiery red, splashing the plain with new patches of colour.

Then when harvest commences pines and larches on the hills turn yellow-orange, while the leaves of deciduous trees turn crimson, yellow, orange, mauve and purple. The woods around the wild lakes Bitahai Lake and Shuduhu Lake, east of Zhongdian, nestled in the hills, are especially beautiful in early autumn.

Nearly all Tibetan females, including the adolescents, and a smaller proportion of the men, yet more than most minorities, dress in local traditional style. Women wear a side-fastened vest over a long-sleeved blouse, trousers, sometimes a pleated half-skirt worn over the buttocks, and a cape of wool and fleece. They braid their hair and coil it inside a narrow, fleece-lined, open-top cap, fitted over a front brim. The fleece coming out the edges makes a pretty frame for their faces.

The men wear a loose, wide-sleeved coat that folds over in front and is held in place by a sash or belt. Often they wear it leaving one arm sleeveless. Trousers, high boots and a broad-brimmed bush hat complete the outfit. Some men wear leather belts with big fronts full of little pockets and studded with silver ornaments and semi-precious stones. In colder weather men like to wear tail,
fox-fur hats.

Village houses are big, solid constructions of timber and rammed earth, two or three stories, with whitewashed walls and flat roofs with shingles weighted down with stones. People live on the upper floors. One small room is set aside for family worship services, containing an altar and an image of one of their divinities. The biggest room serves as kitchen, dining hall and receiving room. Ceilings are high enough for basketball players to stand up straight. In the most interior corner is the hearth, with its big, five-chambered cooking stove.

In the neighbourhoods of Zhongdian's old town, Jedaw in the local language, the space is more restricted and the compounds smaller. But the architecture is similar, except in the Naxi quarter, where the houses are in the Dayan style. Jedaw sits on and around a knoll, with a small shrine at its top. Near the base of this hill is the much larger Zanggong Hall. He Long, Xiao Ke and other Red Army officers lodged here in 1936 and a small, one-room Long March Museum occupies the smaller building left of the main hall.

The Naxi inhabitants are descendants of the troops stationed here in dynastic times, when the Han army, with many Naxi soldiers, defended the relatively prosperous Zhongdian plain against raids by Tibetan bandits from the arid, poorer, mountainous areas further north. Consequently, the two main communities, the Han of the city and the Tibetans of Jedaw and the villages, get along well, respect each other, attend each other's festivals, and even occasionally intermarry. Tibetan trade out of Zhongdian has also been mainly to the south, with the cities of Yunnan, rather than with Lhasa, which is so far away.

The Han may dominate the urban population, but even the modern buildings erected in Zhongdian often employ Tibetan architectural motifs in the roofs, windows, etc. And in the central marketplace, villagers congregate as always, oblivious to the changes in the city. Local Bai immigrants, Naxi from Sanba and Yi from the lower mountains also wander into the market, which is richly stocked with vegetables, fruits and meats, plus Bai copperware and brass pots, horse trappings, daggers, wood and silver bowls, yak tails, etc.

Zhongdian's Tibetans are a contented people, outgoing, friendly and gracious to guests. The Khambas in general are the most gregarious branch of the Tibetans and known as men of action. Rather than shy away from the strangers they often prefer to engage with them. They are thus one of the easiest people in the province to approach and befriend.

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