The price of development

A couple of weeks ago, my Chinese teacher invited me to attend a local “Bai” wedding in a village close to a nearby town called Jingchuan. The wedding was taking place during of the weekend the “San Yue Festival”, so the plan was to take the bus from Dali early on Saturday morning, attend the wedding celebrations, spend the night in Jingchuan and return to Dali early on Sunday morning to enjoy the festival for a few hours before returning to Yongping.

Background:

• In China there are officially 56 ethnic groups, one of them is the “Bai” people who mostly live in the Dali area in Yunnan province. The Bai are recognised for their elaborate clothes, usually white with red or blue embroidery, and special hats representing the Bai symbols of snow, moon, flowers and wind. Bai are also famous for their tea ceremony, consisting on 3 types of teas and served in weddings and festivals.

• The San Yue (third month) festival in Dali, is the most important in Bai culture; originally a religious celebration, it evolved into a fair including performances, food and trade of hand made goods from different villages.

• The town of Jingchuan is renowned in the region for the quality of their wood carvings, that range from small decorative items, to large pieces of furniture, doors, windows, beams and columns.

I was quite excited and interested in witnessing all these local traditions, and I was very curious specially about the clothing that the Bai would wear for a wedding; I got myself an appropriate green summer dress (no black or white colours are well received in weddings), had all my Chinese phrases rehearsed and was ready for all the photos I would have to smile for with the locals, given that I would be the only westerner in the village.

The teacher and two of her colleagues met me in Dali at 9:00am on Saturday to go to the bus station and take the bus to Jingchuan. The ride took about two hours, which we used to do the Chinese class and practice all the key words (wedding, cake, congratulations, love, happiness, till death parts us, ‘que vivan los novios’, etc…). We arrived at Jingchuan and took a 20min taxi to the village where the celebrations where taking place.

We were dropped on the main street and started walking towards the couple’s family house. The village had an abandoned feel similar to those you get in a wild west movie just before the big duel is about to start; the streets where empty, the houses looked dusty and the silence was only broken by the distant noise of the wood carving machinery.

As we approached the house, it was clear that it belonged to the richest family in town and that the entire village had been invited and were all part-taking in the celebrations. We were greeted by a nervous groom (wearing a regular grey suit, hmmm!) and quickly ushered to the back of the house where all the villagers had gathered to eat and see some dance performances. We sat with an old, toothless man, who was apparently the father of the bride and who couldn’t care less about, and were served a selection of simple local dishes and a bottle of local ‘rose’ wine.

After watching a few of the dances, all pretty much the same, performed by middle-aged women in different colour dresses, we were informed that the couple were going somewhere and wouldn’t be back for an hour, so we decided to go and explore the village in the meantime. As we walked, we realised that every single house was (i) poor and (ii) had a small wood workshop either in the courtyard or at the back of the house. We entered some of the houses to look at the carvings, my teacher was trying to find something antique, authentic and unique, which of course we couldn’t find; although ‘hand-made’ it was all mass production, possibly for big residential developments or hotels.

Within 30min we had walked the town and seen all we could see, so we decided to go back to the house and wait for the bride and groom. About 20 min later we started hearing the typical Chinese fireworks and crackers as the couple approached the house, and then she showed up, in a surprising and obviously cheesy…. western white dress… no traditional Bai gown, no special head wear, no hand made embroidery for the occasion…

They briefly said hello and went into the house; after about half an hour wait, someone informed us that we could join the mahjong games and wait for dinner, but there was nothing else in the agenda… what?? no tea ceremony? no dress changes? no Bai millenary traditions? no photos with the Colombian?… My teacher was equally disappointed, so we decided to take the bus back to Dali and at least enjoy the evening at the festival.

We walked back to the main street and took one of those buses that stops in every village, and where people carry all sorts of things, from bananas and onions to chickens and random tools… As we approached Dali, the traffic stopped. Due to the festival, they had closed a number of roads and there were too many tourists getting in and out of town, so after a long wait we decided to get off the bus and walk the last 10km to the city centre.

When we finally reached the heart of the festival, ready for some local traditions and delicacies, we were greeted by the opening of the first McDonalds in town, several mobile phone stands, energy drinks, and plastic flower decorations. No street food, no handcrafts, no produce from the nearby villages, no tea! At that point we called it a day, and as I walked back to the hotel, tired and disappointed, I could only think about how many rich traditions are getting lost in favour of development; perhaps I’m just a bit selfish and all I wanted was some ‘cool’ photos from the adventures in the far east to share on facebook!