The Naxi of Lijiang

Lijiang has been the hometown of the Naxi people for almost 1500 years. As I wrote in a previous blog, it has an interesting state of affairs between the sexes. The women are responsible for the work and raising children, and they inherit property and female elders adjudicate any disputes. The men are responsible for the arts - singing, dancing, painting and playing instruments. Interesting.....
It's also interesting that there doesn't seem to be many very old Naxi men left in Lijiang. It seems mainly to be women, hence many more pics of women than men.
Selling greens in the market. The bottle of water is to spray over them regularly to keep them fresh looking.

A mushroom seller

Sorting wild garlic into 1 yuan bundles for sale

Doing morning exercise in the town square

Finally, a Naxi man (with a very ethnic baseball cap!)

Morning exercises. The back of the jacket is made of sheepskin.

Counting profits in the market
More morning exercise!

No wonder these old women are fit. They do this for about an hour a day..

Selling strawberries

No idea what she's peeling - looks like some knobbly root...

Food - ya gotta love it!

Wandering through the old streets of Lijiang today, I came upon a huge food market. Food is a key part of Chinese culture - and something I always enjoy looking at and taking pictures of.
Cooked ducks eggs
This is a very clever little machine. You crack quails eggs into each little hollow to fry, with a skewer through each column. Once done, you can pick five of the eggs up on a skewer, like an egg kebab! The brown things on the left are the finished product.

Bracken is a fairly common ingredient here - and very tasty! I've had it quite a few times, usually steamed or pickled.

These are called baba - a traditional Naxi bread made from wheat.
This is one of my favourite Chinese vegetables - and one I'll miss when I get home. It's called bai lo bo - literally white carrot - but it's more like a giant radish with a nippy almost horseradish taste.

Sausages for sale - and what I think is heart beside it

Chinese asparagus, apparently. Haven't tasted it yet but I want to.

Mangosteen - Quenn Victoria's favourite fruit! It has a very delicate flavour.

Believe it or not, this is tofu.
I think these are cooked ducks for sale.
Chinese breakfast on the go!
A different Chinese breakfast option.
Chicken feet on sticks. It's fairly rare to see fresh ones like these on sale but packaged ones are on sale in every store and supermarket in the country.
Steamed dumplings with a fruit filling. No idea what makes them green though...
Just added this cos I loved the pic - and she was standing by the food market!

A boulder or a pebble?

This week I'm on holiday in Lijiang, an ancient town in the southwest of China. I first heard about the place about 20 years ago when I watched a 12 part documentary (Beyond the Clouds) following a year in the life of the people here. I think it's one of the best documentary series ever made - I always remembered it and decided that someday I'd visit Lijiang and its people. And now, 20 years on - here I am!
Sadly, this is now a world where the tourist is king and Lijiang has become a huge tourist destination for the domestic market. Four fifths of the local Naxi people have moved away due to the influx of tourism and instead, many of the traditional houses have been turned into tourist shops. However, compared to what has been done in other areas of China, the streets and houses are mainly still authentic and there are still out of the way parts that follow the life of their ancestors. I went for a walk this morning and still saw many, many people collecting water from wells, washing clothes in the streams and wearing the traditional Naxi clothing.
Lijiang has fast flowing streams running along every street and the place is a maze of winding lanes and waterways. There must be several thousand bridges - mainly wooden but a few stone ones over 500 years old.
Naxi society was traditionally matrilinial and this follows through into the language. Basic nouns are made bigger by adding the female form and smaller by adding the male, so a female stone is a boulder and a male stone is a pebble.
Some of the many wooden bridges
Street cleaner who sat next to me while I was watching the world go by
Naxi woman and her grandchild (or more likely, great grandchild!)

A visit to Shanyang

As I'm now finished school for the summer, I travelled to a neighbouring county for a couple of days to visit another VSO volunteer who lives there. Shanyang is very similar to Danfeng in many respects but is at least four times as big. The photo opportunities are similar but I feel more comfortable poking my camera in when it's not the place where I live! Anyway, here's the results...

You can tell I was excited to see so many watermelons for sale
A typical village house - corn hanging up to dry and a noodle rack (the wood with holes)

Noodles hanging up to dry

Woman leaving their corn out in the sun

A hairdressers!

Everyone has a sheet hanging at the door in summer to keep out the insects.

The hut in the middle of these houses is the toilet!

Pigs for sale

Playing with the washing

Woman cutting up her noodles to take to market

A vegetable cart