Updated 17th March, 2004
China Mystery Tour One - -
Stepping Into The Past At Jinghong
Jinghong, in the province of Xishuangbanna, was the furthest westwards I had ever traveled in China. We flew from Kunming and had aerial views of mountains covered with tea plantations as the plane descended for its approach to the Jinghong airport. A mini-bus was waiting there to take Zhong and I to our Guest House in Jinghong, and during our journey we very quickly had the feeling that we were in a different country, rather than a different province.
Minority group women dressed in traditional costume contrasted with women dressed western style. In Jinghong, there were newly built two storey houses of concrete fronting the streets, having as their neighbors stilted wooden houses set behind a plot of unfenced cultivated land. Such was the diversity and mystery of Jinghong.
Clicking the picture will take you to a larger copy which will open in a new window, and closing the window will bring you back here.
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This ancient Jinghong temple with its own forecourt, on one side of which a few small stalls had been set up, was very dimly lit and inside, an old woman sitting on the wooden floor, interpreted prayer sticks which had been shaken out of holders held in the hands of those who knelt on woven matting and kow towed before the Buddha Altar.
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A Jinghong Longhouse where one side was lined with curtained cubicles and in the center was this display of the communal cooking facilities of the inhabitants whom, as far as I was able to understand, would have been monks and initiates.
On another day, when we visited an occupied, stilted, communal house of a Minority Group all the people inside were advanced in years except one younger woman, who was cooking food in a pot supported by three stones over a wood fire. Able bodied members were out working whilst young children were cared for by older girls.
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