How Did I Get Here?

Sun-Thur, 3-7 June 2007

I decided to go to Lugu Lake on a whim. I was paging through a book in a tiny bookshop in Lijiang, and saw a picture of the lake. It seemed like the ideal place to get away when you’re already away. I needed some quiet time to reflect (what you say to justify doing nothing…) and catch up on the blog (a lot more time-consuming than I thought).

The morning I left Lijiang, Mama stuffed a bunch of babanas in my hand and sent me off with a kiss on the cheek and a lucky charm round my neck. Maybe she thought I needed it. Spontaneous kindness always cracks me up, probably because it’s such a rare phenomenon.

The road to Lugu Lake was truly spectacular. We followed the course of the Yangzi River for a while and then ascended up a a rough, pebbly road through zigzaging passes. The landscape reminded me of pictures in books I used to pore over as a child, that of the ‘wild America’, the unconquered wilderness of the trappers and fur traders.
When we arrived at Lugu Lake I felt I was on the set of ‘Dances with Wolves”. Everywhere were fierce looking ‘yakboys’, wearing stetson hats, goat skin waistcoats and with a strut that would make Clint Eastwood jealous. Their dark faces spoke of Tibetan ancestry, and with their high cheekbones and shoulder length hair, one can see that they’re related to the North American Indians who originally migrated from this part of the world.

Before reaching our destination of Lige village, the bus stopped at the shore of the lake and we got off. I wasn’t quite sure if I was perhaps jumbled together with a tour group, but opportunely followed the others into a little dug-out canoe.
Our rower was a strapping lad, who stood out from the others in his choice of head gear: a frisky little Tyrolean hat with feather. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had burst into a sing-a-long version of ‘The Sound of Music”. While he was rowing, the Chinese girls in the group were peppering him with questions. Their curiosity stems from the fact that the Mosu people of Lugu Lake are apparently the last practicing matriarchal society in the world. They never marry or cohabit and the women can choose as many lovers as they’d like. After her nightly visit from her lover, he returns to his mum’s, where he lives throughout the rest of his life. Children are brought up by the mother and her brother(s). So, strictly speaking, the men can never experience the role of a father, only that of an uncle. Clan names and property is passed on through the female line.
The Chinese have ofcourse put their own spin on things. Reading a tourist brochure, I discovered another beauty: “The Mosu minority is a live specimen for people to study and explore the evolution of man”. I wonder how the Mosu people feel about being grouped together with gorillas and apes as “live specimens” to illustrate human evolution…

We finally arrived at an island with a monastery (Gompa) perched on top. This was my first encounter with a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Multi-coloured prayer flags fluttered in the wind and the rest of the building was drenched in a kaleidoscope of colours and murals. One of the murals was the wheel of life, depicting the different phases of life , as well as the fate of the not-so-lucky souls: grotesque depictions of torture, suffering, dismemberment, and impalement. Glad to know it’s not only Christianity which has a twisted imagination…

Back on the mainland, and sightseeing over, we headed for the Lige, a little village by the shores of the lake, where I was planning to spend a few days. All the buildings and guesthouses are built from logs and timber, with a grinning yak skull hammered over each entrance.

I was turned away at the first guesthouse, although they clearly had vacancies. Feeling slightly vexed, I wanted to know why I couldn’t stay in one of the rooms. The reason (translated by 2 Chinese tourists) came as a bit of a shock: I didn’t speak Mandarin.
Call me ignorant, but I didn’t know that speaking a country’s langugae was a prerequisite for getting a room. I was obviously not aware of this new form of discrimination: linguistic apartheid.
Hopefully the rest of China won’t have the same policy with the millions of foreign tourists who will stream in for the olympics next year.

So I stormed off and luckily found refuge at ‘Daba’s Guesthouse’. He didn’t seem to have a policy of ‘Mandarin Only’. Daba was as chilled as they come, and in his slow, deep voice offered me a cup of green tea in his ‘Cultural Chat Bar and Restaurant’.

That night there was a Mosu dance at their community ‘barn’. The men stoked a fire in the middle of the circular enclosure and the girls tittered on the edges, looking resplendent in their long, white, pleated skirts, bright satin blouses and elaborately beaded headdresses.
A scratchy folk song blaring from a bad sound system signalled the beginning of the dance. The men, linking arms, sang along with the chorus and displayed some impressive footwork.
The ladies joined in, forming a big circle, and the dance continued in a rather restrained fashion. Those onlookers hoping to see sexually liberated girls choose their lover for the night, must’ve left in disappointment. This was more reminiscent of an old-fashioned Quaker barn dance.

The following few days, I spent writing, soaking up some sun, eating lots of yak meat, (very similar to beef), and trying to avoid the new-age and panpipe music emanating from the restaurants. For a while I was the only foreigner, until a guy from England strolled in. Trevor, a keen photographer, persuaded me to explore the neighbouring Sichuan province in depth. Western Sichuan is culturally part of Tibet and sadly there are now more Tibetans living in Sichuan and Yunnan Province than in the increasingly Chinese populated T.A.R (Tibetan Autonomous Region, with Lhasa as its main city). So it seems I’ll be staying in China a lot longer than planned…

On the fourth day, the pan pipe muzak was beginning to have the same effect as Japanese water torture and I decided it was time to leave. I had to go back to Lijiang as there was no other road from Lige.

Driving away from Lugu Lake, the cynic in me wondered whether the heavily publicised tradition of Mosu matriarchy and so called “free love” marriage wasn’t mostly a strategy to lure in the curious tourists…

Tags: China and South East Asia, Yunnan

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