Love, Sex, Tourism and Looking for the Truth

Lugu Lake is a beautiful lake, but the main attraction for the many tourists who pour into the area despite the 6-hour bumpy bus ride is the area's Mosuo minority- the so-called last matriarchal society in the world, as the tour guides will tell you.

What sells here is Sex, or the idea of Sex.

The Mosuo minority traditionally practice "walking marriage", ie. the men will visit his partner at night, spend the night, and leave early next morning. Both men and women live in their parent's homes throughout their lives, they never get married, and never move in with each other. Both men and women can have multiple partners throughout their lives.

Hey, that sounds like sex without responsibilities!

This aspect of their culture, needless to say, captured both public fascination and tour operator's business minds.

"Come here to Lugu Lake, a paradise for Love (and hint, hint, sex)."

"Remember to try out walking marriage!" Tour guides will joke around and say, equating walking marriage to one-night-stands.

I heard a lot of contradicting things about the Mosuo people before arriving, "they used to live in tree houses, and men will climb up the trees to see the women"; "if they tap your palm with their fingers, it means they want to sleep with you" etc.

Sounds like the Arabian Nights.

It was difficult to tell what's real and what is just people exotify-ing, and being stupid.

Fortunately, I was able to find this book by Hong Konger, Chou Wah-shan 周华山, who spent more than a year in the area doing ethnographic study.

《无父无夫的国度?》
作者： 周华山
2001

His view of the Mosuo culture seems a bit overarchingly positive, but it still seem to be the most objective book I can find out there. Here's what I learnt from the book:

Love & Sex in a Collective Society

Walking Marriage might sound like sex without responsibilities, but in this traditional collective society, any such irresponsible behaviour will put you under immense social pressure.

In more traditional areas, couples don't hold hands in public, they don't even walk together in public!

Walking Marriage is a stable, serious, monogamous relationship, just without the "forever and after" public commitment. The Mosuos can be in many, a few, or just one relationship throughout their lives.


Women/ Mothers: Continue the Family Lineage

Bloodline is carried down on the female side, if no one in the extended family gave birth to a girl, the family will worry that the lineage will be broken.

In his book, Chow mentioned a woman Yajiama, she was the no. 10 after 9 brothers. The whole family was exhilarated for the bloodline will not be broken, but this also denies her freedom to marriage in the traditional sense.

Yajiaman rejected her first man who asked her to marry him. She knows she needs to continue the family lineage. In the end, she engaged in walking marriage with a few other men and gave birth to 10 children.


Men: Important not as fathers, but as uncles

Though outsiders often classify the Mosuo as a matriarchal society, men are not inferior to women, they also hold a high status, but as uncles, not as fathers. Both elderly men and elderly women hold very high status in the families.

Men are also decision makers in their families, but only in the families they grew up in, not in the families of their children.


Family: No more in-laws!

So no one has in-law problems. Hey, you don't even live with your wife.

Mosuo people remain with their blood-related families throughout their lives, meaning the decision-makers in the family are the mothers and their brothers (the uncles), and together, they take care of the women's children, no matter who the biological father is.

Children are raised and disciplined collectively by the whole family. All the adults can discipline the children. If a family has 3 sisters, 2 brothers and a child, the child has like 5 parents...goodness.

There is very little concept of private ownership of children, i.e., when one sister give birth to a girl, the other sisters no longer have the pressure to give birth, as the family already as an heir.

When the family already has too many children, say if one sister already gave birth to 3, the other sisters will make adjustments, using contraceptive methods to avoid pregnancy and therefore more financial burden.


Changes

During the Cultural Revolution, the Mosuos are forced to adopt the husband-wife system. Nowadays, they are free to choose whichever system they prefer.

In Chow's survey involving 300 Mosuos living in 8 villages:
27% are engaged in walking marriage
9% are married
23% cohabit
41% are single

Among those 300 interviewees,
14% are in favour of marriage
24% are in favour of walking marriage
62% said it depends on the situation

In general, for those who live in cities or want to move to cities, or for those who are in relationships with non-Mosuo people, they are more likely to get married for practical reasons. There are also more men than women who are in favour of marriage (in order to benefit from the patriarchal system according to Chow's analysis).

Tourism has changed the Lugu Lake area a great deal, it brought in money which the community wisely responded with cooperatives that collectively deal with everything tourist-related.


Sounds Great! Should I just switch over to Walking Marriage?

For us outsiders, some think it feels insecure not to have a lifelong promise made to them. On the other hand, some think it's just a realistic way in approaching relationships (look at the divorce rate!), and some think that without the pragmatic burdens (Mortgage! In-laws!)that often come with marriage, this system frees you to real romance.

Hey, it does sound like the new saviour to our broken system of marriage. And whatever insecurities that come from not having a man (or a woman's) promise is more than made up for in the securities you get from living with and being provided for by your blood-related family.

The thing is though, it only works well in a collective society. Personally, I like my freedom. I'm just not a big fan of collective societies.

Tiger Leaping Gorge and Why People Travel

Tiger Leaping Gorge, a trek that all backpackers to Yunan will do, also a trail that was part of the Ancient Tea and Horse Trail.

Didn't think I'd be doing it alone (in parts at least) But a landslide blocked the road to a hostel I was heading to, where I could have found potential hiking companions. So I ended up doing it alone, which turned out to be quite enjoyable.

At the first guesthouse. I read the entire guestbook that night. It reminded me of how travelling can be such an alternate state of mind.

"Toto:I hope that 10 years later, you will be able to read this. By then, you must have become a strong young man. I'm waiting for the day..."

"We are always on the road. What are we looking for? For me, I'm looking for that something that touches me. I'm looking for that world that can only be found in my dreams. I am looking for that one-love which I have lost and which I miss: love for one tree; love for that one gust of wind that blows through the mountains; love for this sky, sprinkled with shinning stars."

"I haven't been very happy. The future is full of uncertainties. I've lost the goals I had after a few things happened. A life without direction is terrifying. I'm starting to doubt if it is worth my efforts. I hope I can find my answers on the road. "

"I've dreamed of this trip for the longest time and finally I have arrived here. I suddenly realized, it's not a particular place that I like, I just like being on the road. I hope, I can always be on the road."

" No matter how beautiful the night sky, how bright the stars, it's so different without you around. To travel is to escape, but there's only so long you can stay away. I am not among the shinning stars that you so love..."

Is it unethical to share on the world wide web such intimate moments someone had with his/ her surroundings? But they're so poetic, I thought I'd share.

Next morning, I Woke up to this.

Naxi GuestHouse: A night's stay & dinner and breakfast = 38 yuan




Really taking my time.

Found some company later on the second day.

The other hostel with a beautiful view of the gorge. Reminds me of 夏蕙酒店 and Stella :)

It was a beautiful hike. I want to come back next time between October and May, when I 'd be able to see the two snow mountains Yulong and Haba.

Shangri-la..

..or Zhongdian, was a bit disappointing at first. Lonely Planet pretty much glossed over the city, but the Chinese guidebooks raved about it. If China decided to name this city Shangri-la after looking at all its cities, this can't be it.

I soon realized though, it's not the city that should be named Shangri-la, it should be the area, it should be the Shangri-la prefecture. It's the areas I pass through between waking and sleeping, an area that is best seen hiking (I'll make an effort at this later) that is the real Shangri-la.






The lesson of the day, you'll look for the beauty when any place has a name like Shangri-la.

A Transforming Landscape

From Lijiang to Zhongdian, you see a landscape transform from a green fertile land
to a more barren land with drier lower growths.

You see people's clothes transform from the simple white and blue outfit and a simple blue hat of the Naxi, to the tall and elaborate headdress (of the Yi?), to the colourful outfits of the Tibetans.

You see architecture transform from the Naxi houses with storage on the second floor, and living quarters on the lower floor, to the Tibetan houses with elaborate details and colourful painted walls.

It's amazing that landscape and culture can all transform so quickly in a 4-hour bus ride. Does this speak to the immobility of the people? Their love of their identity and their local land?

A road sign sweeped by, instructing drivers to drive no faster than 40km. I glanced over to my driver's speed meter.


It's broken. It's stuck at zero.
May be the change of landscape just speaks to how fast my driver is driving...

Two More Fake Things in China

This is fake:



Joined a local tour with my friend Siu Oi today, this was one of the photo spots underneath the Yulong Snow Mountain. It looked a bit fake to us, the steps are all similar in size, and the water is running a bit too fast for such lime formations... So we asked the guide....

And Alas! It is fake!! It's an imitation of the real thing which we later visited ourselves. They built the lime steps here to make the natural glacier river look more spectacular (without telling the tourists of course).

The real thing:




Then we wandered into this Tibetan complex inside a tourist Cutural Village. There were no tourists there, unlike the other houses, and it was set further away, so that disarmed us. A friendly Tibetan man came to talk to us, told us how this house was there before the cultural village, about how there are two living buddhas in the complex, they're in retreat 正在闭门修練, so we need to keep our voices down. When we got closer to the complex of the "living buddhas". Our "guide" said, the living buddha doesn't usually see people, but today since you've come all the way here, it's a kind of fate 缘分, you should go in and see him. We said, oh it's ok, we don't want to disturb him, and the guide said, it's ok, if the buddha said to see you, then you should go in. So out of curiosity I went in.

The "buddha" looked 20-something (ok, may be meditating has made him look younger, or may be he's just really gifted to have achieved what he's achieved at this age), then he asked me where I'm from, and asked me to silently make 3 wishes (which I did not), when he leaned forward, he faintly smelled of alcohol (may be it's just my faulty nose). Then after all the ceremonial stuff, he suggestsed I obtain 6 Tibetan flags outside, so he can pray for my wishes to come true. I walked into the adjoining room, there's a big sign that says, 30 yuan per flag. A living buddha that usually sees no one, but will see me today, a one-stop shop that leads from the buddha to the flag-selling room, a Tibetan village inside a tourist cultural village. Oh please. My "guide" said it's a real pity I'm not getting those flags.

Oh motherland.

Wal-Mart, China

The one ond only sight I visited in Kunming (thanks to Sheryl) is this: This is exactly like any Wal-mart in the US, and a lot of people (Chinese people of coure) were shopping here. Many will see this as a symbol of globalization. Some Americans might see the irony in all the Wal-mart and China-bashing in the States these days, when the Chinese are also increasingly buying from Wal-mart, and are having their own union problems with Wal-mart. What strikes me though, is as far as shopping habits go, how potentially similar the two countries, China and the States are. I first read about Wal-mart's global attempts here. Many such attempts have failed elsewhere in the world, but they're expanding in China. Wal-mart expanded quickly since it first opened stores in China in 1996, now there are 86 stores in its 46 cities according to its corporate website, and will increase its presence even more rapidly this year with its new acquisitions. China and the States: - are both large countries with lots of space, - people are spread out (increasingly true in China with all the newly planned urban areas in China) and therefore will buy in bulk when they take time to go to the stores. - with the rise of middle class, people here drive. Anyway, to conclude, let me bring you a few more seconds of Wal-mart, China: