Genghis Khan Lives On - Who Knew?

(Lauren) Travel Day: Jianshui à Jinghong

Because we had a big travel day ahead of us, we got up and moving very early this morning. Alaina was especially thrilled by this morning’s breakfast. Apparently, our guide Murphy had informed the restaurant that we had really enjoyed the fresh fruit and dumplings with cheese frosting that we had been given the previous evening, so the staff kept bringing us huge plates of apples, watermelon, and breads. We found out later that the chef made the cheese sauce we got especially for us!

After breakfast, we headed to a nearby Doufu Factory. It turned out to be a fairly small, family-owned “factory,” and we were quickly made to feel welcome by the owners. Doufu, as it turned out, was a synonym for tofu, which we got to see being made by the women of the family. Doufu comes to the factory as a kind of mushy paste, about the same consistency as oatmeal. The women work to mold the doufu into little squares, and tie pieces of cloth around the squares so that the doufu will dry into a muffin shape. It was absolutely amazing how fast the women worked! Sandy tried her hand at making a doufu, which is when we realized that molding mush into squares is significantly harder than it looks.

The factory owners were also kind enough to serve us two of their special dishes. One was a milk-like dish, which the others said was good with a lot of sugar. The other, which I tried, was a soupy dish made up of the unmolded paste. While the four of us were eating, Sandy made friends with an elderly Chinese woman, who spoke no English but who seemed to enjoy their mimed conversation.

Once we had our fill of the doufu, we got back in the car and drove for about 3 hours back to Kunming. Although we had all learned to trust Mr. Wang, our driver, over the past couple of days in Yuanyang, I think we were all pretty relieved to find ourselves back on the expressway. Driving in China is always an adventure, but the rules are obeyed much more strictly on an actual highway!

Along the way, we stopped at a little Mongolian village. Apparently, the Mongols moved into the area when the Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan) sent soldiers to conquer the area. During the Ming Dynasty, Ming Emperors sent more soldiers in to attempt to kill the Mongol descendants. To survive, the Mongolians hid on a little island and so survived the slaughter. These Mongolian villagers were supposedly descendants of these Mongols who survived the purge. They have kept their traditional costume and language. We saw many pictures of Genghis Khan, as well as old textbooks, schoolbooks, and bizarrely, an old Chinese translation of a Stalin manifesto.

Once we returned to Kunming, we stopped for a nice, fairly typical lunch. Since our flight to Jinghong was late in the afternoon, we decided to spend our last few hours in Kunming touring a tea factory. We headed over to Kunming’s International Trade Company, the location of one of China’s most famous tea companies.

The tea company, aptly named Dr. Tea, has twenty-eight branches throughout China. It’s primarily based in Xishuangbanna province, which is where our next stop, Jinghong, is located. We met a young Dai Minority woman from Xishuangbanna, who explained the Yunnan province’s four most famous teas to us.

Famous Teas:

(1) Jasmine tea à good for eyesight (especially for computer strain) and liver

(2) Oolong (black dragon) tea à good for the stomach and for raising low blood pressure. Interestingly, oolong tea is usually served in a specific type of tea cup with a black dragon on it…when the tea is heated properly, the dragon turns from red to black

There is a specific way to drink oolong tea:

a. First waft the tea towards the nose

b. Use a circular hand motion to move the cup of tea from the nose to the mouth

c. Slurp the tea to show enjoyment

(3) Pu’er tea à good for sleep, lowers cholesterol, treats diabetes, and helps people to lose weight

a. Pu’er = most famous tea in the Yunnan region…should be drunk by swishing around in mouth

b. Pu’er is grown on trees in Xishuangbanna, the oldest Pu’er tree in Xishuangbanna is 1700 years old and 32.1 meters tall.

c. Pu’er tea is valuable based on age

i. 2 years old à not valuable, because it’s very bitter and has a lot of caffeine

ii. 6 years old à more valuable, because the caffeine has begun to fade away

iii. 10+ years old à very valuable, because all the caffeine has gone away and the tea has a very mild taste

iv. oldest Pu’er tea = 97 years old, sold for 1.6 million yuan

(4) Tian cha (sweet tea) à good for skin, digestion, facial beauty

a. Sweet tea is made up of rose and lychee

We left the tea shop, and Murphy and Mr. Wang took us to the Kunming International Airport. We said goodbye to the pair of them, and headed through security. Having arrived at the airport with plenty of advance time (unlike Guilin), we had a couple of hours to try various Chinese airport candies. The most bizarre were a type of powdered candy that crumbled as soon as we touched them, and we made an incredibly huge mess!

Our flight to Jinghong was quick and painless. Once we landed, we were all thrilled to see that it was about 70 degrees out, and it was almost seven o’clock at night! Once we got our bags, we met up with our new guide, John. Driving through Jinghong, we were surprised to find that it was considerable less rural than Yuanyang was!

We checked into our hotel, and headed out to dinner. John showed us to a little local place, where we got to try many typical Xishuangbanna foods. As John told us, Xishuangbanna food is very spicy, which was evident in our selection of foods. We had an incredibly spicy kind of tofu, which was so hot that many of us couldn’t taste the rest of the meal. We were shocked to learn from John that the tofu dish was only considered mid-level spicy in Xishuangbanna culture! We also had a delicious dish of a mashed-potato like substance, pumpkin pastries, pork legs, cucumbers, and rice. We also had an incredibly delicious passion fruit juice – it was so thick and creamy!

After dinner, we returned to our hotel for an early evening. We’re looking forward to two very intense days of touring the Jinghong countryside!