Dragons and 600-Year Old Camellias

(Lauren)


Lijiang Day 2

We began our second day in Lijiang with an early morning tour of the beautiful Black Dragon Park and nearby pool.  In ancient times, according to local folklore, the water of the pool was generated by the constant splashing of the Black Dragon, whose job it was to keep the people supplied with water.  Unfortunately, the dragon was a bit of a “playboy” in the words of our guide, Diana, and often neglected to work in order to spend time with his girlfriend, the Snow Princess.  One day, the Black Dragon abandoned the pool completely to move in with the Princess, and there was a terrible drought.  The people prayed to the dragon’s father for help.  When the father arrived on the scene, he was furious to learn that his son had stopped working.  He trapped the dragon in a temple, so that it would be forced to splash water for the people.  The Snow Princess turned into the Snow Mountain in her grief for her lost love, which is why now the Chinese find it romantic that water from the melted snow from the mountain feeds the dragon’s pool – proving that the Princess and the dragon are still together. 

While walking around the park, we visited the temple where the father imprisoned the Black Dragon.  Inside the temple was a little wishing well of sorts.  Throwing a few yuan into the well was supposed to guarantee longevity, but we found it difficult to get our yuan to sink into the water!

We then stopped by a Naxi Minority Cultural Museum, to learn about the customs and traditions of the local Naxi people.  The museum had many exhibits featuring Naxi clothing and handicrafts, but one of the most interesting was a study of the Naxi written language.  Naxi writing features a complex system of pictographs, similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.  We learned that few Naxi people are actually capable of reading their script, since only the local Dongba (Naxi religious leaders) are permitted to read and write.  The Dongba then act as interpreters for the rest of the Naxi.  We were fortunate enough to be able to see one of the local Dongba writing scrolls.  Although Naxi script is different from traditional Chinese writing, the beauty in the calligraphy was the same.

Once we finished looking through the museum, we headed out into the countryside to visit some of the villages.  We stopped at a little village where the local women were famous for their embroidery.  To create a piece of embroidery, the women would have to pain a watercolor of the design that they wanted to stitch, trace it over, and then embroider it.  The embroidery work alone could take over a month, but the finished product was amazing.  Because of the tightness of the stitching, the finished products seemed to shimmer – from a distance, they actually seemed to be painted!  Even more impressive, each of the designs used was completely unique, since the women never kept the original watercolor pattern (those tended to be given to whoever bought the final embroidered product). 

We left the embroidery shop and headed for lunch.  Cassie was especially thrilled to be offered fried goat cheese, and we were all happy to receive fried potatoes that seemed similar to hash browns.  We ate quickly, because we wanted to check out a local market just outside the door.  We spent quite a while haggling over the local goods, such as yak bone bracelets and singing bowls.

Done haggling, we traveled to another village.  This village was particularly famous for its frescoes.  The biggest, most famous fresco was unusual for its mixed disciplines: Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian beliefs all coexisted.  Diana explained that in many ways, the fresco was a metaphor for China itself, where many people believed in a blend of these three philosophies. 

Our last stop of the day was a monastery containing a rare camellia plant.  This camellia was over 600 years old, although it only bloomed once a year.  Fortunately, we were able to see it in bloom.  We also met the lama who was the caretaker of the camellia, and had even saved it from destruction during the Cultural Revolution.  Diana explained that the locals joked that the camellia was the child that the lama had never had.

We returned to our hotel for a brief rest, where Alaina, Cassie, and I caught up on the Olympics.  We were also exposed to a taste of Chinese television.  As far as we could tell, Chinese TV shows are meant to be melodramatic with hilariously poor special effects.  The overdone acting and lighting made it seems as if a stage show had been poorly adapted for television, but we were amused nevertheless.

Refreshed, we went back out for a quick dinner.  We then decided to go a world famous Naxi Concert.  The Naxi music played at the concert dated back to the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, and was played entirely by old men (many of whom were in their eighties, and one of whom was blind!).


Once the concert finished, we decided to buy some plastic flowers with candles in the center.  We lit the candles, and then let the flowers go sailing down the river that runs throughout Lijiang – although all of us were sure to make a wish before we let go!  Spent, we called it a night, and went back to the hotel for the evening.