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This is a theme park kind of place where they've built sample villages to display the lifestyle of some of the 26 officially-recognized minority peoples who live in Yunnan Province (overall, China has 56 recognized minority peoples). The minority peoples have helped make Yunnan Province a major tourist destination for other Chinese.
People actually live in this place, so as you go through you can see what they do, how they dress, how they treat their pets, and so on. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable on a few occasions, like I was traipsing through people's yards. "Oh, hi Mr. and Mrs... Jones, is it? Don't mind me. Hey, that barbecue smells delicious! Um, your kid needs to have his nose wiped." Etc. There are also shows where you can see native dancing, singing, yada yada. The whole thing is just this little taste that really makes me want to get out and see the REAL minority villages! We didn't get there until about 5:00 pm, so I didn't get photos of a lot of places due to the whole nighttime thing. It's hard to take pictures by moonlight. But this should be enough to give you some ooh's and aah's! |
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A traditional house of the Dai people. |
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Bulang grass house. |
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Woo. Cool. Gee, see any relationship to a bunch of other Asian cultures? |
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A closer view. Oh, those things on top of the spires are wind chimes. See how many... it makes a really awesome sound in the breeze! |
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You know, the flowers in Kunming are just incredible. There are some blooming now that have been blooming the whole time I've been here. I mean, like, the SAME EXACT FLOWERS! This is November 19th, folks. But I ain't complaining! |
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Three towers in a gorgeous setting. These are actually small(er) replicas of three much bigger towers in Dali. |
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I don't remember what people this building comes from. It's near the Naxi, I think. |
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This is pretty rad. Hm, for some reason I'm getting flashbacks to the Illinois State Fair. |
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I'd say "they don't make 'em like they used to," but I'd be wrong. |
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Here's a Naxi building. There's a whole city of this kind of stuff up north called Lijiang. As you might imagine, over the past few years it's become quite the tourist center. And why not? |
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View out a 2nd floor window... sigh. I loved how all the little angles and pieces of walls and roofs came together... it sort of looked haphazard, but it didn't quite feel that way! |
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View into the courtyard and scross the rooftops, from a 2nd floor window. The sun was setting and the light was streaming, and all was well with the world. |
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OK, I could live here. |
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Scene from a bridge. Aaah. |
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OK, no one ever said it all had to be in good taste. Kind of incongruous, though, don't you think? :-) |
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Sort of a modern thing. Horseman sculpture outside the Mosuo and Naxi villages. |
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You can actually stay here overnight yourself, if'n you want. Here's where you go. Oh, as you can see, we stayed pretty late... but it afforded me the chance for a couple of night shots! |
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Here's the performance plaza where you can go see dancing and such. And we did! It was, well, pretty cool. There were about 30 people left in the park at this time (9:00 p.m.), so we were pretty happy. |