An ancient settlement site containing ancient tombs and ancient houses was found recently in Chengjiang County of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. It is a rare settlement site with the characteristics of the ancient Dian culture, which will help fill a gap in the history of ancient Dian culture.   

Chengjiang creature oryctocoenose

Chengjiang creature oryctocoenose is located in the Maotian Mountain of Chengjiang in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province. There are many fossil remains of more than 80 species of creatures such as Yunnan worms, Fuxian Lake worms, Maotian Mountain worms, trilobiteugo  

eshhhhpecific environment of Chengjiang River enables the mollusk to be turned into fossils, which is a mystery in science.

It takes 1 million to 3 million years for Chengjiang creature oryctocoenose to form. In such a short geologic period, the paroxysmal evolutionary process of animal population was completely recorded, revealing the “Big Bang of Creatures” in the Cambrian period. Scientists regard Chengjiang creature oryctocoenose as one of the world-class scientific discoveries in the 20th century, which is an unparalleled golden key to uncover the secret of “Big Bang of Creatures” happened in the Cambrian period.

Chengjiang’s  Summer Festival 立夏节

Chengjiang’s traditional folk festival begins in summer and lasts five days. It is held north of Fuxian Lake. Learn folk traditions. Watch Yunnan opera. Take snooooooooooooChengjiang’s Summer Festival 立夏节, which dates back to 1755, now marks the official start of the summer season at Fuxian Lake and is celebrated with a large market on the lake’s shore.

Sounds of Nature Music Hall

Address: around the Tonghai people’s Pocuratorate

Tel: 0877-3012220

Jitian KTV(集天KTV)

Address: Around the Huanglong Road in Tonghai county

Tel: 0877-3012558

Tongyin Hotel KTV(通印大酒店KTV)

Address: No.47 on the North street

Tel: 0877-3021666

Black Tea Entertainment Club

Address: in the Liyue Shopping mall

Tel: 0877-3026311

Kama Bar

Address: in the Liyue Shopping mall

Tel: 0877-3026418

Traditional values

Among the topics that are mentioned from the oldest works of Mongolian literature to modern soft pop songs are love for parents and homesickness, a longing for the place where one grew up. Horses have always played an important role in daily life as well as in the arts. Mongols have a lot of epic heroes from the ancient time. Hospitality is so important in the steppes that it is traditionally taken for granted. The Mongolian word for hero, baatar, appears frequently in personal names, and even in the name of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolian: Улаанбаатар, Ulan Bator). The word was introduced in the Middle Ages to many non-Mongolic languages by conquering Mongol-speaking nomads, and now exists in different forms such as the Bulgarian language, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Persian, North Indian and Georgian. Traditional words such as temul signified a way to describe creativity and passion; temul was used in several Mongol words and had the meaning to: “rush headlong, to be inspired or to have a sense of creative thought, and even to take a flight of fancy. It can be seen from Mongolian perspective as “the look in the eye of a horse that is racing where it wants to go, no matter what the rider wants.”

Festivities

The most important public festivals are the Naadam (English: game). The biggest one is held each year on July 11–13 in Ulaanbaatar, but there are also smaller ones on aimag and sum levels. A Naadam involves horse racing, wrestling, and archery competitions.

For families, the most important festival is Tsagaan Sar (English: white month), which is roughly equivalent to the Chinese New Year and usually falls into January or February. Family members and friends visit each other, exchange presents – very popular presents for all opportunities are the khadag – and eat huge quantities of buuz.

Under the Soviet influence, New Year became a big event, and it is one of the biggest celebrations, comparable to Christmas in the West.

Literature

The oldest completely passed down work of Mongolian literature is probably also the most well-known abroad: The Secret History of the Mongols. It does, however, contain passages of older poetry. Otherwise, few examples of Mongolian literature from the time of the Mongol Empire have come down in written form: fragments of a song about the mother and the area where one grew up were found in a soldier’s grave at the Volga river in 1930, 25 manuscript and block print fragments were found in Turpan in 1902/03, Pyotr Kozlov brought some fragments from Khara-Khoto in 1909.

Other pieces of literature have long been orally traded and typically consist of alliterative verses, and are known as Üligers, literally meaning tales. They include the proverbs attributed to Genghis Khan, and the epics around the Khan’s life, or the one about his two white horses. Other well-known epics deal with Geser Khan. Famous Oirad epics are Jangar, Khan Kharangui, Bum Erdene, and more.

Beginning from the 17th century, a number of chronicles have been preserved. They also contain long alliterative passages. Notable examples are the Altan Tovch by Luvsandanzan and another anonymous work of the same title, Sagang Sechen’s Erdeniin Tovch, Lomi’s History of the Borjigin clan (Mongol Borjigin ovgiin tüükh), and many more.

Jingxiang Hotel KTV(景乡酒店KTV)

Address: in the JIngxiang hotel on the HUnacheng South Road

Tel: 0877-5012666

Yunxin Entertainment Club(云馨娱乐城)

Address: around the No.304 provincial Highway in Huaning county

Tel: 0877-5092318

Shiyuan Entertainment Club(诗缘娱乐会所)

Address: around the Jianghua line in Huaning county

Tel: 0877-5027918

Landu Tea Bar(蓝度茶吧)

Address: No.7 on the Dongshi Street

The Dim Light of Night Bar

Address: on the Ningjing Street

Tel: 13987783550

Yi People Folk Literature and Art Activities

Tiaoyue(跳乐): Tiaoyue is the traditional folk activities of Huaning Yi people, the dance is complex and can be divided into many types.

Maomaocha(猫猫叉): it is a folk dance mixes attack and defense of hunting together. Maomao is the diminutive of Tiger among Yi people. On every occasion of sacrifice, funeral and important events, Yi people dance.

Torch festival

The torch festival or fire festival (chinese: 火把节; pinyin: huǒbǎ jié) is one of the main holidays of the yi people of southwest china, and is also celebrated by other ethnic groups of the region. It is celebrated on the 24th or 25th day of the sixth month of the yi calendar, corresponding to august in the gregorian calendar. It commemorates the legendary wrestler atilaba, who drove away a plague of locusts using torches made from pine trees. 

The original torch festival, according to some scholars, was based on a calendar used by bai and yi people in ancient times. The calendar included 10 months, 36 days in a month, and two star returning festivals in winter and summer respectively. The two star returning festivals were both considered the new year, and the one in summer was called the torch festival as people often lighted a torch on that day. There are also many other legends about the origin of the torch festival, yet all of them have the purpose of offering sacrifice to duties and dispelling ghosts, as a wish for a harvest.

In three kingdoms period , it was the territory of Yuyuan county, Jianning prefecture. In Sui and Tang dynasty, it was under the administer of Nanning prefecture, later, it was ruled by Jiannan Road, Yaozhou prefecture. In Nanzhao kindom period, it was the territory of Zhee tribe and in Dali kingdom period, it was ruled by Xiushan tribe.

At the beginning of Yuan dynasty, Zhee Thousand Family Department Header was established, 20 years later, it was reset as Zhee prefecture. In Ming and Qing dynasty, it was a county under the jurisdiction of Linan prefecture.

In the 19th year of the Republic of China(1930), it was first called as Eshan county. At last, in May.12, 1951, Eshan Yi Autonomous county was established, in 1998, it became a county under the jurisdiction of Yuxi prefecture.

Midnight Sunlight KTV

Address: around the Huanian Farm in Eshan county

Tel: 15087727669

Lexiaoyao KTV(乐逍遥KTV)

Address: in Huanian village, Huanian town, Eshan county

Tel: 15974980750

Hongliang KTV(红两KTV)

Address: besiedes  Eshan county industrial and commercial bureau

Tel: 13577737594

Mingyuan Teahouse(茗苑茶庄)

Address: on the Nijiang South Road in Eshan county

Night Talking on the Contryside(夜话田园酒吧)

Address: on the Lianjiang north Road

Tel: 0877-4010521

Language

The Chinese government recognizes six mutually unintelligible Yi languages, from various branches of the Loloish family:

Northern Yi (Nuosu 诺苏), Western Yi (Lalo 腊罗), Central Yi (Lolopo 倮倮泼), Southern Yi (Nisu 尼苏), Southeastern Yi (Sani 撒尼), Eastern Yi (Nasu 纳苏).

Northern Yi is the largest with some two million speakers, and is the basis of the literary language. There are also ethnically Yi languages of Vietnam which use the Yi script, such as Mantsi.

Many Yi in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi know Standard Chinese, and code switching between Yi and Chinese is common.

Religion

Bimoism is the ethnic religion of the Yi. Shaman-priests of this faith are known as bimo, which means “master of scriptures”. Bimo officiate at births, funerals, weddings and holidays. They are often seen along the street consulting ancient scripts. The Yi worship deified ancestors similarly to the Chinese traditional religion practitioners, besides gods of local nature: fire, hills, trees, rocks, water, earth, sky, wind, and forests.

Ritual performances play a major role in daily life through healing, exorcism, asking for rain, cursing enemies, blessing, divination and analysis of one’s relationship with the gods. They believe dragons protect villages against bad spirits, and demons cause diseases. However, the Yi dragon is neither similar to dragon in Western culture nor the same as that in Han culture. After someone dies they sacrifice a pig or sheep at the doorway to maintain relationship with the deceased spirit. The Yi believe that bad spirits cause illness, poor harvests and other misfortunes and inhabit all material things. The Yi also believe in multiple souls. At death, one soul remains to watch the grave while the other is eventually reincarnated into some living form.

The Nosu form of Bimoism (the religion of the Nosu or Nuosu subgroup of the Yi) distinguishes two sorts of shamans: the bimo and the suni, respectively hereditary and ordained priests. One can become bimo by patrilineal descent after a time of apprenticeship or formally acknowledging an old bimo as the teacher, a suni must be elected. Bimo are the most revered, to the point that the Nosu religion is also called “bimo religion”. Bimo can read Yi scripts while suni cannot. Both can perform rituals, but only bimo can perform rituals linked to death. For most cases, suni only perform some exorcism to cure diseases. Generally, suni can only be from humble civil birth while bimo can be of both aristocratic and humble families.

In recent decades the Bimoist faith has undergone a revival, with large temples built in the early 2010s.

Torch Festival

The Torch Festival or Fire Festival (Chinese: 火把节; pinyin: Huǒbǎ Jié) is one of the main holidays of the Yi people of southwest China, and is also celebrated by other ethnic groups of the region. It is celebrated on the 24th or 25th day of the sixth month of the Yi calendar, corresponding to August in the Gregorian calendar. It commemorates the legendary wrestler Atilaba, who drove away a plague of locusts using torches made from pine trees. 

The original Torch Festival, according to some scholars, was based on a calendar used by Bai and Yi people in ancient times. The calendar included 10 months, 36 days in a month, and two Star Returning Festivals in winter and summer respectively. The two Star Returning Festivals were both considered the New Year, and the one in summer was called the Torch Festival as people often lighted a torch on that day. There are also many other legends about the origin of the Torch Festival, yet all of them have the purpose of offering sacrifice to duties and dispelling ghosts, as a wish for a harvest.