Climate & Weather Report

Introduction

Dayanzhen Town is located in the Lijiangxian County in the northwest of the Yunnan Province, China. Since it is surrounded by rivers and mountains, and looks like a large ink stone, it is named Dayanxian County. As it is well endowed, has the magnificent and beautiful mountains and rivers and a long history, the ancient town is full of rich national cultural atmosphere. The Ancient Lijiang City was put into the list of world cultural legacy by the World Legacy Committee of the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization in 1997.

The Ancient Lijiang City has a history of 800 years or 900 years, it began to take shape in the Southern Song Dynasty. The Ancient Lijiang City was named "Dayanxian County" in Ming Dynasty. Since it is in the middle of the Lijiangba Dam and surrounded by the green mountains and a river that runs through the forest, and looks like a green ink stone, it was given the name. An American scholar arrived at Lijiang in 1921 and the Dongba culture of Naxi Nationality began to attract the attention of the foreign scholars.

With the founding of the People's Republic of China, Naxi Nationality experienced a huge unprecedented social change as China's other nationalities. A 7-degree earthquake took place in Lijiang on 24 February 1996, and more than 5,000 people died, Naxi Nationality suffered the unprecedented damage. The earthquake caused many parts of the world to pay attention to Lijiang, and at the mean time, the unique landscape and culture of Lijiang began to catch the attention of the world.

Approved by the World Legacy Committee of the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization, Lijiang was put into the list of the world cultural legacy in 1997 (Only Pingyao of Shanxi Province and Lijiang of Yunnan Province are put into the world cultural legacy list due to their ancient style and features). The tourist undertaking in Lijiang began to develop fast, and Lijiang has become one of the famous tourist spots in China.                                                        

The Ancient Lijiang City

The residents in the Ancient Lijiang City are Naxi Nationality whose ancestor was one of the ancient minorities. Since they have been making a living by herding the yaks, they make the yak as their totem.

The ancestor of Mushi in Lijiang submitted to the authority of Kublai, the fifth emperor of the Yuan Dynasty in 1254 A.D.. The Yuan Dynasty was put out by the Ming Dynasty in 1368. The construction of the Ancient Lijiang City developed fast in the Ming Dynasty, especially the Ming Dynasty made a large number of people in Anhui Province to migrate into Lijiang in order to station the military troops and common people in the boundary areas, so the buildings of the ancient city were affected much by the inland building style in Anhui Province. The real buildings of Naxi nationality can only be found in the rural areas surrounding Lijiang City.

Naxi Nationality is a nationality good at absorbing the culture of other nationalities. Since Lijiang was a port in the Southern Silk Road and tea and horse trading road, it was a market between Yunnan and Tibet. Kublai stationed its military troops in Lijiang in 1253. He brought the foreign culture, and then Lijiang was affected by the culture of the Central Plain, such as the Tibetan Buddhism and Taoism, and then affected by the Christianism culture in the early 1900s and the ancient Dongba Church of Naxi nationality. Naxi Nationality can assimilate all these cultures and coexist and develop with other cultures. All these cultures increase the Ancient Lijiang City's meaning.

The beauty of this ancient city also lies its nature and harmony with its surrounding geological environment. The Yulongxueshan Mountain with the altitude of 5596 meters and the 4th generation of glacier relic lies in the place where is 30km away in the northwest of the ancient city. The human being has not climbed to the top of the mountain. The Ancient Lijiang City has no city walls, which is one of the features of this ancient city and different with other China's ancient cities. The Yuquanshui River includes three mainstreams, which flow towards the west, east and in the middle. The river running into the ancient city includes many branch canals, so the network of rivers mixed with the roads of the five-flowered stones. You can get the beautiful picture that " every house is surrounded by the rivers and the drooping poplars", so it is highly spoken by the architects of China and abroad. It is called "the Gusu in the Plateau" and "the Oriental Venice". Attracted by the ancient city and the Xueshan Mountains, millions of tourists come here and enjoy themselves in the ancient city of primitive simplicity, naturalness, tranquility and elegance.

Naxi people like planting trees and flowers. What is different from the Bai Nationality in Dali is that Naxi people in Lijiang like the noble and elegant flowers such as the plum, the sweet-scented osmanthus, the chrysanthemum and the orchid. 

The residents in Dayanzhen Town also have the tradition to evaluate flowers. When the flowers are in the best time, the hosts of a household often invite their relatives or friends to come and evaluate the flowers. When they are evaluating the flowers, they often create poems or paintings. The men in Dayanzheng Town take it as an honor to be good at reading, paintings and performance of music.

You can hear the beautiful music from the dwelling houses in Dayanzhen Town at festival time or having a rest in the evenings. The performers are mainly the old folk musicians or the young fans, they carry their musical instruments to take part in a party in a household. The hosts of the household often prepare some tables, tea and burn incense. The musicians perform the folk music of Naxi Nationality in the happy atmosphere.

The ancient city has an altitude of 2,400 meters and covers 3.8km. At present, there are 280,000 people in the city, of whom 66.7% are Naxi people, 30% are engaging with the traditional national handicraft.                  

  The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is famous for its perilous, beautiful and grotesque landscapes, including famous tourist attractions such as the spruce platform, white water river, sweet lake, sera forest, etc.

The Jade Dragon Mountain is located 15 kilometers north of the Lijiang old city, from N latitude 27 degree 03'20" to 27 degree 40', E longitude 100 degree 04'10" to 100 degree 16'30". It is a modern maritime glacier at the utmost south of equator on the Northern Hemisphere. It is a state-class tourist scenic zone, Yunnan provincial holiday and tourist zone and Yunnan provincial nature preservation zone. The peak of the Jade Dragon Mountain called Fan Bluff, 5596 meters above sea level, rises high to the sky. The thirteen peaks standing from south to north look just like a flying giant dragon with overwhelming momentum and show off beauty and charming attitude like crystal-made. The scenery varies unpredictably with seasons and sunlight.

A monumental building located in the ancient city of Lijiang, the tower is an example of wooden Dougong architecture (with sets of brackets on top of the columns supporting the beams within and the roof eaves without. A set that is cushioned with trapezoidal blocks is called Dou, and one that consists of tiers of outstretching arms is called gong). Thirty-three m. high, the tower has five stories and five tiers of eaves. The top story has 13 angles, representing the 13 peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Painted inside the tower are 2,300 auspicious patterns, representing the harmony and unity of the 23 ethnic groups living in Lijiang. The colorful murals in the tower are redolent of the traditional Dongba culture of the Naxi people.                                                   

The Wufeng (Five-phoenix) Tower

Traditional House

For instance, there is the type called "one gate and two courtyards" and the type called "houses on three sides and screen wall on the other." The type shown in the picture is called "four abodes with five courtyards." Most of the houses are two-storied and have spacious courtyards paved with stone slabs and dotted with trees and flowers. In this courtyard, cobblestones are used to compose a symbolic pattern of longevity with the images of four bats.             

Folk Dance

Tso (dance in Naxi from original meaning of jump) of Naxi included both the religious Tomba-Tso and sectarian  Me-da-Tso, Ro-Ro-Tso. Tomba Tso served as a physical accompany in ritual of Dobar and was believed to be weapon in dispelling the ghost who brought sickness and pain to Naxi, the body movement of Dobar imitate the animals and borrowed a lot from tribal martial art. Dobar Tso is thus divided into categories like Animal Tso, Martial Art Tso, the former show how Dobar borrow the power of big animal to avoid the danger from Nakhi's living environment. In Martial art Tso, Dobar use big knives ,clubs and boxing etc. to show how the human advanced in their fight with threats and dangers from the woods.

The body movement and posture of Dobar Tso was recorded in hieroglyphic manuscripts of Dobarism titled Tso-Mo (dance notation or documentation). Young Dobar learn the skill of Dobar Tso from both their Dobar father's instruction and Tso-Mo. According to modern Dobarists, Tso-Mo is the earliest dance documentation in the world.

Me-Da-Tso and Ro-Ro-Tso are two major folk dance of the Naxi community, the body movement are companied by songs and no instruments were used. There were no limit on number of dancers and new comer can join by simply putting his/her right hand on his right neighbors or just making hands in hands. All dancers in a shape of a circle move in counter-clockwise direction and their songs usually led to night-long pleasure and relaxation. The difference between Me-Da-Tso and Ro-Ro-Tso is that the former is rhythmically slow and and relaxing while Ro-Ro-Tso is with strong bit and attract Naxii youth most. Some folk dance preferred by present Naxi woman were borrowed from other ethnical community in North-West Yunnan, these group dance are featured by a flutist or piper (actually a boy player of a regional pipe instrument named Hu-Lu-Sen). Naxii youths relaxed quite a bit at the exciting rhythm of the pipe music.

Today, the folk dance no longer play such a key role in social fabric of Naxi community as modern recreation like KTV drained local dancers. Nevertheless, large scale dance are still organized by local government on holidays like International Woman's Day, Chinese Spring Festival and so on, In these holidays, rural woman from suburban Lijiang will wear their Blue-Dark Red Naxi traditional dress and enjoy in the Dse-Tso (singing-dance), and along with more and more incoming tourists and travelers.