Travelogue

| Gateway to the Silk Road | Guizhou Landscape |
| Dream away in Yangshuo | Where memories linger |
| Grand Canal at Hangzhou Ending | Curing Cuisines | Tea Tour |
| A Challenging Trip | Expedition to fairyland |
| Snacks at Kunming | Lijiang Impression |
| A Quiet Village Tour | Splash off Your Bad Luck |
| Summer Escape to a Holy Island | Suzhou’s History |
| In the Heart of a Miao Village | No-frills cruise along the Yangtze |

Splash off Your Bad Luck

Xie Fang

All over the world New Year celebrations represent a time of new beginnings. In this way, the New Year’s celebration of the Dai minority group in Yunnan Province is no different from most others, except that instead of culminating in a dazzling fireworks display, it concludes with a water-splashing extravaganza.

Aptly named the Water-Splashing Festival, the Dai New Year is observed for three days in mid-April, as determined by the Dai calendar.

The Dai minority group is the largest in Yunnan Province, and the Water-Splashing Festival is widely celebrated throughout the Xishuangbanna region in the south of the province.

The first day of the festival features a giant market, while the second day includes dragon-boat racing, rocket launching, and swimming races. Finally, the third day is a huge water-splashing free-for-all, in which everyone is continuously drenched by everyone else. The belief is that the wetter you get, the more luck you'll receive in the following year.

The folk tale central to the origin of the festival concerns the wives of a tyrant who were forced to wash his blood from their hands every day after murdering him.

The Dai Minority Park is located in the dusty, quiet city of Ganlanba (or Menghan), which is a 6 yuan, 40-minute microbus or a two-hour bike ride away from Jinghong(the capital of Xishuangbanna prefecture). For 20 yuan (US$2.50) per person, you can stay in one of the park's traditional Dai homes and eat home-cooked culinary specialties, such as barbecue fish or beef cooked with lemon grass, with a family. If you do stay overnight in a Dai household, it is polite to sleep with your feet pointing towards the door.

The park contains beautiful examples of Dai architecture, including stilt-houses and temples. A typical Dai house is built on two levels: the lower level is meant for feeding and housing livestock, while the upper level serves as living quarters for the family and protects the household from floods and wild animals.

Within the region, the largest celebration of the Dai New Year is in Jinghong County, situated beside the Mekong River.Jinghong has an airport with regular flights to Kunming as well as Shanghai, but during festival time it is advisable to book at least a few days in advance.

With its tropical climate, Jinghong has maintained a laid-back attitude despite its rapid development: charming palm trees line the streets, trucks filled with fruit park along the road, and the pavement is congested with people simultaneously chatting and eating at Dai-style miniature tables and chairs.

Although it is difficult to imagine a sleepy city and its residents participating in a fullday water fight, all work and social formalities are dropped on the day of the festival: trucks with water hoses spray everyone in sight; sprinklers attached to city street lamps shower water on those below; and monks carrying water-filled buckets saunter down the street in gang-formation.

Old and young splash each other with equal childlike giddiness, some armed with only a bucket, others with large to extra-large squirt guns. Foreigners are especially popular targets for water splashing and I saw more than one drenched and disgruntled traveler who had just arrived oblivious to what day it was.

Whether or not you pass through Jinghong during the Water-Splashing Festival, you should take the time to explore the outskirts of town and the neighboring villages. Renting a bike can give you the most flexibility to enjoy the surrounding landscape, which includes rice paddies, Dai houses tucked away in lush forest backgrounds, and water buffalo swimming in the rivers.

The Mei Mei Cafe in Jinghong is a good source of information for travelers, and the
friendly staff can recommend bike routes to surrounding villages from the city. There is also a mountain bike rental shop next to the cafe that charges 20 Yuan per day.

On my bike ride through Dai villages, the people were unabashedly hospitable. I came upon a dilapidated temple on a hill overlooking a small village, where a group of local men and young monks-in-training were still celebrating the new year over food and alcohol (and occasional dancing).They invited me to join in their festivities. As I left the temple, they filled my arms with oranges and watched me walk down the path, waving goodbye.

That was not the only time I was invited to a celebratory feast. During the festival in Jinghong, while dripping wet and looking like a drowned rat, I was ushered into a Thai restaurant by the proprietor. As it turned out, he had been waving in random people from the street to share a meal courtesy of his restaurant. It was a welcome respite from the madness outside, until the owner's wife continued the fun by walking around the table and ritually dousing our heads with water, before her husband returned the favor by splashing her as she giggled her way back into the kitchen.

As I sat at the table, soaked to the bone, and sated with Thai delicacies while enjoying the diverse company of Thai, Dai, Han, and international travelers, it occurred to me that the world might just be a little more unified if every New Year celebration took the form of one big water fight

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