Festivals at Chinese New Year

This trip takes you to the northwest and the west of Yunnan, crossing three major river systems: the Yangtze, the Salween and the Mekong. The geography of the area ranges from rainforests in Ruili to snow-capped mountains in Lijiang. Different ethnic groups living in the area include the Dai, Jingpo, Anchang, Lisu, Bai, Yi, and Naxi. Each ethnic group created the festivals of the own and it becomes a part of their daily like. The following festivals will give you more chances to learn about the people in this region.

Chinese New Year
Traditional Chinese New Year starts on the first day of the first Lunar Month which is on Feb.14th 2010. Whole Chinese celebrate the Festival but different places have different ways to do it. In Dali, people will play fireworks and have the dances of Dragons and Lions followed by dancing and singing teams on the streets of the old town to amuse themselves and people in the town. While these happen on the streets, old people may sit in the park and play some traditional music of the area. Everybody just finds something to enjoy the time; the whole town is full of joy and happiness. 

Ancestor Worship Festival in Dali
On the 5th day of the 1st lunar month, Shuanglan Village hosts this festival on the east bank of Lake Erhai. In this Bai area, every village has a festival to celebrate and worship its own patron God. On that day, you will see villagers carry a statue of the God through the streets. Much singing and dragon dancing takes place to keep the God amused. Older women gather at the temple to pray and chant while beating their “wooden fish”…

Mountain Worshiping Festival at Mt. Jizu, Dali
Mt. Jizu ( Chicken Foot Mountain ) is a famous Buddhist mountain in Southeast Asia. During the first two weeks of the Chinese New Year, Bai locals will climb up Mt. Jizu to worship the Gods and express their good wishes for the coming year. In their thousands, they pray, make offerings of food and wine, sing and dance. At different temples on their route, people make New Year resolutions or give thanks for the successful outcomes of their previous requests.

Munaozongge Festival of the Jingpo People in Longchuan
This Jingpo Munaozongge ancestor festival takes place on the 15th-17th of the 1st lunar month. Before the festival Jingpo people erect four towering Munao poles over the village square, these are engraved with patterns of the sun, the moon and local grain as symbols of their ancestors’ routes of migration from the Himalayas known as “Munaoshidong”. The most striking scene is that of the dazzling and dreadful broadswords inserted in the Munao pole. A gunshot signals the start of the festival and music of Dongba horns and flutes is played aloud, while hundreds of Jingpo men with broadswords in their hands and Jingpo women with colourful fans, led by a sacrificial ceremony master “Naoshuang” wearing a long gown and feathered headdress, line up and dance into the square, striding proudly, then lowering their heads and detouring in forms of migration to commemorate their history.

Itinerary Day 1, Arrive in Kunming and transfer to Hotel. Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province, with mild weather throughout the year, named as Spring City. Birds and flowers market in the old part of downtown Kunming is nice to walk around, 100m from the market is the commercial center of Kunming full of the modern buildings. Here you can see the different aspects of Kunming. Day 2, Drive to Dali Four and half hours drive to Dali, visit the old town of Dali to see how people prepare for the Chinese New Year, markets are very busy as people will buy everything they need for the New Year. Everybody clean their houses and streets and put spring couplets, three pieces of red paper with Chinese writing to put on the door, one on the top and two on left and right side, to express their good wishes for coming year. Dinner is the time for family gathering. Day 3, Chinese New Year Day in Dali Old Town to attend the Chinese New Year Celebrations. Go to the streets to see the dances of Dragons and Lions followed by dancing and singing teams on the streets of the old town to amuse themselves and people in the town. While these happen on the streets, old people may sit in the park and play some traditional music of the area. Everybody just finds something to enjoy the time; the whole town is full of joy and happiness.  Day 4, Day to Weishan Day trip to Weishan old town to see how people celebrate the festival over there, Weishan is a small of Bai and Yi people with the history of more than thousand years, used to be a very important old before the Nanzhao Kingdom was established. Visit the Taoist Temple in Weibaoshan Mountain with some walks in the forests Day 5, Three Pagodas and Cangshan Mountain Visit thousand year old Three Pagodas and Congsheng Temple; this is the biggest Buddhist Temple in the Southeast Asian. Dali is the Kingdom of Bai people, with Cangshan Mountain on the west and Erhai Lake on the east, people just live on the fertile land between the Mt. Cangshan and Lake Erhai. The area of Dali used to be an independent country called Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms. Bai people created the own culture and lovely festivals for thousands of years. Cable car up to Cangshan at 2550m, visit Zhonghe Temple and walk on the Clouds Road where you can have a bird’s eye view of Dali and the area. Day 6, Attend the Ancestor Worship Festival Drive to Shuanglan village to attend the Ancestor Worship Festival. In the early morning, some people from the village will take a boat to a temple near the Lake to take the village God back to the village on boat, when they arrive the village; thousand of people are waiting there. And they start to dance with dragons and lions through the village all the way to the temple and have some ceremony there. All people from the village will gather at temple to pray and worship. Shortly we will go to another village nearby to attend another festival of Ancestors. In the evening there will be local opera on the stage. Overnight in village hotel. Day 7, Drive to Mt. Jizu for Mountain Worshiping Festival Three hours drive Mt. Jizu, visit Buddhist Zhusheng Temples and walk for three hours up to the top of the mountain, if you don’t want to climb all the way up can walk for an hour and then take the chairlift up to the top to join the locals for the Mountain Worshiping Festival to pray and express our good wishes. Usually, people will go to the Mt Jizu for a couple of times for their wishes. The first time they go there to ask for the good wishes for whatever they wish for, the their wishes come true, they will go back again to express the thanks to the God, and they may have new wishes again Day 8, Drive to Lijiang Get up early to see the sunrise of Mt. Jizu with many photos chances. Walk downhill to visit some temple on the way back and drive to Lijiang.  Lijiang is the home of the matriarchal Naxi culture, which is protected as a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site. Lijiang was at the end of the Tibetan tea caravan route that gave rise to the Naxi women’s strong commercial bent as successful shopkeepers and traders.  Day 9, Day trip in Lijiang Visit the old town of Lijiang built hundreds years ago in traditional style with rivers running through the town, now the culture heritage of the UNESCO. In and around Lijiang; walk from the old town; follow up the river to Black Dragon Pool where the water of the old town comes from. You can have a good view of the Jade Dragon Mountain when the weather is fine, and watch the Dongba priests demonstrate writing their ancient pictographic language.  Drive out to Yuhu village to visit the old home of the botanist Dr Joseph Rock and the village. Visit Baisha village. Day 10, Visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge Two and half hours drive to Qiaotou and visit the Tiger Leaping Gorge with the drops of 3900m from hill top to the Yangtze River. The whole gorge is 19km long with three very narrow parts, only 30m between the banks. It’s said someone saw a tiger jumped over the River and so called Tiger Leaping Gorge, Four hours drive to Jianchuan with a visit to the first bend of the Yangtze. Day 11, Day trip in Jiangchaun One hour drive to Shaxi village which was a state post on the old Tea and Horse Trail in the past, here we can still see the old Market Square and the guesthouses for horse keepers, and the village itself is still very interesting to walk around. Half an hour drive to visit Shibao Mountain where you can see thousand year grottos demonstrating the life and religion of Nanzhao Kingdom, visit a Buddhist temple built on a cliff and possible to walk in the Mountain for a couple of hours.  Day 12, Drive to Baoshan Six hours drive to Baoshan via Dali and Mekong River, visit the reclining Buddha Temple, built thousand years ago in a cave, it’s very popular among the people from Burma. They would come here at the Chinese to pray and worship the Buddha here. Day 13, Drive to Tengchong Visit Taibao Park in Baoshan with Buddhist & Taoist Temple, people here have the mixed religions, Buddhist and Taoist temples are just next door to each other, and they stay in harmony. Drive to Tengchong via Salween River with visit to Dai village and temple, and drive through Mt. Gaoligong and carry on to Tengchong. Tengchong is the city of the jade, people here has the tradition of process jade for a long history. Jade is mined in Burma and processed in Tengchong and sold to the Chinese communities all over the world. Day 14, Day trip in Tengchong A couple of hours visit to Heshun village built by returned oversea Chinese, people from this village have the tradition of doing business in southeast Asia countries for last couple of hundred of years. When they get old, they all want to come back to their hometown to spend the rest of the life. So we can easily found most of the people in the village are old people while young people still going business outside. We can also visit a Museum of US air force Flying Tiger from the 2nd World War. And then visit the Hot Spring and bathe there. Day 15, Drive to Ruili. Seven hours drive to Ruili via Yingjiang, rainforest on the way, we have chance to stop on the way to visit some Dai and Anchang villages. Visit Jiele Golden Temple in Ruili, hopeful will see a festival of Dai people in the temple here. Day 16, Day in Ruili Visit the ancient Buddhist temple of Leizhuangxia, this is the oldest temple in the area built thousand years ago and still very popular among the Dai people here, the monks in the temple are not only from Ruili but also from Myanmar. Every man of Dali needs to spend some time to study in the temple as their part of the life; otherwise they will be looked down upon by others. Visit One -Tree –Forest, as the weather is hot and wet here, there are some old big banyan trees grow in the area, sometimes one banyan trees covers thousands of square meters. Visit the colourful frontier market on the Myanmar border. Day 17, Attend the Munaozhongge Festival of the Jingpo People The Festival takes place in a Jingpo village near Ruili, before the festival, Jingpo people from the mountains nearby would come down to the village and set up the tents for the festival duration. On the festival day, they will dress up in their best outfit to sing and dance on the square, every dancing team has a leading dancer and others follow in circles or lines together with music. Thousands of people dance together but in proper orders, come and see it yourself.  Day 18, Fly to Kunming Drive to Mangshi, flight to Kunming and free time. Overnight hotel and tour ends Departure: Feb.1st - Feb. 18th, 2011 Price: US$ 1,820.00  Per person US$ 390.00   Single Supplement The price includes: Flight: Mangshi/Kunming Hotels with breakfasts Sightseeing Programs & entry fees English Speaking Guides Transfers and transportation by private vehicles Group Size: 06 - 12 You may prefer a different date and time frame for this tour, or wish to adjust the itinerary to suit your interests.  We will do all we can to meet your preferences.  Please note that tours of less than six persons may cost more per person, and other expenses may increase as a result of customization of your tour.   In all cases, however, we are committed to providing the best value for your experience.