Yunnan Destinations
The Naxi are a proud, if small, ethnic group and have held on to many of their traditions, despite the encroachment of modern life. One such tradition is what many would consider the reversal of typical gender roles. Women hold the purse strings of the household, and do much of the work in the market, while their menfolk stay home to raise the children, tend their gardens and make music.
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When wars in its northern territories denied the 12th century Song Dynasty of it usual horse breeding grounds, it was to Yunnan that the Emperor looked. Animals prized for their size and endurance had been bred in the province for centuries, and soon the Kingdom of Dali was trading 1,500 horses a year to the Song.
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The Stone Forest is a creation of prehistory. In the Permian period - roughly 270 million years ago - the earth flexed its muscles, caused an ocean to drain and the limestone seabed to rise up. The wash of the receding waters, wind and acidic rains, all lent to the erosion of the limestone until only tall narrow karsts remained dotting the otherwise barren landscape.
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For many hundreds of years, the Chinese considered the province of Yunnan a backward and wild place - cut off from the rest of the country by harsh mountains. Yet, this did not stop them from attempting an invasion in 339AD. Sent by a Yangzi Valley prince, the campaign was ten years in the making, by which point the prince's enemies on the other side of the mountain passes had blocked his army from returning.
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The local name for this prefecture, 750km south west of Kunming, is "Sip song pan na," which is Thai for "Twelve thousand rice fields." In fact, there are many connections between this area of southern China and its Lao and Thai neighbours. More than 50% of Xishuangbanna's 650,000 population are ethnic Dai - close cousins to the Thai people to the south - while only 25% are Han Chinese.
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