Day Two. Thursday, 13 November 2014
I have a date with a Miao maiden today. At my age.

She is one of the guides at the ticketing office of the ethnic village right beside Yunnan’s biggest Lake, Dianchi. About 18, or maybe younger, perhaps the same age as my granddaughter..

My understanding relatives have procured her service by paying her Y 150 (roughly $ 25 or B800), as well as Y 90 for each of us.

She tells us she’s a Miao (also written Meo) known as Hmong in Thailand. As a matter of fact, she had learned her Thai at Pechabun where there is still a sizeable Hmong refugee community that had followed their national hero, the late Gen Vang Pao, after Laos was overrun by the Communists in 1975.

“There are few visitors,” says Fa, as she calls herself. “And if there are, most of them can speak Chinese.”

Interestingly, the billboard at the entrance of the villager is written in 5 languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean-and-Thai.

There are 56 ethnic nationalities in China. (Too few, some might say, for such a big and populous country. Because Burma though tiny has 135, according to official count.) And 26 of them are in Yunnan, and at the village we are visiting.

Many of them, particularly, Dai (Shan), Va (Wa), Hani (Akha), Lahu, Jingpo (Kachin), Miao, Yao, and De-ang (Ta-ang or Palaung) are among major inhabitants of Shan State where I hail from.

One item that draws my attention are the imitation gourds‐one about 3 ft tall‐that stand in the middle of the Lahu village. They inform me the bigger the namtao (as gourd is known in Shan) the prosperer the owner is. Well, I have never heard that before. I make a note to ask my great Lahu friend Japhet when I get back to Thailand. (My friend says it is not just big gourds that are taken as good omen, but also other kinds of fruit and crops too, when their sizes are unusually big.)


The visit to the Dai village, in contrast, is a disaster.

Arriving there, we go past a big cage where peacocks, the symbol of Yunnanese Dai, are kept and drop in at the Wat (monastery) where my late friend and colleague Hseng Zuen (1952-2011), during his annual pilgrimage to Yunnan and the Sino-Burmese border, never failed to call on the abbot, who was a Shan from Burma. And I want to duplicate it, if it is only for one time.

However, to my disappointment, there is no one who speaks Shan, Burmese or Thai. Both occupants who are dressed like monks look like Chinese‐at least not Shan anyway. Neither expects my coming and both are obviously acting somewhat embarrassed. So I take my leave and make my exit. The Shan abbot must be on a visit to his homeland after a 3 month rainy season retreat, I say to my friends.


We then head for the village of Yi, a close cousin of the Dai. There I feel more at home because everywhere you look, there is the standard and traditional Shan symbol‐the tiger‐looking back at you.

After more than an hour there, we leave for Kunming. But not before promising Fa I’ll try to write something about her so hoping some Thais visiting Kunming will take notice of it and obtain her services just like we did.

On the way back, I remember Gen Khin Nyunt, President Thein Sein’s predecessor, who, after visiting Yunnan, had also tried to establish an ethnic village for tourists near Rangoon modeling after the one here. But since his fall in 2004, I haven’t heard anybody mentioning the existence of that village. Not anymore.

I spend the rest of the evening watching CCTV America. Its documentary on the Chinese expeditionary force in Burma during World War Ⅱ, when they lost some 130,000 troops, is really worth my time. I won’t mind watching it again.