Photography, text/ tune and sing
Editor, design / Zong Chen
Editor’s note: Four days after coming to Mangbang Village, the travel editor sang and sang discovered the secret contract between the local villagers and the trees. There is a hot spring of 50℃ gushing out from the banyan tree here. Every time of the day, locals wearing ethnic costumes come here to get into the tree hole and enjoy the natural welfare. The tree is the local nourishment and a kind of spiritual sustenance.
A week ago, I could only smell the office desks and chairs. As a travel magazine editor, after working overtime in the city for two consecutive weeks, I decided to hide in a place with trees.
It was a village in Dehong, Yunnan, named Mang Bang, and 40 kilometers away was Myanmar. The Dai, Jingpo, Han and Burmese people live here. The most lively place in the village is not the market, but under a big banyan tree over 200 years old.
Mixed gender bath, the tree is a natural sauna
Li Sanshu (pseudonym) is a friend I met at the dinner table, a well-known middle-aged bachelor in the local area, 40 years old this year. His father died in February, and Li Sanshu returned to his hometown from Fujian for the funeral. More than a month later, the temperature rose from ten degrees to twenty degrees, the watermelon had matured, and the Songkran Festival was approaching. Sanshu Li still did not return to Fujian to work.
One of the reasons for not going back is that the busy farming has intensified. Mangbang Village is a plantation village, and every household has more than 10 acres of land. Corn and watermelon are summer crops. In autumn, the local rice planting began to grow. This is the tribute rice of the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. It is now sold all over the country. It is a good season to sell watermelons. Myanmar watermelons are usually cheaper, but they cannot be imported this year. Domestically produced melons are in demand, and the villagers are busier than in previous years.
Villagers working in melon fields
Local groom
Another reason is hot springs. During the days in his hometown, Li Sanshu usually sweats profusely in the watermelon field in the morning. In the afternoon, he pushes cups and switches at the wedding of his relatives. There is no doubt that the last item is the most comfortable moment of Li Sanshu’s day. There, he could meet acquaintances in half of the village. After a hard day’s hard work, three or five groups of relatives and friends came to the tree cave hot spring to bathe, which is a living habit that Li Sanshu’s ancestors have kept for generations.
The water flows out from under the roots of the banyan tree at the right flow rate. The pool water stained with soap bubbles will “purify” every few minutes, and the people bathing next to it will not be affected much. One meter away, there is another rectangular pool, and the temperature at night is low. When he wanted to be alone, Sanshu Li would also go to the pool to close his eyes and rest his mind.
Villagers bathing in hot springs
Probably because of being soaked in water, the root system of this banyan tree is particularly developed. Some leaks are embedded tightly in the ground, and some are deeply rooted in the ground. They are mysteriously hidden in tree holes. Only fearless people can get a glimpse of the true face.
The tree hole is dark and deep, and can accommodate up to 12 people at the same time. The longest “journey” is to walk more than 20 meters in the hole. Calculated by the distance on the ground, you can cross the road to the farmland. There are also a lot of tree caves. A cave opening leads to more than 20 choices. The locals advise those tourists who have no sense of direction not to explore it lightly.
The locals who are familiar with the road will put their hands on the washbasin, then bury their heads in the water and take a sigh of relief, and then go in with the floating washbasin, but they will not swim too far, and will go from another tree hole in a moment. Popped up. I plucked up the courage to swim in, marveling at the unexpected rewards of nature. The thick roots above the head, the twists and turns, and the clearer spring water in the depths. It suddenly dawned on me: The world in the tree hole is not terror, but awe. Being in it is like being in a natural sauna room to wash away the tiredness of a day of farming.
Villagers use hot spring circulating water shower
Rectangular pool
Different from the restrained and politeness of modern urbanites, the people in Mangbang Village follow the natural and primitive ecology-the tree cave hot spring is a natural place for men and women to bathe together. Although this scene really scared me when I first arrived, for the local villagers, it is natural for the local villagers to rub their backs with each other, and for women to use a long cylindrical cloth as a simple cover to change their clothes in full view. It’s everyday.
Feed your stomach and spirit, the tree is nourishment
Village and town buses drove all the way from Zhefang Town to Mangbang Village, just like being in a subtropical botanical garden. There are many tropical trees on the border between China and Myanmar, and trees are an indispensable natural resource in people’s lives. The leaves of the banana tree can wrap various ingredients to make a variety of sweet, salty, spicy and sour snacks. The latex secreted by the rubber tree can be used to make high-end furniture, fiberboard, plywood, paper pulp, etc., supporting part of the industry here. In addition, there are coconut trees, mango trees, papaya trees, banana trees and other tropical fruits that are the main match for summer desserts.
The car is made of iron knife wood, the larger one can be used for furniture carving
Baked Enoki Mushrooms with Banana Leaf
People who have lived here for generations are grateful for the rich resources that trees bring to them, and therefore extend their spiritual worship and religious beliefs towards trees. “A peacock flew on the dragon tree”, this is the chant of the Dai song “A Beautiful Place”. In fact, in the many artistic works of the Dai people, such as ballads, dances, and poems, trees are regarded as sacred symbols. Especially the luxuriant, older, old trees are worshipped as sacred trees.
At the other end of the village, the newlyweds will take wedding photos under a big banyan tree to pray for happiness from the tree god. The other two big banyan trees next to the hot spring are used for offering sacrifices to the villagers.
As for the big banyan tree in the hot spring, there are two amulets of Southern Buddhism hung by the operator in 2006. Qu Wu, who was nearly 60 years old, often went to worship the tree god. He runs a Dai bamboo-style small shop next to the hot spring. Qu Wu’s father was an educated youth of the Han nationality who came from Baoshan, 200 kilometers away. This is also the reason why most Han people in Dehong come here. Before that, the Dai and Jingpo ethnic groups accounted for the majority. Qu Wu went out and wandered when he was young, and when he was old, he chose to return to Mangbang Village to “guard the hot springs here.” Qu Wu’s son was born in 1992, and his life trajectory overlapped with his father several times. “Before, I never stayed at home, but now I don’t want to go out with children.” He felt that this kind of life development is the rule of nature and the arrangement of fate.
Qu Wu sat on the steps down to the hot spring,
Behind is the straw house built by the contracting villagers
The fruit of the banyan at the entrance of the village
Banana tree
Papaya tree in front of the villager’s house
The peasant woman who sells fruit in the town
The Jingpo aunt, who is responsible for cleaning and collecting sanitation fees in the hot springs, is a villager from a nearby village. She also has experience of working in big cities. In the past, in order to make more money, she ran away again and again, and finally chose to return to the hot spring as a companion.
They also said it’s not good to ask about the reason, but whether it’s spiritual belief, or that it’s far from the hustle and bustle and close to the psychological healing given by nature. In short, what keeps them is the way of life represented by the tree cave hot springs. Spiritual baptism.
In self-sufficient villages, there are also worries of the times
“Old irons give me a thumbs up, and I will take you to the tree hole in a while.” Kuaishou anchor Pang Ge (pseudonym) from Jiangxi earned 1,400 yuan a morning by introducing Shudong Hot Spring to people. Someone suggested that if you zoom in to take photos of those women who are exposed to clothing, give a big gift to the fat guy. Fat brother refused with a joke: “It’s all old moms, what’s there to see”.
Fat brother’s live broadcast was too loud, and was disgusted by a local old mother. Fortunately, the flow of Kuaishou Douyin has not spread here. For the local villagers, such disturbances are still tolerable. However, the pace of modernization and commercialization has never stopped, and the villagers always have hidden worries.
A small shop next to the hot spring, mainly dealing in snacks and toiletries
The operator is a grandmother of the De’ang ethnic group, and there are very few people in the local area.
Nowadays, the dress and living habits are close to the assimilation of the Dai people
Decades ago, three local villagers contracted the hot springs and operated them independently. They helped to improve some of the bathing conditions. There was no one to manage before, and the sanitary conditions of the hot springs are indeed worrying. For example, the original villagers took the cattle from the farmland to bathe here, and the rectangular pool was full of silt. There is always mud falling in the pond under the tree hole. After pebbles are placed around the pond, the spring water remains clear all the year round.
In recent years, real estate developers from other places have taken a fancy to this piece of cake and want to buy out the ownership here, but they have been collectively boycotted by the local villagers. But according to Li Jiuchang, the nephew of the contracting villager, the land was sold to others in 2019 and the three contractors have already signed the contract. This time the resistance of the villagers was not as fierce as usual. Because the blueprint for commercialization is based on the development of tourism in Lijiang, it not only delimits the hot springs, but also covers 300 acres of land nearby, and the land occupied is promised to give villagers compensation. After a long negotiation, each household finally signed the contract. At that time, tickets will rise, and the tranquility that belongs to them will also be destroyed. But fortunately, the current developer’s funding chain is broken, and this land has not been developed for a long time. However, the villagers are still worried that the future investment promotion will come in droves. “Within five years, this place will be greatly changed,” Li Jiuchang predicted.
Toll office, three yuan tickets, called “Sanitation Fees”
As the times change, other changes in Shudong Hot Spring are quietly taking place. The 22-year-old Li Jiuchang looks exactly like a Burmese. When he was young, he went to Shandong with his stepfather and returned to his hometown of Mangbang at the age of 14. It was 2013, and he still remembered that when he first came to Shudong Hot Spring, “there were so many people like going to the market”. Similar scenes are rarely seen now. The reason may be the loss of village population and the popularization of modern water heaters.
Li Jiuchang and Uncle
An uncle of the Dai nationality who lives in the village next door, who comes every two days, also feels that the current Shudong Hot Spring is not as good as before. When he was young, whenever he had a cold or a fever, his parents would take him to the hot spring bath. “Come here for a soak, it’s more useful than an injection and medicine.” What the uncle said is true. The medical interpretation of the so-called “hot spring therapy” is natural sulfur water, the minerals in it can stimulate the immune system, and most of the chemical substances remain on the skin after bathing, which can also treat some skin diseases. But in terms of feeling, the uncle still feels that he can no longer find the “freshness” of the past. He guessed that it might be the cause of the water quality. “I watched TV and said that climate warming may have something to do with this.”
Tree used for rituals beside the hot spring
Village street
But why did he feel this way, the uncle does not know, but he no longer associates the improvement of his physical condition with the Shudong Hot Spring. As for the appearance of the hot springs when he was a child, he gradually blurred in his mind. He wanted to recall those scenes several times, but he said some fragments that were difficult to put together.
“These pasts are like a moment,” he finally said helplessly. It seems that those who have been connected to the hot springs for a lifetime are also disappearing day by day, and the first memories of the hot springs are also erased from the world.
Operations Editor / Hu Yating
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