2019-02-22Pianma Town, Western Yunnan
Pianma Town in Western Yunnan
Starting from the Nujiang Grand Canyon in Western Yunnan, along the winding winding mountain road of Gaoligong Mountain, the altitude rises and the temperature drops sharply. After passing Luzhang Town, Lushui County, and then heading northwest for about 30 kilometers, there was dense fog, cold wind and rain. In the thick fog, a majestic pass looms - "Fengxue Yakou" stands proudly. Standing in the wind and snow, the weather changes rapidly, often making people feel confused. In the past, people who took the trouble to cross Yakou had only one destination in mind - Pianma Town.
The fog in Gaoligong Mountain has shrouded Pianma all year round, making the town like an isolated island floating on the clouds. Pianma borders Myanmar on three sides and is only 200 kilometers away from Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State in Myanmar. Therefore, border trade has always been prosperous. As an important transportation thoroughfare for commercial exchanges, it has the Pianma Port, the only provincial port open to the outside world in Nujiang Prefecture, Yunnan Province. It is one of the important land routes open to Southeast Asia and South Asia in southwest my country.
Mutual trade in border towns "Pianma has been in Wurenshan since ancient times"
The word "Pianma" comes from the Jingpo language, which means "a place where wood is accumulated". Due to the extremely rich forest resources in Pianma, the local area is known as the "Pianma Infinite Mountain since ancient times" and is especially famous for the production of precious fir boards. "Wood is to Pianma what blood is to the human body, and air is to life." Although Pianma is an ordinary town in the southwest border, it is a large timber distribution center. People used wood to trade, build houses, make furniture, and heat their homes, but sometimes the best wood was used to level the foundations of homes, all the way from the valley floor to the roadside. No wonder there is such a saying: the most valuable thing and the least valuable thing in Pianma are wood.
Pianma’s border trade has a long history, taking shape as early as 1648. At that time, local mountain people cut down bald fir, an ancient tree species with excellent straight wood and gorgeous texture, and made it into fir boards or coffin boards.
Gaoligong Mountain is the westernmost part of the Hengduan Mountains. The mountain range connects the Tibetan Plateau to the north and the Indo-China Peninsula to the south. The mountains are shrouded in clouds and mist all year round, with a wide variety of animals and plants. They are known as the "World Species Gene Bank" and "World Museum of Nature". Pianma is located in the hinterland of Nujiang Grand Canyon and Gaoligong Nature Reserve. Then walk for five or six days, cross the Gaoligong Mountain Pass, and transport it to Luzhang, Liuku and other places in the Nujiang River Basin for sale. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, in order to further develop the timber resources in Pianma, the chieftains in the Nujiang area organized migrant workers to renovate the ancient post road from Liuku to Pianma, and sent people to Pianma to collect fir tax and land tax. Since 1910, mainland businessmen have arrived one after another, setting up plate purchase stations in Pianma, buying them at low prices, hiring porters, and transporting them to Liuku, Tengchong, Baoshan, and Dali for sale at high prices. In January 1911, the British army illegally occupied the Pianma area, which temporarily interrupted Shanban's operations. In May 1942, during the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese invaded Pianma from Burma, and the old-era Shanban operation in this area ended.
However, since Pianma is located on the important channel from the Enmeikai River Basin to the outside world, there was still a certain amount of border trade there after 1949. In 1991, Pianma was designated as a provincial-level second-class open port by Yunnan Province. At the same time, Myanmar also began to sell local natural resources—primitive forests and mineral resources—to Chinese businessmen, and Pianma’s economy immediately prospered.
Since then, the timber trade has gradually formed an industrial chain. At the top of this chain are bosses from all over China. They spend hundreds of thousands or even millions to buy the mining rights of virgin forests in Myanmar - what the locals call "buying mountains", and then recruit loggers from Pianma. Workers enter Myanmar to mine. Every day, cartloads of logs are transported from Myanmar to Pianma. Some of them are transferred directly from Pianma to the mainland, while the other part enters various processing plants in Pianma and is processed into boards, square lumber, synthetic boards, etc.
As Pianma Shanban gradually became famous, the local transportation industry also developed and expanded, and the resulting auto repair shops sprung up along the highway, which was very spectacular. In fact, these so-called repair shops are just workshops at best, but they dare to take on almost any job - in their own words: "They can even rebuild a heavy-duty truck for you using used car parts." Even so, business is still good.
The end of the industrial chain is the transportation, catering and hotel industries that provide services to the more than 30,000 floating population in Pianma. When coming to Pianma, newcomers will feel disorganized, somewhat similar to the remote American western towns in the movies back then, as if covered with a mysterious veil. And when you walk into the social life of Pianma, you will find that under the maintenance of such an economic chain, everything is so orderly. A boss who has been in the local timber business for many years once described the prosperity of Pianma in the mid-to-late 1990s: When business was at its busiest, the bank's daily import and export volume reached 27 million yuan, and it was known as "Pianma's Little Hong Kong". The accuracy of this number cannot be verified, but today when walking on the streets of Pianma, wood can still be seen everywhere, with thick logs piled on the roadside.
From the anti-British struggle to the Camelback crash, witness the war years in Gaoligong Mountain
Although Pianma is located in a remote location, it has experienced the war years when the Chinese people resisted foreign humiliation. On January 4, 1911, more than 2,000 British troops invaded Burma and caused the "Pianma Incident".
They invaded Pianma, built fortifications at Fengxueyakou, and set up a private "Qing national border" in an attempt to separate Pianma and its surrounding Gulang and Gangfang from the territory of our country.
Faced with the British invasion, the local ethnic minority people rose up to resist. They were headed by Lemo Duopa, a Lisu tribesman. They wore coir raincoats and were armed with crossbows, poison swords, long knives, etc., forming "coir raincoat soldiers" and "crossbow bow teams". Together with the armed chieftains from the Nujiang River, the troops were divided into three groups. They ambush the invaders elusively in the primeval forest. They were familiar with the local environment, laid out an ambush circle in advance, led the enemy into the dense forest, and shot them with crossbow arrows from all directions. On the front lines of resistance in Pianma, Gangfang and Fengxueyakou, people had to fight the British troops head-on, resulting in heavy casualties. At this time, the domestic people angrily denounced the invaders' actions, eventually forcing the British army to withdraw some soldiers. To commemorate this event, in 1986, Pianma erected the "Pianma People's Anti-British Victory Monument" and established the "Pianma People's Anti-British Memorial Hall".
Another past incident that happened in Pianma is related to the Hump Route. In 1996, people discovered a World War II hump crash C-53 in the primeval forest of Pianma, which caused a sensation. According to historical records, on the morning of March 11, 1943, the C-53 transport plane encountered strong airflow while flying through Fengxueyakou, and unfortunately crashed into the vast forest of Changtail Mountain. The crew members were American pilot Jimmy Fox and Chinese pilot Tan Xuan and Wang Guoliang are both missing. One day in June 1996, a Burmese hunter accidentally discovered the wreckage of a transport plane while hunting in an uninhabited virgin forest. Later, it was officially confirmed that the plane crashed 137 meters (on the Chinese side) at the border post No. 98-10 on the China-Myanmar border. This is the wreckage of the C-53 transport aircraft that has been missing for 53 years.
As it is located on the border, the situation and environment are extremely complex. In order to prevent the wreckage of the plane from being destroyed, the Lushui County Government organized military and civilian guards to guard it day and night for 540 days. In Pianma, we met Li Jianquan, who was involved in moving the plane wreckage at the time. According to his recollection, before the plan for moving the plane wreckage was finalized, Qu Tiancheng, a young man from the Nu ethnic group, and a middle-aged man of about 40 years old were stationed in the mountains to guard it. In the winter of 1998, the snow seemed to be heavier than in previous years. Before the heavy snow closed the mountain, a middle-aged man went down the mountain to buy food. When he returned, the road had been blocked by the heavy snow, making it impossible to enter the mountain. Qu Tiancheng, who was short of food and clothing, stayed beside the wreckage of the plane for more than two months before he died of hunger and cold. He was only 24 years old. This age is also the age of Captain Jimmie Foxx when he crashed.
Li Jianquan said: "At that time, the Communist Party of Pianma sent more than 80 people up the mountain to transport the wreckage of the plane. In order to prevent it from being damaged, the transport team had to cut down the trees along the way, pave the road with trees, and then Using two wooden bases as "rollers", everyone pulled and lifted them, and transported them step by step out of the mountain. It was very difficult." In order to better protect the C-53 crash wreckage and commemorate this incident, in November 2005, , the "Pianma Hump Route Memorial Hall", the only exhibition hall in China that displays precious cultural relics of the Humpback crash wreckage, was completed, and the repair work of the crash was also completed at the same time.
Today, the "AVIC C-53 Crash Site Memorial Marker" is erected at the site of the C-53 crash. It is 53 centimeters high and represents the 53 years since the C-53 aircraft rested on the top of Gaoligong Mountain. It is 46 centimeters wide and represents the 460,000 people of all ethnic groups in Nujiang Prefecture. It commemorates the Chinese and American pilots who died heroically on the Hump Route.
The custom of "Munao Zongge" and the New Rice Festival of the Chashan people of the Jingpo branch
Pianma is a township inhabited by many ethnic groups, with Jingpo, Lisu, and There are 8 main ethnic groups including Han and Bai. The Chashan people here are the ancient indigenous inhabitants of Pianma and belong to a branch of the Jingpo ethnic group. They have their own national language and unique customs and habits. They have no written language and do not use Jingpo script. There is no natural barrier between Pian Ma and Myanmar. It can be said that the villages face each other and the sounds of chickens and dogs are heard. The two sides have long-term trade with each other and live in friendship. Historically, cross-border intermarriage has never stopped among border residents. It is understood that 107 of the 557 rural households in Pianma Town are married to foreign countries from China and Myanmar. Although they come from two different countries, the couple are both from Chashan, speak the same language, and have the same living habits.
Chashan people have a special set of rituals when building a house and entering a new house. Whenever someone builds a house in the village, the whole village will take the initiative to help. When building a house, we usually break ground in the early morning, finish the roof trusses in the morning, build the roof at noon, and decorate in the afternoon. By evening, a new house is completed. After the new house was completed, the owner took out a gunpowder gun and fired it into the sky. When people in the village heard the sound of the gun, they came to congratulate. The owner then led the whole family to line up in front of the new house to greet the guests who were slowly arriving. The male owner used grass smoke to salute. Guests, the hostess uses a golden bamboo tube to toast to the guests. The singers in the village, with foot drums on their backs and gongs in their hands, performed ancient dances. The hunters lined up on the side of the new house, held their gunpowder guns high and fired into the sky. After that, the guests walked into the new house accompanied by the host and sat around the firepit, singing and dancing until late at night.
Even more exciting than building a new house is the Munao Zongge Festival, the most grand traditional festival of the Jingpo people. "Munao" is a Jingpo language, and "Zongge" is a Zaiwa language. "Munao Zongge" means "let's dance together." Every year around the 15th day of the first lunar month, men, women, and children from every village of the Jingpo ethnic group, dressed in colorful national costumes, gather in groups and happily gather at the singing venue, beating gongs and drums.
They formed two large dance teams, with the number of people ranging from thousands to more than ten thousand. Therefore, "Munao Zongge" is also called "Dance of Ten Thousand People".
On the day of the festival, people slowly walked into the dance floor facing the east to the sound of drums and ancient songs. The men are holding long knives, with the blade facing left and the knife facing forward, but the knife cannot be shaken; the women are holding branches, flowers, or fans and fanning them left and right. The dancers are completely immersed in a kind of intoxication and forgetfulness, and they can't help but sing "Oh" ~Oh, oh, oh, oh~" and other cheers. The dance route of "Munao Zongge" follows a specific pattern. During the dance, depending on the width of the venue, it sometimes intersperses and sometimes surrounds, advancing and retreating in an orderly and uniform manner, and there must be no breakup or chaos in the team. The melody of "Munao Zongge" is sonorous and powerful, with a clear beat. Some people say: "When I hear the drumbeats and music of Munao Zongge, I feel so itchy that I feel like scratching the floor even if I don't jump on it."
And every year October 15th of the lunar calendar is the New Rice Festival for the people of Chashan in Pianma. After the grain is harvested every autumn and arrives home, the new grain cannot be officially enjoyed until after the New Rice Festival. On the day of the festival, every household in Dashan kills pigs and sheep, cooks new rice, puts out wine and rice, and offers sacrifices to gods, ancestors and iron tripods (utensils used for cooking, simmering food and making tea on the fire pit. When offering sacrifices, Gunpowder guns are fired outside the house to celebrate. For five or six days, relatives and friends take turns to treat guests to drinks, taste new rice, and share the fruits of a year's labor. During the banquet, the host and guest exchange production techniques with each other. Tell us about the traditional customs of this nation. If there is a household with a bad harvest, during the New Rice Festival, relatives and friends will carry 10 to 15 kilograms of new rice or other grains as gifts to them to share the warmth and happiness of the festival.