Yongde County Culture

Hometown of Mango’ Cultural Tourism Festival”永德芒果节

Date: 14-16 July
Place: Yongde county seat, Lincang Municipality

It is the annual event of Yongde County in the west of Yunnan Province. Themed mango, the festival includes a series of activities such as folk cultural performances, mango carnival, and trade fair, and so on.

Sangzhaoli Festival of the Limi Ethnic People in Yongde County,Lincang

 Limi is a branch of the Yi Minority living in the remote mountainous areas of Yongde County of Lincang Municipality. Each lunar February 15 sees the Limi People head to Qingren Valley for bath and romance, and offer gifts to each other. It’s locally believed that any romance and then marriage on this day will lead to eternal love and domestic harmony. 

Subconsciously, the Limi People believe that marriage is based on loyalty and purity though husband and wife are not totally confined to each other because both of them have set aside space for either emotion or freedom. Sangzhaoli Festival is just the “outlet” for this kind of space; meeting ex-girl/boy friend is not deemed “disloyalty” by both husband and wife. However, life has to go back to normal after Sangzhaoli Festival is over.      

Sangzhaoli Festival has served as a platform and window to showcase the culture of the Mili People. 

“New Rice Festival”

The Wa nationality is a farming nationality. Their productive forces were low in the past and their capacity of resisting natural disasters was comparatively weak. So many sacrifice offering activities on respecting gods and praying for good luck were formed around agricultural product. Some activities became established practice gradually and developed into festivals. The “New Rice Festival” is one of them.”New Rice Festival” is the day when paddy is mature and people celebrate happily good harvest and taste new rice. Because of different climate, the maturity time of grain in different places is different, so the time to celebrate the festival is not unified among villages or even every household. But it was often held in the seventh or eighth lunar month (the ninth or tenth month in Wa calendar) in the past. The date is determined according to the maturity situation of grain or the day, which has the same name with any one of the 12 symbolic animals when the parents or grandparents died. The intention is to invite ghosts of ancestors to return back, taste new rice together with family members, and enjoy happiness together. They also ask the ancestors’ souls in heaven to protect their descendants and promise happy family, good weather for the crops and good harvest. In order that Wa compatriots in different places could celebrate the “New Rice Festival” together, in 1991, the Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County and Ximeng Wa Autonomous County decided together that the “New Rice Festival” is fixed on the 14th of the eighth lunar month for Was.

Dai Culture 

The Dais have a rich and colorful culture. They have their own calendar, which started in 638AD. There are books in Dai script for calculating solar and lunar eclipses. Dai historical documents carry a rich variety of literary works covering poetry, legends, stories, fables and children’s tales. They love singing and dancing, accompanied by their native musical instruments.

Dai festivals, closely related to religious activities, included the Door-Closing Festival in mid-June by the lunar calendar, the Door-Opening Festival in mid-September, and the Water-Splashing Festival in spring. The Door-Closing Festival starts three months of intensive religious activities, marking the beginning of normal life. The Water-Splashing Festival, still held every year, is the most important festival, during which the Dais splash water on one another, and hold dragon-boat races in the hope of chasing away all the illnesses and bad fortune of the past year and bringing about good weather and bumper harvests.