Nanzhao Kingdom:

During Tang dynsty and Song dynasty, Yunnan was not part of their territory. However, it was not a land without king. The birth of Nanzhao kingdom should to some extent owe the credit to Tang court.  During Tang dynasty, From the Sui to the early Tang Dynasty, there were mang tribes living around the Erhai Lake region, which were existing in parallel.   There were six most powerful ones. In the early Tang Dynasty, this region became a strategic area, because it was caught in the middle of Tang power and Tubo power, the relationship between them were highly strained. In order to pin dowm/contain the Tubo power, Tang court decided to foster a dominator over the chaotic area. The tribe iin the south county of Weishan called Mengshe, also called South tribe won the favor of Tang.  With the help of Tang court as well as its facorable geological location, Nanzhao defeated the other five tribes and unifed the Lake Erhai region.

The establishment of Nanzhao regime was actually a strategy employed by the Tang Court to draw over Nanzhao kingdom to its side so as to contain Tupo regime. However, being only a tributary was never Nanzhao's intention, what they truly wanted was an independent and powerful kingdom. When Nanzhao kingdom was attempting to expand its territory by eradicating the powerful Cuan family and take over its  land, Tang court smelt its ambition. As a result, the central court established a resident office in Yaoan county to control their military movement. Before, conflicts became too intense to be ignored and wars broke out between Tang and Nanzhao.

As a small kingdom, Nanzhao was to weak to counter Tang, so they allied with Tang's rival Tubo power from Tibetan Plateau. Tang court suffered a crushing defeat for twice. Under such circumstance, Tang court found it a wiser solution to draw Nanzhao over back to its side. The rebuilt alliance between Tang court and Nanzhao greatly weakened Tubo's power. After the Tang court and Nanzhao regime buried the hatchet, Tang court offered the chance for Nanzhao people to study for free in Chengdu, which greatly boosted the cultural development in Yunnan. The Nanzhao kingdom was perished due the usurpation by powerful officers.

The Nanzhao Kingdom lasted for 253 years, and was ruled by 13 kings, almost the similar life span to the Tang Dynasty in Chinese history. The capital of Nanzhao Kingdom was in the nowadays Dali Ancient Town.

Dali Kingdom:

After the perish of Nanzhao kingdom, Dali kingdom was not established immediately. Instead, three short-lived regimes appeared one after another. Their life were as short as 36 years. After 36 years of unrest and turmoil, Dali kingdom was eventually established by Duan Siping who ended the brief turmoil. 

The Dali kingdom coexisted with Song dynasty and had pretty much similar life span. Unlike the harmonious relationship between Tang court and Nanzhao regime, the Song court was reluctant to accept Dali kingdom as its tributary. Partly because Song court was not as powerful as Tang court and they perceived Dali kingdom as potential threat. Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty even drew a line over the Dadu 大渡River, saying that the area beyond the line did not belong to my territory. Thus, excluding Dali Kingdom. After years of request, Song dynasty finally accepted Dali kingdom as its vassal state. Even so, their vigilance towards Dali kingdom did not decrease. When Dali kingdom  was paying tribute to Song court, they only accepted horses but turned down elephants. Because elephants stand for subordination to Song.

The Dali kingdom lasted for 315 years with 22 successive kings., 9 of them abdicated the throne and became monks in CHongsheng temple. Such phenomenon is absolutely one of its kind, from which we can discern the prevalence of Buddhism back then. It's capital was also in Dali.

YANG LIPING

Bai people is never short of famous celebrities. The most remarkable and well-known Bai woman is sure to be Yang Liping. Unlike singers and film stars who make their appearance on TV frequently, Yang only shows up on grand occassions such as The Spring Festival Gala Evening. However, her name is known by all chinese people. If you ask a CHinese people about Yang Liping, their first response is very much likely to be "oh, the peacock princess". This is because Yang was first known by people in her dance Peacock Princess. Since peacock dance is a famous Dai dancing, therefore, most people mistake her as Dai. But she is actually a authentic Bai woman from Dali.

Today's Yang has accomplished both success and fame. However, she was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Yang was born in a poor and ordianry peasant family. Her father abandoned them during the culture revolution due to the unbearable pressure. As a result, the heavy burden of raising up her little brother and sister fell on her and her mother. Yang was a sensible child and also a capable helper to her mother. She was adept at rice transplanting, wheat harvesting, poultry feeding as well as firewood cutting. She was competent for all kinds of housework.

Later, her family moved to Xishuangbanna. One day, the chairman of Xishuangbanna Song and Dance Troupe noticed her when she was doing radio exercise on the playground. Since then, she became one of them.

Yang Liping, a celebrated dancer-choreographer of Bai ethnicity, has made it her mission to preserve things that seem out of date and has founded a school to that end. Chen Nan reports in Beijing.

Dancer and choreographer Yang Liping, from the Bai ethnic group, made a fashion statement at a Ferrari auto show in Yunnan province's capital Kunming. Instead of a regular, or designer purse, she was seen carrying a bamboo basket, an accessory favored by Bai women.Once, by chance, she was chosen to be the leading role in a stage show called Peacock Princess. Her excellent performance won great populartion for her and seized the opportunity to join Central Nationalities Song and Dance Ensemble in BJ for her. Her dream of going to BJ was eventually realized. However, the training in BJ was quite different from what expected. As a folk dancer, Yang believed that folk dancers should follow the rhythm of the nature, in other words, their dance movements should be natural and flexible. However, the training she received was more of ballet, which is a fixed pattern of movements. Yang refused to participate in such training because she believe such training would deprive her of the natural instincts in her and made her body frigid. As a result, Yang was isolated by both classmates and teachers. However, she confined herself in her dorm during the day, either sleeping or watching myriads of dancing video types to absord the essence of other dancers, in the nights, she came to the empty dancing classroom to practice.

In the national Dancing Competition, the underdog amazed the entire hall with her dancing Spirit of Peacock. She took on everything including choreography, costume making, music and all the others. She even sold her precious watch in order to pay for the costume. Siince then, she was invited to perform in the Spring Festival Gala Party for several years in a roll.

However, Yang has more in mind. She wanted to put on a show presenting the diversified dancing and singing of ethnic groups in YN. She wanted to pass along the essence of folk dancing. As a local born and bred, Yang knows about YN more than anyone else and decided to search for talented dancers from different ethnic groups in remote villages. Some young men were farming in the field before they were chosen. The result was satisfying, she had chosen 60 dancers and brought to KM. It might be hard to believe but most of them had never been to big city like KM before, let alone formal training.

The creation of the show was not smooth. They came across all kinds of obstables, such as funding shortfall, epidemic SARS which forbide gathering, doubt about the popularity of the show by the goverment and so on. She sold out her house in Dali, turn to friends for funding, and even broke her bottomline of not shooting advertisement. The entire troupe persevered in pracitcing despite the poor living condition.

In 2003, the show eventually made their debut and had won great popularity. It's called Dynamic YN. Every day, thousands of audience rush to YN Art Theater to watch the show. It presents the anthentic and genuine folk dance of various ingenous ethinic groups in YN.

Now, Yang has retired from the performance. As a 54-year-old woman, she remained beautiful and enegertic. People are curious about how she keep herself in such perfect shape. SHe exposed her strict diet, morning:one bottle of salt water, three cups of Puer tea, lunch: two pieces of beef,  dinner: two apples at night and one piece of beef.

Now she remained single but she did have a happy marriage with a Taiwan businessman. However, her marriage ended when she made to make the choice between the baby and her career. The doctor told her that she need more fat to sustain the pregnancy, however, this contradicts with her dancing career.

Yang, 54, wore a tight blue top and loose red pants, made from a quilt cover. Her waist-length hair was tied up in a ponytail.

Yang says she never consciously dresses up like a fashionista, whatever the occasion. She is amused when people call her a fashion icon.

"I just love everything from the village where I come from. Some people might say that my preference for rural things, including clothes and living habits, are very tu (out of date). But in my eyes, they are treasures," she says.

The show, Dynamic Yunnan, which has been performed more than 3,000 times around the world, turned Yang into an iconic figure of Yunnan province and an internationally acclaimed dancer-choreographer. Experts say Yang has not only developed a highly personal style, but has played a significant role in popularizing Yunnan's folk dances as well.

Her niece, Cai Qi, is regarded as her successor. The slender girl, who wears her hair long, much like Yang, has been dancing with her mentor since she learned to walk.

Cai Qi, who has danced in Dynamic Yunnan and Mysterious Tibet, will play major roles in Peacock.

Among the 18 oddities about Yunnan, there is one oddity which goes that "trains run to other countries but not in the country". Well, this is obviously no longer true, but the railway that gave rise to this oddity is still in existence. That is the railway we can see now, it's called Yunnan-Vietnam Railway or Sino-Vienamese Railway.  On the way to Stone Forest, you can see two railways lying beside the express road, the one relatively narrower is the one we are talking about. Since the part in Vietnam was constructed first with the width of one meter, the part in Yunnan used the same standard in order to connect them perfectly. Therefore, it got the name meter-gage railway, which means it is one meter in width. Speaking of this railway, we have to mention the history behind it.

Historical Background of the Railway

In the early 20th century, France succeeded colonizing Vietnam and switched their target to China. The corrupted and incompetent Qing Court signed an agreement with France that if China consider building railways, France should take charge." As a result, the very first international railway in China, namely, this Sino-Vietnamese Railway was in the charge of France.

Why were French people so obesessed with the construction of the railway? 

• To begin with, Yunnan was rich in mineral resources. The railway can make it easier for them loot transport to its colony vietnam. In order to maximize their interest, they even deliberately made detours through the mineral-rich areas.
• Yunnan is the back door of China, which, at that time, the most attractive source of raw materials and market for their commodities.
• The third reason is that Yunnan is close neighbor to rich Sichuan Province.
• The last reason is because of the mild climate here. They were hoping to turn it into a backyard garden for its people.

The Importance of the Sino-Vietnam Railway

Despite the fact that this railway was constructed against our will, we have to admit that we did benefit from it in certain way. 

Since Yunnan is a mountainous province, transportation was really inconvenient, which was accomplished mostly by human and animals. Thanks to this railway, Yunnan was greatly opened and even became the window to the southwest.

In 1910, the very first hydropower station Shi Long Ba Hydropower station was built in Kunming, the engine of which was transported here by this railway.

The national protection movement also benefited from it.

During the anti-Japanese war, the railway brought a large number of intellectuals to Yunnan. With the establishment of the Southwest Associated Univeristy, Yunnan was turned into one of the most influencial culture centers in China.

Nowadays, oriental planes /platan everywhere was introduced by French people at that time.

Someone conducted a comparison between the pace of life of Kunming people to that of the Shanghai people,  and they found that Kunming people was generally one hour and a half slower.