Bai
80% of the 1,858,063 Bai people live in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province in southwest China. The rest of the scattered in both sides of the Nujiang River Lancang River, Xichang in the Sichuan province, Bijie in Guizhou province,and Sangshi in Hunan province.
Dali is famous for the three pagodas at Chongsheng Temple as well as their distinct architecture.
The Bai call themselves Baizi, Baini, Baihuo. They have 60 other names including what the Han call them Minjia (Bai in Dali). The Bai language belongs to the Tibetan-Myanmese group of the Chinese-Tibetan language family. The Bai is the most assimilated ethnic groups in China and therefore borrow 60% of their language from the Chinese language. In the Tang and Song Dynasty, the Bai created the ancient language Bowen. The word-formation is similar to the Japanese language. The language was reformed into Latin characters in 1957 and was revised in 1993.
The Bai like to drink tea and has a customary tea of three courses. The first tea is strong tea, the second tea is sweet, and the third is minty. The Bai like to eat fish from that they usually cook in a sand-boiler.
The Bai people believe in many different religions. Some of them believe in Daoism and Christianity. Most people believe in Buddhism and Benzhu Wish. Benzhu Wish is a village god that is considered to be the guardian of the village.
The Bai favor wearing white. The men wear white jacket, black collar coat and dark loose shorts. The women wear white dress, sleeveless jacket of red, blue or black color, embroidered belt, loose trousers, embroidered shoes of white cloth, and jewelry made of gold or silver. The unmarried women wear a signle pigtail on the top of the head, while the married women roll their hair. Their headwear and costume reflect the Bai symbols, the snow, the moon, the flower, and the wind.
The modern Bai are also famous for their tie dyes and use them for different purposes from wall hangings, to table decorations to clothing.
The Bai architecture is characterized by three houses forming a U and a fourth wall as a screen. The middle has a courtyard. The houses are usually brick and wood, and the main room is in the middle (opposite the screen wall). The screen wall is built with brick and stone. The house is painted in white with black tile paintings depicting animals and other natural images. The detailing usually is made of clay sculpture, woodcarving, colored drawing, stone incription, marble screend and dark brink. It produces a very striking and elegant effect.
Dali is also well known for it's marble and the name for marble is actually Dali marble in Chinese and does get use in modern architecture by the Bai.
Copyrighted 2006. Amihan Makayan. Images, videos, and audio maybe used by permission only.