In older days (like over 1,000 years ago), the Han Chinese bought stuff with money, and Tibetans bartered. The Tibetans wanted Han merchandises like tea and silk. The Hans could use some Tibetan fur and horses, but apparently the two sides couldn’t bridge their different trading styles, according to our bragging Naxi driver. “Naxi people mastered both ways of doing businesses.”
Lijiang, the ancient Naxi city, received traders from as far as Nepal and India in the tea-horse days.
The Naxi people, an ethnic group with a population of 300,000, lives in the mountainous region in Southwest China where three provinces—Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet—meet. According to China’s Baidu Encyclopedia , it’s a bad idea to whistle in a Naxi house. They think whistling is summoning the ghosts. According to our driver, a slimly-built young guy, Naxi people love those with full statures, “so we call our girls ‘fat golden sisters (pang jin mei)’ and the guys ‘fat golden brothers (pang jin ge)’.” We called him pang jin ge. He giggled.
In his grey van, our pang jin ge was taking us to a preserved section of the “Ancient Tea-Horse Road,” the silk road of Southwest China. Cutting through pine groves, tracking mountains streams, etched on cliff faces, the route took tea and silk from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to the frigid Tibetan plateau and down to the warm valleys and plains of Nepal and India.
Back in those days, Naxi traders bought Han Chinese products, packed their horse caravans and headed into the mountains to barter with Tibetans.
Lijiang Night
At the bank of a large emerald lake called Lashi, we abandoned the van for horses. These Lijiang horses, named after the ancient Naxi trading hub, were short and lean, “but they are built for long treks in the mountains,” the horse owner proudly pronounced.
“Do you want to race horses with me?” a youngster with an impressive mop of hair asked, stooping in front of the barn and smoking a cigarette. I didn’t take the challenge, but insisted on mounting the horse without any assistance to salvage my pride.
Off we went to the wriggling narrow trail. We were about to address the horse owner fat golden brother as well, but he laughed at the idea. “That’s a thing of the past. Now we like slender girls, just like everybody else does.” He told us he’s a descendant of Lord Mu, the powerful warlord that ruled over the Naxi region hundreds of years ago, so we called him “brother Mu.”
Not everyone could lead a trading safari onto the mountain path in the tea-horse days, said brother Mu. “There were bandits lurking everywhere.” We were treading on a steeply ascending dirt path in the shade of a sprawling pine grove. The sun rays were blunted into dim glow.
Brother Mu says he's a descendant of Lord Mu, a powerful warlord and trader.
So horse caravans were a monopolized business of Lord Mu. He sent an army with his processions of horses and traders. Bandits stayed away.
But even with a security force in the wings, riding a horse into the deep mountains was a treacherous journey. “People in the horse caravans carried three pieces of silverware,” said brother Mu. “A silver bowl, a pair of silver chopsticks and a silver bracelet.”
The legendary ancient tea-horse road.
Chinese in older times believe silver turns dark when it comes into contact with poison. A trek to the bosom of Tibet took several months to a year on horse backs. Drinking water was taken from mountain streams, and sometimes wild berries and roots became food. The travelers believed the silver bowl or chopsticks would be able to tell malignant substance from edible materials. And the bracelet could be used to temporarily block the blood flow in order to win critical survival time for a victim of a poisonous snake.
Upon finishing the story, brother Mu started a love song at the sight of a pair of attractive female tourists coming the opposite way, and his horse, which led ours, broke into a sprint.
“Push down with your feet. Clamp the horse flanks with your legs and lean forward,” brother Mu barked the instructions as he disappeared after turning around a big rock.
And that’s it, my train-in-the-fire riding lesson. My horse darted forward. I wondered if a silver bracelet would help a broken bone.
