Aiyi Village Travel Guide: Is Aiyi Village Worth Visiting?

Aiyi Village is located in Yunnan Province, a place full of poetic charm. The mountains and waters here are very clear and beautiful, and the people here live a healthy life. It is an ideal place for self-guided tours. Below we share a travel guide to Aiyi Village.

Aiyi Village is 3 kilometers away from National Highway 320. The village road is built along the mountain, and the mountain road is somewhat winding, but the scenery on both sides is very beautiful. The trees are shady and the mountains are beautiful. The steep mountains in the distance are shrouded in a veil under the sunlight, casting shadows.

The white clouds in the mountains are near and far, coming and going, like light ink smeared on the blue sky. There are almost no cars coming and going on the way up the mountain, it’s very quiet. I really like mountains, “I can’t get tired of looking at them.” If I had more time, I almost wanted to get out of the car and walk.

Chatting old people

When we arrived at Aiyi Village, it was already 10:30 am, and the villagers had already had breakfast. The advantage of row houses without walls is manifested here.

Several adults lazily closed their eyes and rested in the sun, while the children were playing and laughing, chasing each other back and forth. Yang’s elder brother was fiddling with the motorcycle, repairing the means of transportation for work the next day;

Yang’s elder sister-in-law was frying tea and kneading tea in the kitchen. Li’s elder sister-in-law next door also came to help, taking advantage of the opportunity to bring her own fresh leaves. After finishing Yang’s elder sister-in-law’s, she then proceeded to process Li’s elder sister-in-law’s own, without having to light a new fire.

The scene before my eyes is: harmonious neighbors, visiting each other and helping each other.

Aiyi Village on the mountain ridge

This scene is certainly tempting. I seem to have returned to the familiar village of my childhood. So I and Minmei, who was with me, joined the lively group. The children were initially shy when they saw strangers, and ran away when they saw me holding up the camera. I chased after them for a while, and they slowly cooperated with my photo-taking feats. Yang Stationmaster of the Kiln Culture Station and the Director of the Comprehensive Management Office of the Township Government laughed and said that I was still a child at heart, and told the children that my photos were very good, so that the children would cooperate with me.

A woman stirring pig feed

After taking the photos, we sat down at the home of the deputy director of Aiyi Village. Kong Ziyue, director of the Comprehensive Management Office, told us about the local customs and folkways. “The Bai people of Sanzhai eat three meals a day, breakfast (Bai dialect: “yin chang”), lunch (Bai dialect: “yin yi deng”), and dinner (Bai dialect: “yin bei”). In “Sanzhai”, men work outside, women work inside, and there is a clear division of labor. Women are in charge of production, men are in charge of important matters. Women in charge of production are responsible for the labor in the fields, such as picking tea, planting corn, picking firewood, and carrying pine needles (dry leaves of pine trees, which local people use as bedding for pigs in the pigsty and as kindling for cooking). Men are responsible for cooking at home and taking care of important matters.” My goodness, when I heard this, I was dumbfounded. How many important matters can ordinary families have throughout the year?

For years and years, women in the village hardly know how to cook. Who is the housewife? I’m completely puzzled.

The “men work outside, women work inside” mentioned by Director Kong when introducing the situation is really euphemistic. In fact, it shows the patriarchal society of the Bai people. Women have to engage in heavy physical labor, while men stay at home and do relatively light housework.

Women returning from work

I remember when I was a child, when the sun had baked my butt, my aunt who lived next door came back from work and woke my cousin up from his sleep. My aunt’s voice waking up my cousin in the morning when she went out became my alarm clock. But my cousin, who was three years younger than my cousin, had to go out to work with my aunt early in the morning. However, after getting married, under the guidance of his wife, my cousin has been going out early and returning late with his wife.

Yang’s elder brother and elder sister-in-law chatted with us while working. Brother Yang’s family has 4 people, he and his wife, and two sons, one 17 years old and one 15 years old. They dropped out of junior high school. They are now working odd jobs in Baoshan City, but he doesn’t know exactly what they do. He works for the electric power company pulling wires. If he works, he earns 100 yuan a day, but he doesn’t have work every day. He works about 20 days a month, earning less than 2000 yuan, and his income is less than 10,000 yuan a year. It’s almost enough for the whole family for a year. The family has 2 acres of tea fields, which can sell for more than 1000 yuan a year. The corn they grow is not enough for the 4 pigs they raise, their life is really too hard, they want to work but there are no jobs to do.

After listening to my brother’s story, Minmei and I were quiet, the air seemed to be frozen, and we didn’t know how to comfort the man in front of us, time seemed to stop turning. 

Yang’s elder brother

In the end, it was Li’s elder sister-in-law’s laughter that broke the silence. The houses without walls not only open up the space, but also the heart. “Hearing the sound before seeing the person,” a burst of hearty laughter came, Yang’s elder sister-in-law said with a smile, “It’s Li’s elder sister-in-law who came over.” While she was talking, she called out: “Li’s elder sister-in-law, come in and sit.” Li’s elder sister-in-law was stunned when she saw strangers, and was about to go out, but we immediately warmly invited her to sit down, she hesitated for a while before sitting down. Seeing Yang’s elder sister-in-law turning the fresh leaves in the pot, she immediately helped to knead the tea leaves that had been poured out of the big pot. While she kneaded, she chatted with us.

The two elder sisters told us that they are now selling fresh leaves and only need to knead them once. After the company buys the tea leaves, they will further process them. They can weigh about 2 jin of tea leaves every day after picking and processing, and the price per jin varies from 5 yuan to 8 yuan. That is to say, they can earn at most 16 yuan for a day’s picking and processing of tea leaves.

Li’s elder sister-in-law is a very optimistic person. If it hadn’t been for Yang’s elder sister-in-law telling us about her family situation, we would have thought that her life was smooth sailing.

The two elder sisters

Originally, she had 2 sons, both of whom had married wives, and each family had 2 children. The eldest son’s wife couldn’t stand the poverty, and left for another place not long after the birth of their second child, and she has been missing for years.

The second son unfortunately fell off a cliff while chopping firewood in the back mountain, leaving behind his wife and 2 children.

Today, the eldest son and the youngest son’s wives have gone out to work, leaving only Li’s elder sister-in-law and four children, the eldest is 13 years old and the youngest is 6 years old.

Because of poverty and harsh natural conditions, a beautiful family is no longer complete, it has been torn into pieces.

That day, while I was leaving for something, Minmei was invited to her house. Later, she told me, “It’s really a home with bare walls, and there’s no decent furniture.

She and her four children live on the upstairs of the front building (house), while the downstairs of the front building (house) is usually used to keep livestock.

Most of the residents in the village live like this, although in our opinion, the smell of the pigsty often drifts up, and the walls of the front building (house) are also leaking in many places.”

This environment is fine in summer, but in winter, when the temperature is close to zero, I wonder how the children get through it.

Front building (house)

Li’s elder sister-in-law took out the only apples in her house and gave them to her, and she carefully washed the fruit knife in the basin twice. “Sister, I was really heartbroken.” Yang Min’s eyes were filled with tears when she described it to me.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once said: “People don’t grow old gradually, but in a flash.”

People grow old, not from the first wrinkle, the first gray hair, but from the moment they give up on themselves; only those who don’t give up on themselves can live a life that will not age.

Yang’s elder sister-in-law and Li’s elder sister-in-law are people who have lived to be young. They are great and strong. In the face of a difficult life, they remain optimistic and do not give up the small joys of life. And they are perhaps just a microcosm of Aiyi Village or even more families in rural China.