Hello everyone. Have you heard up this so called ''Oriental Carnival'', the Water Splashing Festival? It is the grandest occasion of the Dai people and a new year of the Dai calendar. People splash water on one another, to show their best of wishes. Water, water, water. There are blessing and splashes of water everywhere. Welcome to our lecture on ethnic minorities in Yunnan. In this episode, we will get to know Dai nationality in Yunnan. The Dai nationality is one of the ethnic minorities mainly living in Yunnan. It is also a cross-country nationality. According to China's sixth national census conducted in 2010, Yunnan has 1,222,000 Dai people, who live along the Lancang River, Nujiang River, Honghe River, and the Jinsha River. Dai is a nationality with a long and rich history, with documents recorded in the Dai language taking back over 100 years. Dai, means people who love peace and freedom. Their ancestors are one tribe of the Baiyue people. In history, there were referred to as Dianyue in the Han Dynasty. Golden teeth or Silver teeth in the Sui and Tang, and Baiyi in the song, Yuan and Qing Dynasties. They had many other names. After the 1950s, they will officially named the ''Dai People''. Most of the Dai live on the fertile plains. They mainly live in Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture, the Dehong Dai-Jinpo Autonomous Prefecture, Gengma, Menglian, and Xinping counties. Dai people leaving sub-tropical areas, where there are abundant rainfall, fertile soil, rich forests and natural resources, making them suitable for human habitation. They living stilted bamboo houses, which are enclosed by a courtyard of bamboo hedges in lush fruit trees, making the environment quiet. The primary religion of the Dai people is Theravada Buddhism, and Buddhist temples are built in most of villages. There is a Bodhi tree in every Dai village, which is the sacred tree of the Dai people. In terms of language, Dai language belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch and Zhuang-Dong branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Since they are widely dispersed in Yunnan, the languages spoken by the Dai people in different places are not the same. The Dai people have four different dialects and four different alphabetic writing systems. Xishuangbanna Daile language is used in Xishuangbanna and Menglian areas. Dehong Diana language is mainly used in Dehong, Lincang, Shuangjiang, Gengma, Cangyuan, Zhenkang, Menglian, Jinggu, Jingdong, Tengchong, and Changning. It has a square script. Menglian Daibeng language is a round-letter style of writing used in Menglian, Cangyuan, and Ruili. Jinping Dia-Rui language used in the Jinping area is a combination of round and square letters. All the four dialects are derived from Sanskrit, which was brought into China with the Theravada Buddhism from India via Southwest China. Eighty percent of the place names in Chinese in Xishuangbanna were transliterated from the Dai language. For example, Xishuang means 12, ban means 1,000, and na means field in the Dai language. Xishuangbanna means 12 administrative areas which were established in the Tang Dynasty. Jinghong is the city of daybreak, associated with the legendary arrival of Sakyamuni, who was said to have arrived there just at the moment of daybreak. Nowadays, people call it, Yunjinghong because of yun means capital. Yunjinghong is the capital of daybreak. Another two counties in Xishuangbanna are Menghai and Mengla. Meng means a place, hai means bravery, and la means tea. Menghai is the place where brave people live and Mengla is the place that produces tea in Dai language. Dai costumes are beautiful and unique in style. Traditional men's clothing includes open-front coat with tight sleeves and no collar, long loose trousers, and a pink, green, or white turbans. In addition, Dai men used to carry satchels at their sides and sword at the girdle. Women's clothing consist of a short coat with tight sleeves in Xishuangbanna, or open-front coat with tight sleeves and loose laps in Dehong and sarong. Their waistbands are usually silver. They tie their hair up in a bun with a comb or a flower in it. Older women wear loose clothes, simple but elegant. Nowadays, the elderly may well traditional costumes, while the young prefer modern clothes. The dress of women is made to suit the hot and humid areas with rivers. It is convenient for them to cross rivers, have a bath, and transplant rice seedlings. Moreover, such dresses give prominence to their slender figures. Dai people take rice as their staple food, supplemented by other grains such as corn. Their meat mainly includes fish, ducks, chickens, pigs, and cattle. They prefer glutinous rice, aquatic products, and vegetables with a slightly sour flavor. Breakfast and lunch are simple, mainly rice and pickled vegetables rolled into balls. Instead of chopsticks, they eat with their hands. Grilled fish with citronella, purple rice cooked in pineapple. haoluosuo, fried lichen, fried oxhide, raw mince, sapie, nanmi, steamed rice with bamboo shoots, and baoshao are well-known Dai delicacies. Chicken steamed with Chinese banana leaves and rice with bamboo shoots are often the favorites of tourists. "Haoluosuo" is a rice cake that Dai people make and eat during the New Year of the Dai calendar, the Door-opening Festival and the Door-closing Festival. The ingredients include glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, sesame, and peanuts. The ingredients are mixed and wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. "Haoluosuo" is a sweet, brown, soft, glutinous rice cake. "Nanmi" in the Dai language means sauce. As the main ingredients differ, "Nanmi" can be divided into several kinds, tomato "Nanmi", vegetable "Nanmi", peanut "Nanmi", and crab "Nanmi" etc. Garlic, chili, coriander, salt and a monosodium glutamate are added to some of the main ingredients and mashed and mixed to make "Nanmi". Fried oxhide is one of the most famous Dai dishes. After being washed and cooked. Oxhide is cut into small strips, then the dried strips are put into oil and fried. When it becomes puffy and crispy, it is ready. Fried oxhide is usually served with tomato "Nanmi". As to the festivals of the Dai people, the most well-known one is the Water-splashing Festival, which is also the traditional festival of the De'ang and the Achang nationalities. It is called "Len He Sang Kan" in the Dai language, meaning "New Year's Day in June". The festival is usually celebrated in late June or early July on the Dai calendar, and is the New Year's Day on the Dai calendar, and lasts for three days. The main activities include dragon boat racing, fireworks setting off, water splashing, fair going, and cloth bundle throwing. Besides, there are two other very important festivals of the Dai people according to their religions. One is the Door-closing Festival. The other is the Door-opening Festival. The Door-closing Festival and the Door-opening Festival are two cognate Buddhist festivals. They're celebrated respectively on September 15th and December 15th on the Dai calendar. On the days of Door-closing and Door-opening, all the villages would "donate money and things to a Buddhist temple." That is, they offer paper flowers, food and money to the Buddhas and the Buddha statue. Meanwhile, they would worship Buddha and chant sutras. During the three months from September 15th to December 15th, which is regarded as a period of "Door-closing", Dai people are forbidden to promote monks, hold weddings, or even build new houses. On the night of the Door-opening Festival, people set off fireworks and "Gong Fei" in a temple indicating the coming of the Door-opening period. From the festivals, we can see clues to their religions. The Dai nationality believe in Theravada Buddhism, which was introduced to Xishuangbanna from Sri Lanka via Southeast Asia in the 7th century. The Dai Xishuangbanna were the first Dai who became the followers of Theravada Buddhism. Later, the Dai in Dehong, Menglian, Gengma and some other regions also accepted Theravada Buddhism. The Dai in Yuanjiang, however, still believe in Shamanism even today. Theravada is the dominant form of Buddhism in most parts of Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. It claims about 100 million followers worldwide. Its doctrines are taken from the Pali Canon and its basic teachings begin with the Four Noble Truths. The doctrines of Theravada Buddhism have exerted a strong influence on the Dai in many aspects such as daily life, education, morality, and a farming. Spending time in a temple for a period of time was a very important stage of development for a Dai man. Otherwise, he would be looked down upon as a vagrant and ineligible for marriage.
