The Naxi and the Dongba culture

'Lijiang was a sea of matching hats. Tour buses gathered at the entrance of Old Town, dumping their cargo of day-trippers...' It is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Making it into this list means tourism and money. The Naxi people have inhabited the Lijiang region for two thousand years, cultivating their own shamanistic religion and pictographic writing system, both of which are called Dongba. The Dongba script comprises two thousand symbols used as memory aides for recitation during religious rituals. This is according to the book, 'Invisible China' by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson.

A Dongba dictionary? The museum was free and I could take pictures without any restrictions. It saw a lot of visitors, some of them were learning how to write their names in Dongba.

I don't know what's in here. I think it is ink.

A notice board of rules written in three languages, English, Chinese and Dongba. English? Are you sure? It's more like gibberish.

This is the entrance to an old monastery now converted into a museum to showcase the Dongba culture. During the Cultural Revolution these things were forbidden but now that these things attract tourists and money, the Chinese Government is actively promoting it. They would like all their minorities to be draw for tourism then they'll be off the hook for doing anything for them. In some areas like Lijiang they have been successful. They have yet to get people to go see the Uighurs in Xinjiang province. They have a small measure of success in getting tourists to go to the Mongolian grasslands and see their Mongolian minority. It's hard, how do you raise the standard of living for 1.2 billion people living in a country the size of the USA or more.

While in some aspect Lijiang looks more like an amusement park, in other aspect, there is the serious promotion of the Naxi people and the Dongba culture. I heard my lady taxi driver chatting away in Naxi on the phone to a family member.