In short, the geographical features of Yunnan are profound, inclusive and accurate, and the pictures of Yunnan Jueling, the trickle map of springs and streams, "There are terraced dams in the mountains and red river springs in the valleys" have all been taken care of. The unique geographical phenomenon of "how high the mountain is, how high the water is" refers to Hani terraces. Ailao Mountain is rich in water resources with gurgling springs and flowing water.

The most spectacular part of Hani Terrace is Yuanyang County. After the autumn harvest and before the early spring, it is the best time to watch Hani terraces. Under the backlight, the terraced fields are like mirrors, dazzling, big as a curved pool and small as a broken mirror. They bend layer by layer according to the mountain trend and advance block by block along the hillside.

Sometimes a person leads a cow to plow the field, and a cow is in the field, and there is little room for turning around, or something smaller, as big as a washtub; From time to time, several women walk on the ridge with baskets on their heads. From a distance, they seem to be walking on the steps of a mirror. Looking closer, the ridge is only 1 foot wide, with lush green grass and developed roots. Grab the ridge and make it strong. There is a dripping outlet at the edge of each ridge, and the highest ridge oozes water from the mud wall from top to bottom. Where did this water come from? Tracing back to the source, water comes from the mountains, water comes from the grass, and water comes down from the trees. This is the truth and basis of "how high the mountain is, how high the water will grow".

"Trees can' pull' water and trees can keep water" is a simple folk proverb in Yunnan. No matter how high the mountain is, no matter how steep the slope is, as long as there are trees and forests, the huge and complicated root system will become the dependence of water conservation, which can "pull" water from a lower place and let it flow upward. Although there is no water on the surface, the groundwater level has risen. Save a certain amount of water and it will naturally overflow. The word "pull" has the meaning of pulling up, which exhausts the infinite mystery of "high mountains and high waters".

Tofu is bought by burning.

The ancestor of tofu was in China, and China people first invented tofu. But looking through the recipes, the word "burning tofu" is "nothing in the canon, nothing in the spectrum", and it can be said at the earliest that "there is no other place in the canon". To be exact, the tofu that can be "sold" is mainly "South Yunnan tofu" because of its unique production technology, because it uses well water to order tofu instead of brine.

Shiping Beimen Tofu and Jianshui Ximen Tofu in southern Yunnan are the authentic producing areas of "roasted tofu". In an alley at the north gate of Shiping County, there is a Xu family with a small yard, but the well in the yard is a rare thing: the water in the well is not drinkable, and it has been specially used for making tofu brine for hundreds of years. It is said that Shiping tofu has a history of more than 600 years. Beimen bean curd brain is famous for its "good water". There are two kinds of water: one is to soak soybeans in the well and cook soybean milk; Another well water specializes in tofu; Sweet well water and astringent well water are shared and complement each other.

Jianshui Ximen tofu is also related to a well. Ximenjing has the style of Longtan, with a diameter of about 3 meters, which can also be called a pool. Simon tofu is made of brine, but the difference is that kung fu is on the "bag". The so-called "Bao", that is, "Bao tofu", is a bucket of soybean milk in front of everyone. The soybean milk is half dry, and everyone moves quickly. Squeeze it on the gauze in his hand, knead it into a small tofu block for three or five rounds, then put it on a bamboo board, fill it up and hold it to dry. Hurry up and wrap the tofu in your hand. At present, Shiping and Jianshui Tofu are still the main suppliers of "roasted tofu", and Beimen and Ximen Tofu have been recognized as "authentic" and sell well all over Yunnan.

"eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan, tofu is on sale", saying "burn" is a Yunnan dialect, but it is actually "roast" When buying tofu, leave it for three or five days, that is, put it in an unventilated corner and cover it with straw or gauze until it tastes slightly sour. Fresh tofu can't bake that layer of "shell" on the fire, and the entrance is sour; Too smelly tofu can't bake "shape" and your mouth is tired. In other words, tofu can't stink, and it can't stink too much. Smell just right depends on feeling and experience. Tofu should be cooked with chestnut charcoal fire. The charcoal fire basin is rectangular with a slotted baking tray welded with steel bars. If the firepower is too strong, put a wooden rope under the baking tray and raise it one inch; If the firepower is too small, take off the mat and let it be close to the charcoal fire. Tofu should be eaten with condiments: dry ingredients, that is, only Chili noodles, pepper noodles, monosodium glutamate, salt and other condiments are put in the bowl; For the wet material, add soy sauce and a little coriander to the dry material. Later, there was "garlic oil seasoning", which added a little garlic oil and bittern sweat without soy sauce, and had another taste. Snow-white tofu blocks roll all over the baking tray, arranged in an orderly way, baked one by one, diligent in the middle and slow on the side. After three or five minutes of deduction, I saw some tofu blocks in the middle gradually swell up and turn yellow. The original square tofu block expands into a ball with the line of sight, which can be used as table tennis. When you press them with chopsticks, they are slightly elastic and can be eaten. Break the tofu block in half and dip it in seasoning directly. If it is a wet seasoning, it is cool outside and hot inside, thick outside and light inside, and the entrance is fragrant and glutinous, and the shade is suitable, and the delicious food is beyond words; If the seasoning is dry, it is spicy and crispy outside, spicy and salty, and delicious beyond words.

There are several authentic baked tofu in Yunnan: one is outside the east gate of Jianshui County, the other is Yanzidong, the third is the farmers' market in the old city, and the fourth is all over Shiping County. Tonghai, Qujiang and other places are also acceptable.

Trains are not as fast as cars.

"Eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan, the train is not as fast as the car", which is the most widely circulated sentence among all the "eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan". The theory that "the train is not as fast as the car" is largely derived from the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway started in 190 1 year and was completed in191year, which lasted for 9 years. The total length from Kunming to Haiphong is 854 kilometers. Among them: 465 kilometers in Yunnan (Kunming to Hekou); Vietnam (Laojie to Haiphong) is 389 kilometers. Project cost: 158466888 francs. Road builders: more than 64,000 people. The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway has been nearly a hundred years ago. On this century-old road, the train is still rumbling forward, from the Sino-Vietnamese railway bridge at the estuary to the south, whistling all the way, and it can reach the port city of Haiphong in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam one day and one night. A few years ago, there were not many places where China directly communicated with foreign countries by railway. In the north, there is only the Sino-Russian railway, while in the whole southwest, there is only this Yunnan-Vietnam railway. If anyone is earlier, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway is of course the ancestor. Yunnan is the earliest in China? Quot "International Railway" province, this "China first" makes many people feel incredible, which is why there are "18 strange people in Yunnan, and the train does not pass through China and foreign countries. "The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway is a huge project invested by the French. This railway represents the highest level of railway engineering technology at the beginning of this century. 80% of the 465-kilometer section in Yunnan passes through dangerous mountains, with a large slope and a large drop. From an altitude of more than 2,000 meters to 9 12 meters, there were 65,438 tunnels and 65,438 bridges. The bridge and tunnel project was unparalleled in the world at that time. Among them, the Hekou herringbone bridge project, which leaps over two cliffs in the shape of a "human" without piers, is amazing and is still listed as a model in Chinese and foreign railway engineering textbooks. Among them, there are the wisdom of French engineers and the painstaking efforts of China workers. For a hundred years, this railway has been unimpeded, which in itself proves the quality of this vast project. Secondly, due to the opening of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, industrial and commercial cities such as Yunnan, Nanyuan and Gejiu were able to start civilization at the beginning of this century. Kaiyuan became the commercial center of southern Yunnan; Because a large amount of tin was sent to all parts of the world by Yunnan-Vietnam railway, advanced production equipment and mining technology were imported with the train, Gejiu's mining and smelting technology reached the first-class level at that time. Thirdly, due to the completion of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, train transportation soon replaced the caravan transportation from Kunming to Hekou. From a historical and materialistic point of view, although the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was forcibly built by the French in a specific historical period, it is also an indisputable fact that the progress and civilization represented by the railway traffic itself have had an impact that cannot be underestimated in the past century. The double-track spacing of Yunnan-Vietnam Railway is 1 m, commonly known as "meter track". The locomotives and carriages used are inch gauge trains made in France and Germany and "Gejiu-Bishe Village-Shiping", which Yunnan people call "small trains". "The" Little Train "railway is to build a railway from Gejiu to Bise Village in Mengzi and then to Shiping County. The gauge is only 6 square inches, commonly known as "inch rail". "China Train and Small Train, Meter Gauge and Inch Gauge, two kinds of rails crisscross Jueling Valley in southern Yunnan, running through mines and fields, connecting cities and villages, making southern Yunnan enjoy the civilized achievements brought by railways in the first half of this century and take the lead in becoming one of the most developed areas in Yunnan. Yunnan is mountainous, with a mountainous area of more than 330,000 square kilometers, accounting for 84% of the total area of the province. If you add the mid-level mountains, it will reach 94%, with an average altitude of more than 2000 meters. On the Yunnan Plateau, there are many dams in east Yunnan, deep valleys in southwest Yunnan, and continuous mountains in northwest Yunnan, with an altitude of more than 3000 meters. The relative height between the valley bottom and the mountains exceeds 1000 meters. The highest point in the province is the Kage peak, the main peak of Meili Snow Mountain, with an altitude of 6740 meters; The lowest point is at the confluence of nanxi river and Yuanjiang River at the estuary, with an altitude of only 76.4 meters. The distance between the two places is 900 kilometers, and the relative height difference is 6663.6 meters. Because of Yunnan's low latitude and high altitude, it has formed complex and diverse landforms: plateaus, mountains, canyons, dams, hills, rivers, lakes and so on. In such a geographical situation, the problems faced by railway construction are by no means imaginable by ordinary people. The choice of meter rail and inch rail is just to adapt to the actual situation of small bend radius and narrow subgrade. If the gauge is small, the car body will be reduced accordingly, and the turning will be flexible and safe, and it is easy to control the speed when going uphill and downhill. Inch-gauge trains are slow, with an average speed of about 20-30 kilometers per hour. Compared with the caravan, the medium train and the small train are extremely fast, not only running fast, but also pulling a lot. However, from 192 1, expressways appeared in Yunnan, with an average speed of 30-40 kilometers per hour compared with cars. And there are many trains around; It is obvious to all that "the train is not as fast as the car". The speed of Astrotrain, a quasi-Yunnan railway, is not much faster than that of a small train. Guikun Line and Chengkun Line are two earlier quasi-gauge railways in Yunnan. As soon as they left Kunming, both lines successively encountered alpine valleys, especially the Chengdu-Kunming line. " "Bridge Project" is the biggest feature of chengdu-kunming railway: a bridge between two mountains, crossing the bridge, drilling holes, leaving holes, crossing the bridge, and bridging the bridge. A tunnel with an average length of 2.5 kilometers. The densest is the section from Ebian Station to Wusihe Station. There are 34 kilometers of tunnels along the 48-kilometer line, which is called "underground corridor". There is a bridge with an average length of 1.7 km, and the "Yixiantian" single-hole stone arch bridge is 54 meters long, which is the longest railway stone arch bridge in the world. Jinsha River Bridge is the largest single-span steel truss railway bridge in China, with a span of192m. Bridges and tunnels account for 46% of the total length of the whole line, and it is still one of the railways with the largest number of bridges and tunnels in the world railway engineering. Because of the complexity of geology, it is also called "geological museum". Entering the Sichuan Basin, the train speed is obviously increased, and the speed can reach 80 kilometers per hour. Compared with the speed of 50-60 kilometers per hour, it is another strange thing: "The trains in Yunnan are not as fast as those in other provinces." Not only that, in some areas, in order to climb from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, the railway was built into a spiral and climbed around the circle. In some areas, it is necessary to add a locomotive to the rear of the train. The locomotive in front pulls hard, and the locomotive behind pulls hard. When turning a corner, the person in front of the car can see that the front of the car is struggling. So, so, can it be quick? Dare to hurry? Quot haste makes waste. "1In February, 1987, the 6/kloc-0 express train from Kunming to Shanghai was subverted in Xuanwei section of Yunnan late at night, causing heavy losses to people and property. It is said that this is because the speed is too fast, and the centrifugal force increases sharply when turning, which leads to the derailment of the train and shocks China and foreign countries. This is the lesson of "fast". So how slow is the train? Take the meter rail as an example, it takes about 8 hours from Kunming to Kaiyuan, while it takes about 5 hours for ordinary cars. Now that the high-grade highway is opened, the car only takes 3-4 hours, which is almost twice as fast. Today, the train has stopped. The front of the car was put into the warehouse and rested, leaving only the rails and lying in the mountains. At the end of the railway track at the station, there are weeds and insects chirping. On the bank of Jinhu Lake, the old railway tracks still exist, and there are often lovers on one side, stepping on the monorail, supporting each other and stumbling. The railway in the past has now become a love path. It is said that the local government intends to resume the operation of the small train in the city and make it a tourist project. I don't know if it's feasible ... but Kaiyuan has built a train museum, and the history of train development is in it. If there is an opportunity, you might as well take your children on a journey of patriotism and human civilization.

If you have something to say, don't say it.

Among the ethnic minorities in Yunnan, there are countless people who use songs to express their feelings and decide lifelong events.

The film Five Golden Flowers is the best portrayal. Pronouns in songs are a major feature of many ethnic minorities in Yunnan in transmitting information. Songs have the functions of communication, education, etiquette, lyricism and narration. Yunnan has high mountains and deep valleys, criss-crossing rivers, inconvenient communication and poor circulation. In the case of "facing each other across the mountain", singing is much more practical, effective and beautiful. Moreover, the high-pitched and exciting singing is very penetrating, and it can cross mountains and rivers and transmit information quickly and quickly.

Many ethnic minorities use this primitive way of information exchange for daily communication. Over time, singing has added entertainment function and become one of the indispensable contents in their lives.

The singing habits of Yunnan ethnic minorities are also the accumulation of traditional culture, history and religion. In the worship and etiquette of primitive religion, song and dance is not only a form of religious activities, but also one of the contents of religious activities. People express their awe of God and pray for the unknown through singing and dancing. "All talk and no singing" is the legacy of primitive religion. It runs through the lives of people of all ethnic groups in Yunnan, permeating all fields of productive labor, weddings, funerals, joys and sorrows. The Hani people's obsession with singing and dancing is manifested in the fact that both men and women, old and young, like to carry musical instruments with them, to the extent that their voices are moldy if they don't sing, and their feet are numb if they don't dance.

What is the proverb of Achang nationality? Quot knowing three, crying fills the ravine, Chang sang three folk songs. "Chang is stubborn. If you don't cry, you must sing"; Whether celebrating festivals or building houses for hunting, Yi people should sing and dance.

The singing forms of Yunnan ethnic minorities are not only the remnants of primitive religious ceremonies, but also an indispensable part of life as important as daily necessities. Therefore, when it comes to Yunnan, you can really appreciate what singing is better than speaking.

In Yunnan, the worship of life and death should be sung, love and hate should be sung, and life and labor should be sung. It can be said that singing is closer to the expressive nature of human beings than words.

Wear in the same season

For people who come to Kunming for the first time, the first strange feeling this city gives them is probably all kinds of clothes on the street. During the day, some people wear thin shirts and skirts, some wear sweaters and windbreakers, and some even wear cotton-padded clothes or cotton vests, which are varied and hot and cold, so that you can't tell spring, summer, autumn and winter.

No wonder some people say that "eighteen eccentrics in Yunnan wear them all the year round". After careful study, "four seasons wear together" has at least two meanings: first, in one day, people may wear clothes of four seasons at the same time, that is, "wearing four seasons a day"; Second, in a year, you can spend almost four seasons wearing the same clothes, that is, "wearing no four seasons"; Either the four seasons are the same, or the four seasons are extremely different, which has become the dress feature of many areas in Yunnan, and the formation of this feature is mainly determined by Yunnan's special geographical climate. Yunnan, located in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, has a climate characterized by "summer in the valley, spring in Shan Ye, autumn in the plateau and snowy mountains in winter." When Meili Snow Mountain in northwest Yunnan is still covered with snow, it is already spring and summer in the estuary of south Yunnan. Complexity and diversity is a major feature of Yunnan's climate, and it is also the fundamental reason why Yunnan people "wear four seasons in one day". From the perspective of the whole province, clothes in Yunnan during the day are in the form of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Clothing has both practical and aesthetic functions. In a practical sense, clothing is a barometer of the climate, and what kind of clothing is there. On a large scale, Yunnan minority costumes can also be divided into three types: tropical, temperate and frigid.

Xishuangbanna and Dehong in the south and southwest are areas where Dai people live in compact communities, and their clothes are tropical. This kind of clothing is narrow and tight, with light and breathable fabrics and elegant and bright colors, which is especially suitable for Dai women. Some scholars think it is the most beautiful dress in the world, wearing a tight vest, a tight jacket, a round neck and narrow sleeves, a long skirt and a silver belt around the waist. Women's plump breasts, slender waist and round arms are exposed in graceful gait, and the skirt is long and instep, tightly wrapping the body. Similar costumes include Lahu, Wa, Jingpo, Bulang, De 'ang, Jinuo, etc., which are shorter than Dai's, and most of them just pass the knee. But the fabric is thicker and the color is thicker than Dai clothes.

Going north and east, entering the temperate climate zone, the clothing also presents the temperate style. For example, the costumes of the Bai nationality are typical representatives. Dali is a place where the Bai people live in compact communities, and it is known as four seasons like spring. Bai women's clothing is unique, including white coat, red vest, vest, silver ornaments at the knot, short waist embroidered with banners or black, blue wide trousers and "white shoes" embroidered on their feet. Bright colors, white, red and black are very harmonious, and they look elegant and beautiful against the backdrop of Cangshan Snow Top and Erhai Blue Waves. The vest is quite temperate, which can not only resist the coolness in the morning and evening, but also cool and neat, and is suitable for temperate climate characteristics. Naxi women in Lijiang wear thick vests, pleated skirts, trousers, a waist, a police tactical unit and a back. Quot Dai Yue "sheepskin shawl is practical to wear and convenient to work. But also put the national spirit on the body, symbolizing the hardworking and brave spirit of the nation and not afraid of violence.

Entering Zhongdian area of Lijiang is northwest Yunnan, where the altitude is high and the climate is cold, and the national costumes have the characteristics of cold zone. Tibetan, Yi, Naxi, Pumi and other ethnic costumes are spacious, heavy and dignified, which is convenient for labor and has the function of keeping out the cold. The costumes of Mosuo people along Lugu Lake are close to Tibetans. Young people wear felt hats, boots and ribbons around their waists. In addition, they are tall and handsome, and their bodies are full of heroic handsomeness. Women's wear is a wide right lapel, a long pleated skirt and a colored belt around the waist. Because the clothes are wide, they can put on more clothes inside, which is enough to resist the cold climate. The scene of "snow on the mountainside and light clothes in the hot valley" is a true portrayal of many places in Yunnan. From the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, there are spring, summer, autumn and winter. The vertical climate caused by altitude change is another feature of Yunnan climate. As the saying goes, "every mountain has its talents."