Baizu Cheese and Baizu Tea

July 12, 2019

The second day in Dali was just as rainy as the first, but this did not stop a full program of events. While most people were making traditional Baizu tie-dye cloths, a smaller group of us toured three temples in the town of Xizhou – a Taoist temple, a Buddhist temple, and a Benzhu temple (that is, a temple to the deities worshipped by the Bai people). Seeing statues of the Jade Emperor, the Bodhisattva Guanyin, and gods with various animal paraphernalia brought back many memories of reading the Journey to the West. One of the interesting things I learned about the local religion is that the Bai people regard Kublai Khan as a deity for sparing the local populace of the Mongols’ usual massacres.

Rice fields in Xizhou

Local house gate detail - notice again the emphasis on white

A toothy guardian above the gate

Elephant pillar at a local Taoist temple

Note the white walls and simplicity of the Baizu Taoist temple.

An extremely rare mural of Chairman Mao and Lin Biao, a Marshal of the People's Republic of China who fell out of favour in the early 1970s

A bamboo painting at a local Benzhu temple

The ornate entrance of a local house

Peacock detail above a door

After touring the temples, our group rejoined the tie-dye group for lunch. I was introduced to a new type of cheese called rushan (literally ‘milk fan’), another specialty of the Bai people. According to my understanding, it is usually served in very thin grilled slices, and in texture and flavour rather resembles haloumi. We were also introduced to the Bai tradition of the three-course tea toast, a custom meant to reflect what the Bai consider the three main stages of life. The first cup of tea is bitter, meant to reflect the hardships of youth. The second cup is very sweet, with pieces of rushan and walnut kernel mixed in. It symbolises the happiness of married life. The final cup is also sweet, but is not as mellow as the second: it contains ginger, cassia, and Sichuan pepper. Nicknamed huiwei cha (or ‘reflection tea), it has a strong, almost salty aftertaste – it is meant to resemble the reminiscences of old age.

Scenic depictions of Dali life

A Baizu tea set

We split again after tea, with some of us cooking some local food whose name I can’t remember and my group taking part in a jiama workshop – a type of Chinese woodcut. As I learned, making woodcuts is not as easy as it seems. Putting just the right amount of ink at just the right angle onto the woodblock is a science, one that I comprehend as little as I comprehend most sciences.

After jiama, we had two hours of free time in Xizhou before returning to Dali. I spent them wandering off the beaten path, making my way towards the banks of the Erhai on dirt roads to the evident consternation and bemusement of locals. Having gotten to a touristy vantage point on a small peninsula jutting into the lake just thirty minutes before our scheduled departure, I hailed an open cab that drove me all the way back over roads so bumpy that at one point, the driver asked me to get out of the car as the machine huffed and puffed over a dirt hill spread across the road. I made it exactly in time.