Yunnan Pt. 2: Playing with Fire

The night after our ascent up Snow Mountain, we visited Shuhe, another "old village" north of Lijiang, for their annual torch festival in honor of some Dongba deity (Dongba being the traditional Naxi faith). Shuhe was a lot like Lijiang, but smaller and cozier.

In the town square there was a large circle of people dancing around a giant torch. Peddlers sold personal torches of bundled-wood that you could stick flowers into. Yu Yun bought one and personalized it with her own vegetation:



At first I thought we were supposed to wait for the fire to reach the bottom of the central torch, and then light our torches from it, Olympic-style. But each time I though it the thing was going to burst into a bonfire, I was sadly disappointed--the flames just very slowly burned downward like a candle. Regardless of whether we were supposed to wait or not, people began lighting their own and then sharing. It was difficult at first to catch Yun's on fire, but later we discovered we had been going about it all wrong:


After we spent about half and hour appreciating the fact that we were in a tight crowd of people (including many children) playing with fire, we decided to leave. Yun's torch took forever to burn out so we had to douse it in one of the little canals next to the street. I donated the leftover tinder to a group of poor pyromaniacs:

Leb Wohl.