Zhentai: Pastoral Township in Southwestern Yunnan
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Before I visited zhentai, I had never even heard of the rural township, nestled away in the southwest of Yunnan Province, in the southwestern China. It was the rainy season and we could not go deep into mountains to see the forest of tea trees. We decided to make a detour and visit Zhentai at the recommendation of a friend.
I had not heard of Zhentai for a reason. The rural township was by no means the most spectacular place in yunnan. However, for about 100 years from the middle of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) up to the years of the Republic of China (1911-1949), Zhentai was a key outpost on the ancient tea-horse road that stretched from Yunnan of China into neighboring regions and countries. Caravans traveled northward all the way to Tibet. Caravans tripped southward to Burma and Thailand. From Zhentai, caravans also traveled westward all the way to Burma. What added to the frontier town’s glory was a stone bridge built in 1880. The grand stone structure spans the upstream section of Jinggu River, about 10 kilometers southwest of the town capital. The ancient bridge is 5 meters long, 2 meters wide but it is 14 meters tall. It connects two opposite cliffs.
On our way to Zhentai, we stopped over at a small village called Zaima. The old village had only about 30 households. The scenery was delightfully idyllic. The quiet farmland stretched outside the village. The stone walls separated courtyards, but the open gates revealed vegetable plots and fruit trees. Each courtyard seemed to be telling a story. I found a two-storied house in a mixed architectural style of east and west. An old man surnamed Li chatted with us. The house was built in 1946 by his father. He graduated from a military academy and served as a commander of an artillery battalion. He retired in 1946 to his home village and became a businessman. He designed the house himself. The front garden and back garden were full of flowers in bloom.
What makes Zhentai famous nowadays is a large colony of egrets. There are probably more ten thousands. I watched a large pack of egrets take their wings in the early morning in front of Xinglong Primary School, which, founded in 1758, was the first primary school in Zhentai. The egrets soared and circled near towering banyan trees before they scattered and flew away in all directions. They come back at dusk.
The outpost period is the only boom Zhentai ever saw. During the climax of its boom period, more than one third of the local population was engaged in business one way or another. Local residents partly attribute the boom to the flourishing education undertakings. The first local school was set up in 1758. The business people from neighboring provinces brought education to the trade outpost. For years before the school was erected, Cangsheng Palace was constructed in honor of Cang Jie, presumably the inventor of Chinese characters. The memorial was destroyed in 1864 in a war. In 1910, Taihe Primary School was erected north to the compound and in 1940, the site was converted into Taihe Middle School.
The middle school was financed and set up by Li Shu’an, a local gentleman. He promoted modernization by introducing the equality of men and women and marriage by one’s own choice. Aware of the importance of environmental protection back then, Li organized a tree planting campaign and had pine trees planted on the hillsides near the middle school. It is the first man-made afforestation in Yunnan Province.
A part of Zhenyuan County, Zhentai Township is 90 kilometers from the county capital. The county capital is 398 kilometers from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.