After lunch we visited a tie dye factory in Zhou Zheng, another small village in the Dali area. This is real tie dye. The patterns are very intricate. It takes days of labor to tie one garment. The factory makes their dye out of indigo leaves, which also happens to have medicinal properties. We harvested indigo leaves from their garden and made an indigo tea, which is good for a sore throat and cold)
Next, we walk up the side of mountain to an ancestral temple. It’s a little run-down, local temple but it’s still used by the villagers. We observed the offering and sacrifice of a chicken. A couple had just bought a new car so they sacrificed a chicken in thanks and for protection.
We continue our tour by walking further up to another temple. This one is dedicated to all three philosophies – Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist. Many westerners find it unusual to combine different belief systems like the Chinese. Sometimes we get carried away with external forms and forget that truth is greater than any system of truth.
We were allowed to enter the upper meditation chamber of the temple – which was Taoist. It is very rare for tourists to be allowed to go into the upper mediation chamber of a functioning temple. It is only because we are in such a remote village that sees very few tourists – I wonder how long it will last…
Our group ended the day with a TCM Tui Na massage by deaf masseuses from Dali. Chinese Tui Na massage is not like the normal massage found in the west. They use acupuncture points to open blockages along the meridians to improve Qi circulation.
