China Guide
Yunnan
Manting
Opening time: Chunhuan Park: daily 7.30am–6.30pm
Price: Chunhuan Park: ¥30
Address: 1km southeast of the centre
Once a separate village but now absorbed into Jinghong's lazy spread, Manting offers a good introduction to Dai life. even if it is mostly modern, with just a few older, two-storey wooden Dai houses still lurking in the wings.
Wat Manting is Jinghong's main Buddhist monastery and the largest in all Xishuangbanna. A simply furnished affair, with glossy jinghua murals, an art form derived from India; roof rafters full of ceremonial bits and pieces; and a giant ceremonial canoe in the monastery grounds. Dai temples differ from others across the land both in their general shape and the almost exclusive use of wood in their construction, which necessitates their being raised off the ground on low piles to guard against termites and rot. Furthermore, unlike Buddhists elsewhere in China, whose Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) teachings filtered through from India, the Dai follow the Theravada (Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle) school of thought, a sect common to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos and Burma.
Next to Wat Manting is the rather more secular Chunhuan Park (also known as Manting Park), where the royal slaves were formerly kept. A giant gold statue of former premier Zhou Enlai welcomes visitors to the park, tour groups are treated to water-splashing displays every afternoon, and there's also a large pen bursting with peacocks, which you can feed. Corners of the park are very pleasant, with paths crossing over one of the Lancang River's tiny tributaries to full-scale copies of Jingzhen's Bajiao Ting Octagonal Pavilion and a portly, Dai-style pagoda. The road ends at Manloh Hon village, which gets its water through the efforts of a large bamboo water wheel, beyond which is a ferry across the Lancang to paddy fields, more villages and banana groves.