Overview

The Mali Village (麻栗寨) is located in the Honghe Autonomous Prefecture of Hani and Yi Nationalities, Yunnan. Mali Village boasts the large scale of terrace field, mysterious cloud sea and architecture of Hani nationality. The altitude of Mali Village is over 1, 600m, which is a good condition to plant tea. In the plateau, there is plenty of sunshine, suitable temperature and rain. Tea planted there will be in good quality.

Culture

The local people of Mali Village are Hani nationality. Hani people have their own festival. When it is June 24th of Chinese lunar year, there is a day called Kuzhazha. At that day, the whole village will kill the cattle to hold a memorial ceremony for their ancestors. The youth will have wrestling matches, hunting and sing folk songs.

The most important festival of Hani is the Zhalete, meaning the New Year in October. In the big day, the villagers will kill pigs to show memory to their ancestor and then every family will take out the most delicious dish to have a comparation. When the festival is coming to the end, every village will hold a “Dragon Feast” in the center of the village because the desks will be put together as long as a dragon.

There is an interesting day in the culture of Hani nationality called Girl’s Day. At that day, the man in the family will carry water with a shoulder pole and buckets in the early morning. When the sky turns bright, they will cut a bundle of firewood. Do all the things women do every day and women just enjoy their leisure day. After lunchtime, men will go to the market and dress up as women to dance, making women happy.

There is a legend of the festival. In ancient time, the marriage of the daughter is decided by the parents. A girl named Youma fell in love with a boy named Xiaqi. Youma’s parents decided to betroth their daughter to the sun of Bai Tusi, an officer of Bai nationality. Youma is so suffering that she decided to suicide.

One day she went up a mountain to cut the firewood and met another three girls. Youma found they were suffering the same situation as her. Finally, they were all sorrowful and jumped from the cliff and died. Then the Hani people thought they should give girls more right to choose who they love. In order to warn the later generations, they set February 4th every Chinese lunar year the Girl’s Day to respect the women and their right of choosing love.

Highlights

Yuanyang Terrace

Mali Village is famous for the colorful terrace in such a high altitude. Visitors can stand on the high position to take a bird-eye view of the large scale of the terrace field. The terrace is like mirrors on the mountain when reflecting the sunshine. Especially after 4 o’ clock in the afternoon, with the sunset dipping below the horizon, the surfaces of the terrace turn into pink, red and again pink, finally white.

It is a good place to go hiking and take photographs.

Cloud Sea

It situated on the plateau of an altitude of 1, 600m, visitors always can see the beautiful cloud sea. The cloud twines among the mountains for over 200 days in a year. The Mali Village is absolutely the holy land to the shutterbug. In the morning and afternoon, sometimes there will be three layers of cloud; visitors can see the red fire clouds in the sky and red terrace on the ground.

Solo Adventure Tips:

Location:
Malizhai Village, Shengcun Country, Yuanyang County, China

How to Get There?
Ticket Price:
Free

Opening Hours:
All day long

Food and living: Xiaoyu’s Restaurant is famous in Yuanyang. Visitors can have meals and live in the Xiaoyu’s Hostel.