Drought Throws Cold Water on Yunnan's Water Festival

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Reuters

Chinese paramilitary police celebrate the annual water-splashing festival with the Dai minority in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province

It is no coincidence that the Dai, an ethnic minority concentrated in southwestern China's Yunnan province, ring in their New Year in mid-April by sprinkling each other with cold water. April is the driest month for subtropical regions like Yunnan, which depend on the coming of seasonal rains for their fertility. Historically, water-splashing has been a symbolic way of beseeching the divine to bring an end to scarcity and hasten a period of abundance. Never have the people of South China needed that abundance more than now, during the worst drought the area has seen in nearly a century.

From Yunnan eastward through Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi, parts of the country have not had rain since October and approximately 24 million residents are short of water. In March, Wen Jiabao, China's Premier, toured Yunnan for three days, pledging governmental aid and advocating water-conservation efforts. Chances are that the arrival of summer showers will give the land respite in the next month. But until then, Vice Minister of Water Resources, Liu Ning, confirmed less than two weeks ago, about 30,000 sq. mi. (78,000 sq km) of soil are too dry to bear crops, which has resulted in more than $3.5 billion in agricultural losses. Across the parched terrain, the government has been rationing drinking water, digging emergency wells and shooting clouds with silver iodide in an effort to stimulate rainfall. And the drought's effects on the Mekong River — at its most depleted in 50 years — have awakened tensions with China's neighbors, who wonder if the shortage has been worsened by the country's management of its water supply and network of hydroelectric dams.

The dry spell has also sparked controversy within China with regard to whether or not the Dai people should hold Songkran, the New Year's festival celebrated in parts of East and Southeast Asia, in which lively water-splashing is a prominent feature. Duan Jinhua, head of the information office in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, announced that the fete would not be canceled, but that the sprinkling spree would be cut down from five hours to two. The government of the Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture, on the other hand, has decided to cancel official festivities and leave citizens to their own devices. The general consensus among locals is to splash with less water and focus on other celebratory activities. As a consequence, this year's festival, which runs from Tuesday through April 15, is likely to look much more authentic than it has in recent years. "Water-splashing is supposed to be a short, almost minor, part of the three-day holiday," says cultural anthropologist and Dai folklore expert Monica Cable. "It's been made central by tourists looking for spectacle."

One of the unexpected effects of the drought in Yunnan has been to give the Dai this opportunity to return to the roots of a festival that has been largely co-opted by visitors to the province. Traditionally, Cable explains, water-splashing was not as essential to the New Year as other rituals like the slaughtering of buffalo. "But," she says, "animal sacrifice isn't great for tourism." What's more, the Dai did not always engage in unruly street battles using buckets filled to the icy brim and unforgiving water pistols. Writes Thai folklorist Phya Anuman Rajadhon: "The water-throwing later degenerated into vicious forms." Older villagers remember a time when these exuberant clashes — splashing has gotten so out of hand in Bangkok that it has been banned in certain areas — instead took the form of gentle blessings.

It was once custom to lightly sprinkle, not douse, one's family and neighbors with flower stems and tree branches that had been dipped in water as a sign of reverence. "When I was young, first we had to splash our grandparents and parents to show our respect," says Mie Duc Hong, a 40-year-old Dai woman who lives in the Yunnanese village of Manchunman. "Then we could go splash our friends. It was a lot of fun. But it wasn't like it is now where people get so wet. We just sprinkled them with drops of water, not whole basins full." Zheng Peng, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, told the official government news agency Xinhua that this year people ought to splash water in a symbolic manner, as was done "in the traditional way," when water-splashing was limited to the last day of the festival. In fact, the Dai do not refer to the New Year's holiday as the "water-splashing festival"; that moniker was introduced by foreigners.

This time around, Yunnan is expected to receive far fewer visitors than usual for the celebration. Chinese travel agencies report that hotel bookings in Dai-populated areas have tapered off. Candy Wei, a travel adviser at China Highlights, which offers customized tours and cruises in the region, says that she has had relatively few inquiries about participating in the event. "We suspect that the drought has severely affected our customers' itineraries in Yunnan." Those places accustomed to welcoming hordes of tourists, like Xishuangbanna's capital city of Jinghong, have previously been characterized by the most boisterous water-splashing celebrations; there, children and visitors haphazardly fling containers of muddy and colored water about, rushing back and forth to restaurants and strangers' homes to refill. Anouska Komlosy, curator of Asian ethnography at the British Museum, writes that in villages just outside the capital, the splashing has typically been more subdued. This year, even the capital is likely to follow suit.

At the Dai Minority Park, an "ethnic theme park" that actually encompasses five Dai villages (Mie Duc Hong's community is one of them), the annual tradition has strayed furthest from its tranquil origins. There, the water-splashing portion of the festival is organized in a shallow pool every day at 3:30 p.m. Cable describes the spectacle as a "large-scale wet-T-shirt contest." For $5, tourists can rent plastic basins for splashing each other and scantily-clad Dai women. "Authenticity is much less important than entertainment in China," says Cable. "Tourists don't come to see authentic rituals. They come to see outrageous ones." The park, which is run by a management company owned by Han Chinese, the country's ethnic majority, still anticipates over 1,000 visitors to the water-splashing pavilion over the three days of festivities ending Thursday. But even these vacationers will be forced to use less water than usual, says Yu Leong, a management-office employee.

Calmer celebrations might bring back to memory the real reason for all the splashing: the promise of rain. Chinese scholars often trace the Songkran festival back to India. Classic Hindu texts describe water-splashing as a means of washing away sin on the occasion of the New Year, when deities would visit the land of the living. Since at this time the gods are so close, it is also an opportune moment to ask for precipitation; splashing therefore becomes a way of praying for plenty. By sprinkling water, the Dai, like the Indians before them, should be attempting to entice rainfall. It is a most basic appeal, but one that is easily forgotten in the disorder of the holiday. Perhaps not this year, though. "When it rains during the New Year's festival, it's particularly auspicious," says Cable. "It's supposed to mean that the Dai will have a bountiful harvest in the coming year." The drought-hit people of Yunnan could use some good luck. But before bounty, they will have to make a fresh start.