Mr. Xie lives in Dawan, a typical Dai village in province of Dehong that is part of a drug-smuggling route from Myanmar. In spring 2002, the authorities sent his son to a drug rehabilitation center in Chuxiong, leaving Mr. Xie and his wife to care for themselves. Although he battles illness, he has no money for hospital treatment. Meanwhile, harvest season approaches, but the sugar cane and corn crops are left untouched in the fields. This film is a potent commentary on the realities of ethnic minorities in contemporary China. The residents of the Tibetan village of Gebu have made their living handling long-distance transportation of goods, using caravans for both work and living. This film explores the caravan’s ages old custom of trade and travel, details the home life of the village, and portrays the hearts of the villagers today.

The art of Hani embroidery, traditionally passed down through generations of Hani women, is slowly vanishing. The film documents the process of the textile art, while also featuring the Hani women’s thoughts regarding this disappearing art form. ‘Gatangpa’ is the name of the Hani tribe’s New Year’s festival banned during the Cultural Revolution. This animation by Meilan, himself a young Hani man, attempts to recreate the Gatangpa festival while incorporating indigenous knowledge acquired through interviews with the surviving members of the Hani tribe. Through the use of cartoons—a new media—the film attempts to impart the significance of the tribe’s lost traditions to the next generation. Recently, a village of the Hani tribe embedded deep within the mountains has seen an upsurge of visitors who come to videotape the area, the villagers doing farm work in traditional ethnic clothing, and the beautiful terraced landscape of rice paddies that surrounds the area. When a television director arrives, the villagers are set on making money out of the ordeal . . .

In 1910, France built a railroad that connected its colony of Vietnam and Yunnan. Since then, the anonymous station in Yunnan has endured tumultuous social change, while sharing the weight of time and infinite darkness through the years with the local residents. A cine-poem created by a celebrated poet.

Mt. Kawakarpo is a sacred mountain worshipped by many Tibetans. Fascinated by this place since 1997, the director put aside his scholarly mindset as anthropologist and visited the mountain many times as a pilgrim. He captured on film the daily lives of the local people, the pilgrims and the natural landscape.

Food, drink, and music from Yunnan for 2,000 yen per person