Village Life Beyond Urban Kunming
Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwestern China, borders Lake Dianchi, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the region, which has historically played a crucial role in the area’s development and local culture.
lOn September 5, 2009, while we were still living in Kunming (where we stayed from 2005 to 2012), we took our car and ventured into the mountains along the western side of Lake Dianchi, near the city’s southern shore, to escape the urban bustle. We stopped at the foot of a village not far from the lake’s edge and began exploring the area, as we often did on our photography outings.
I can’t recall the village’s name, but it was not far from a blue painted mountain, similar to the well-known green-painted mountain in Fumin County. The Fumin’s ‘Green Mountain’ earned its name quite literally when local officials ordered workers to spray-paint its barren slopes green to improve its appearance and ostensibly meet environmental standards. This incident, which occurred in the Fumin District of Kunming, Yunnan Province, became a viral sensation, symbolizing superficial environmental protection efforts in China and drawing widespread mockery and criticism on social media. In the case of the blue mountain depicted below, I’m not entirely sure about the reason behind this decision—perhaps it was dictated by environmental protection concerns, or maybe it was a clumsy attempt to harmonize the mountain with the surrounding landscape.
It was a traditional Chinese village where we were followed around by curious children for much of our walk, while elderly residents busied themselves working in the fields and around their homes. The village gardens were filled with dahlias in full bloom, alongside many other ornamental flowers that local residents carefully tended.
After leaving the village, we followed a path that gently wound up the slopes of the mountain overlooking the settlement. We came across some ruins covered in brambles and bushes, with countless sunflowers growing among them.
Continuing along the path, we reached the Fengyang Temple (鳳陽寺, Fèng Yáng Sì), built in 2004 in the traditional style, accompanied by a smaller shrine carved into the hillside. This Buddhist temple, likely dedicated to Amitabha Buddha given the presence of the name Āmítuófó inscribed there, is characteristic of rural China, especially in Yunnan, where Buddhism is widespread and often integrated with local folk practices.
On our way back to the car, we drove a few kilometers into the mountains until we accidentally discovered a plantation of Mexican marigolds (Tagetes erecta) and sunflowers. These marigolds, known as wan shou ju (万寿菊) in Chinese, are extensively cultivated in the Kunming area for various purposes: they’re used in livestock feed additives due to their high lutein content, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and for ornamental and religious purposes. The flower fields stretched across the entire valley, creating an almost fairytale-like landscape. Dominique wandered through the fields with her new Spinner 360 camera, capturing experimental panoramic shots among the flowers. In the fields, farmers were working, and occasionally a donkey-drawn cart would pass by with farmers riding on it.
Topics: where to see marigold fields in Kunming, rural Buddhist temples near Lake Dianchi, traditional village life around Kunming, painted blue mountain Kunming incident, Fengyang temple Kunming location, marigold cultivation Yunnan province, rural agriculture practices Kunming area, mountain villages near Lake Dianchi, Buddhist practices in rural Yunnan, traditional farming methods Kunming region
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