Yunshe Tujia Folk Culture Village

Yunshe Tujia Folk Culture Village

Yunshe Tujia Folk Culture Village

Yunshe, located just 5 kilometers from Jiangkou County, is an administrative village in Taiping Tujia and Miao Township, Jiangkou County. The village is predominantly inhabited by the Yang family of the Tujia ethnic group and is the first Tujia folk culture village approved by Guizhou Province, earning the title “No. 1 Tujia Village in China.”

The people of Yunshe are descendants of the Yang family of the Xixi Tusi (hereditary native chieftain). The nearly 700-year-old Tusi system nurtured the splendid Tujia folk culture and ecological heritage of Yunshe.

Tongzi houses are the most distinctive ancient Tujia architecture in Yunshe. Their structure typically consists of a main house, side rooms, a wooden upper floor, and a front gate, all enclosed by walls, hence also called “fireproof tongzi.” Generally, the overall layout of a Yunshe tongzi house is square, higher in the north and lower in the south. The upper part is the main house, which includes a central hall and left and right wing rooms, while the lower part is the upper floor. Some are interconnected on all sides with an open space in the center, forming a four-cornered courtyard. These houses are mostly built with a brick-and-wood structure, with courtyards and stair edges paved in bluestone slabs. The surroundings feature high brick walls with bluestone bases, sloping outward when viewed from the side, all adorned with upturned eaves. The stair edges and stone bases are often decorated with exquisite carvings, and the railings and window lattices frequently feature hollowed-out wood carvings of landscapes, plants, insects, fish, and birds, all vividly lifelike. In architectural paintings and carvings, the white tiger is a common theme, reflecting the totem worship of the Tujia people in Yunshe.

In the Tujia marriage customs of Yunshe, the groom’s family must go through a series of rituals—including asking a matchmaker to propose, “burning a grand incense” and setting off firecrackers for the betrothal, paying New Year visits, asking for the bride’s birth date, and delivering betrothal gifts—before they can organize the bridal procession on the day of the bride’s “flower banquet feast.” Led by an escort official, the procession carries a bridal sedan chair, accompanied by music, making its way to the bride’s home. But upon reaching the bride’s front gate, the sedan must stop because the bride’s side has already arranged for a large square table to block the entrance. One side wants to enter, the other wants to block—the most distinctive part of Tujia wedding customs, the “gate-blocking ceremony,” where the matchmakers from both sides engage in a battle of etiquette and eloquence. The groom’s matchmaker must win the verbal contest to be allowed entry; otherwise, he must crawl under the table. Once the bridal sedan is carried into the bride’s home, the bride, already dressed in dew clothes and dew skirt, wearing a red headscarf, is helped out of her room by two women and brought to the main hall to perform the farewell ceremony. At this time, women from the bride’s family, covering their faces with scarves, sing the “crying marriage song” outside the hall. Then, the bride’s brother, wearing a carrying cloth, lifts the bride onto his back and carries her to the sedan. After the bride is seated, three ceremonial firecrackers are set off, and the matchmaker shouts “Lift the sedan!” as firecrackers and music sound together. The bearers carry the sedan out, jolting along the way, bringing the bride to the groom’s home for the wedding ceremony.

Shenlong Pool, also known as Yunshe Spring, commonly called Longtan or Rhinoceros Pool, is a gravity spring with an extremely deep spring eye that serves as the outlet of an underground river. The spring water flows through the village into the Taiping River, and the section in between is called Longtan River, stretching 0.8 kilometers in length, and is known as the shortest river in the world. Shenlong Pool has two wonders: first, its unfathomable depth. In the past, over 30 young villagers once tied together baskets of ropes to form a long cord, tied a large stone to the end, and sank it into the pool in an attempt to measure its depth—but the bottom was never found. Second, it can predict the weather. After a long spell of clear weather, if the pool’s water rises, rain will come within a few days; after prolonged rain, if the water recedes, clear weather will return in a few days. Shenlong Pool has a large water flow and excellent water quality, sweet and refreshing, and has since ancient times been the lifeblood of the Tujia people in Yunshe for drinking, daily use, and farmland irrigation.

Traditional handmade papermaking is one of the main sources of income for Yunshe Village. This valuable traditional craft has accompanied the village for hundreds of years, forming a profound papermaking culture in Yunshe. Surrounded by high mountains and steep ridges, Yunshe Village boasts lush bamboo forests. Shenlong Pool within the village and the Taiping River in front of it flow year-round with cheerful streams. The ancestors of Yunshe valued this geomantically auspicious land, relocated here, and made a living through papermaking, passing down the craft through generations.

Due to Yunshe’s long history and rich cultural heritage, there are many linguistic stories related to the life and customs of the villagers, giving rise to a colorful array of proverbs and two-part allegorical sayings. Examples include “Yunshe people playing dragon lanterns — mute dragon (fool or idiot)” and “Yunshe people counting cart tubes — tired to the core,” which reflect important aspects of the Tujia people’s life and customs in Yunshe.

With a history of nearly 700 years, Yunshe is a living history book of Tujia culture and a treasure trove of exceptionally rich tourism resources. With the rapid development of tourism along Guizhou’s eastern route, the value of Yunshe as the No. 1 Tujia Village in China is becoming increasingly prominent.

Address: Jiangkou County, Tongren City, Guizhou Province

Opening Hours:

9:00-18:00

Ticket: 100 RMB