Word: dai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...When the Red Guards ran riot in 1966, Chai's parents, like thousands of Xishuangbanna's Dai tribespeople, packed up what they could carry, along with their five children, and set off on foot. They made it past the border, trudged bandit-infested goat tracks through Burma, and didn't stop until they reached the Thai border town of Mae Sai. "Growing up in Thailand, I was fascinated by my parents' stories of home," says Chai, 37. "So when I was 17, I came back." He found work as a goldsmith, obtained a Chinese ID card, and last March opened...
...Xishuangbanna is seen as a kind of backyard Thailand by the Chinese, with 2.5 million mainlanders visiting last year to marvel at its tropical lushness and vibrant minorities. "A lot of Thais are coming now too, many to revisit their Dai roots," says Chai...
...DAI-HARD There's a murmur, then a babble and then suddenly a roar, and I'm sitting soggy-shoed in a wicker chair, clutching a pink parasol, almost a foot under water. This is white-water rafting, Xishuangbanna-style. Granted, the rapids on this particular stretch of the Nam Baan river, a chocolatey tributary of the Mekong, don't quite deliver Grand Canyonesque white-knuckle thrills. But when you're sitting in a wobbly chair, sliding around atop 20-odd lengths of bamboo lashed together with twine, any white water is, frankly, too much...
...wails as we scud past an exposed rock, and I prepare to abandon ship. As we slide over the last of the rapids into blessed calm water, I am relieved to remember that a serenade from these silk-swathed gondoliers was part of the deal. Both are Dai tribespeople, but they're singing their hearts out in Mandarin. "This is a famous Chinese song about a boy and a girl who fall in love under a tree," explains Ee Kan. "I wish I could sing a Dai song for you, but we'd be in big trouble if the government...
...Baan, as the Dai call it (Luosuo Jiang on Chinese maps) is about two hours' drive from Jinghong. The first part of the trip is scarier than the rafting: a twisting road dips and soars above the furious foamy rush of the Mekong's narrow gorges. Just when you're wishing you had found time to write your last will and testament, though, the road eases off into long, straight runs through rice paddies, and the previous hour's terror is left behind?much like the worst moments of river rafting, once the boat reaches calm waters. "We do fall...