Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia by A. Terry Rambo & Kathleen Gillogly & Karl L. Hutterer

Author:A. Terry Rambo & Kathleen Gillogly & Karl L. Hutterer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies

Map 6.1 Approximate distribution of Orang Asli groups (after Benjamin 1985)

CHAPTER 7

PLANT PRODUCTS AND ETHNICITY IN THE MARKETS OF XISHUANGBANNA, YUNNAN PROVINCE, CHINA

Pei Sheng-ji

Ancient Chinese documents have convincingly shown that, for at least the past 2,000 years, trade has played an important role in the economy of southwestern Yunnan Province. Trade among the Dai (T'ai) people, the Han Chinese, and small groups of mountain tribes has been of particular significance. The trade in Puer tea provides a good example of this phenomenon.

“Puer tea” is a commercial name for a broadleaf tea plant (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) that has long been one of the most important native products of Xishuangbanna prefecture in southwestern Yunnan. The tea plant may have originated in this part Of China where it was eventually domesticated by the Xishuangbanna natives several thousand years ago. Even now in certain areas that are maintained as natural forest lands, visitors can find scattered remnants of primitive tea plantations containing tea trees hundreds of years old and roughly 10 to 20 meters tall. The contrast of these old plantations with contemporary Chinese tea plantations is very striking.

Native farmers collect young shoots with leaves from tea trees all year round and process them into crude tea for sale in local markets. In 1936 about 3 million kilograms of Puer tea were produced in Xishuangbanna1 (Zheng 1981). Until the 1950s, Han Chinese traders came from Puer city to purchase and transport this crude tea by horsetrain back to Puer, about 150 miles away, where it was processed into “bricks" or loose tea in family workshops. The processed tea was then distributed throughout the rest of Yunnan Province, shipped in large quantities to Tibet and Sichuan, and traded to markets in Guangdong and Hong Kong. The Dai word for the tea is yela, but it is known as “Puer” tea, rather than yela or Xishuangbanna tea, in markets and teahouses throughout China.

Puer tea played an important role in the historical development of economic and political ties among the many ethnic groups of Xishuangbanna and the Han Chinese, the Bai, and the Tibetan peoples of other parts of the country. Tea transport to distant Dali district in northwest Yunnan Province and trade with the Bai people2 had already begun 1,200 years ago during the Tang dynasty (Zheng 1981). The tea was later traded to Tibet and became an indispensable drink to the Tibetans. In exchange, the Tibetans supplied horses to ancient Xishuangbanna in what was called an “exchange of tea and horses” (cha-ma-jiao-hua). Subsequent to the seventeenth century, Puer tea was available throughout the country and its fame brought an onrush of merchants to Xishuangbanna.

The Qing government (A.D. 1644–1911) set up its Official Tea Bureau at Simao near Puer to control the tea trade andto collect taxes. Branch offices were opened in every tea growing area and the tea growers exchanged crude tea for salt from merchants at the rate of approximately 100 kilograms of crude tea for each kilogram of salt. Today, however, the

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