Who Are the Dai People?
The Dai are a Tai-speaking ethnic group of approximately 1.3 million people inhabiting Yunnan Province in southern China, closely related to the Thai, Lao, and Shan peoples across the border. The Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, with its tropical climate, is their heartland. The Dai have practiced wet-rice agriculture and Theravada Buddhism for centuries, maintaining cultural connections with Southeast Asia despite Chinese political incorporation. Their Water Splashing Festival, Buddhist temples, and distinctive architecture attract significant tourism to the region.
Water Splashing Festival
The Water Splashing Festival (Songkran, or Poshui Jie in Chinese) is the Dai New Year, celebrated in mid-April. For three days, people splash water on each other for blessings—more water means more goodwill. Dragon boat races, peacock dances, and temple ceremonies accompany the festivities. The festival parallels Thai and Lao New Year, reflecting shared Tai heritage. Chinese tourism promotion has amplified the event enormously—modern celebrations draw hundreds of thousands of visitors, transforming a religious observance into a major tourist attraction while maintaining spiritual significance for Dai communities.
Theravada Buddhism
The Dai practice Theravada Buddhism, the southern Buddhist tradition also found in Thailand, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka—unique among Chinese minorities who typically practice Mahayana Buddhism or indigenous religions. Dai boys traditionally spend time as novice monks, and temples remain community centers. Buddhist manuscripts in Dai script preserve religious and literary traditions. The Cultural Revolution devastated temples and monasticism; revival since the 1980s has rebuilt many structures and restored religious practice, though the monkhood remains smaller than historically. Buddhism deeply influences Dai ethics, festivals, and daily life.
Stilt House Architecture
Traditional Dai architecture features bamboo stilt houses (ganlancun), elevated above ground level to cope with tropical heat, humidity, and flooding. The space beneath serves for storage, livestock, and shaded work areas. These distinctive structures, surrounded by tropical gardens and fruit trees, created picturesque villages now photographed by tourists. Modern development replaces bamboo with concrete while maintaining stilt house forms. Some villages preserve traditional architecture as heritage sites. The stilt house represents Dai adaptation to their specific environment—architecture shaped by climate and resources rather than Chinese models.
Peacock Dance
The Peacock Dance (Kongque Wu) is the Dai's signature performance art—graceful movements imitating the peacock, a sacred bird in Dai culture associated with beauty, happiness, and Buddha's teachings. Dancers wear elaborate peacock-inspired costumes with long tail feathers. The dance appears at festivals, welcoming ceremonies, and tourist performances. Master dancers like Mao Xiang became nationally famous, adapting traditional movements for stage performance. The peacock motif pervades Dai art—architecture, textiles, crafts all feature peacock imagery, making it the emblematic symbol of Dai identity.
References
- Hsieh, S. (1995). On the Dynamics of Tai/Dai-Lue Ethnicity
- Davis, S. (2005). Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China's Southwest Borders
- Borchert, T. (2008). Worry for the Dai Nation: Sipsongpanna, Chinese Modernity, and the Problems of Buddhist Modernism