Even Yunnan’s Best Dishes Fall Short of a Xishuangbanna Rainforest Picnic
In September 2024, friends and I also ventured into a tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna. While nature’s embrace certainly helped restore my energy, what truly lingered in my memory was something far more precious.
I. A Rainforest Sanctuary?
Historically known as ‘Youle Mountain’, Jinuo Mountain takes its name from the Jinuo ethnic group. Recognised as China’s last officially designated ethnic minority in 1979, the Jinuo people have inhabited these mountains since time immemorial, living and thriving here across generations.
After countless winding bends, we finally arrived at our destination — Jinuo Ethnic TownshipMozhuo Village. Two Jinuo friends had been waiting for quite some time and had even packed rain boots and mosquito coils for our hike.
One of the guides was named Saoqie. Dark-skinned and wearing a peaked cap, he was dressed in a white vest woven from the Jino people’s distinctive ‘machete cloth’, with a knife tucked into his belt. He solemnly ran through the hiking safety guidelines with us, looking rather like a soldier with a sidearm giving a pre-battle briefing.
Infectiously, his seriousness quickened my pulse. At the mention of bamboo vipers, I immediately braced myself, mentally preparing for what I had romanticised as the moment I would finally step into the ‘rainforest sanctuary’.
As it turned out, there was no breathless, awe-inspiring moment of tension. Around eleven o’clock, with the sun blazing overhead, we walked and talked easily, falling naturally into step behind Saoqie as we crossed into the rainforest.
Before we reached the rainforest, we passed through a sprawling rubber plantation, followed by fields of crops planted by Saoqie and other Jino villagers: maize, rice, tomatoes, and pumpkins.
I have harboured a constant affection for maize and cornfields for as long as I can remember. On trips back to my rural hometown in the northeast, the route always takes a turn onto a side lane bordered on both sides by tall maize. Every time I reach that stretch, a familiar rush of warmth overtakes me; I know that just beyond those fields, my family will be waiting.
So, as we walked through that patch of maize on Jino Mountain, my nerves settled into a quiet warmth. With that came a softening of the boundary between the farmland and the rainforest ahead.
We waded through the stream and carefully crossed a rickety log bridge, making slow but steady progress. At a fork in the path, Saoqie pointed ahead. ‘That route was developed by a tour company,’ he said. ‘We won’t be taking it.’
Eco-tourism began to take shape on Jino Mountain around 2021. Today, ten villages have welcomed 24 hiking operators, who have established 22 rainforest trails. The original routes were charted independently by villagers involved in a ‘tropical rainforest restoration project’. Later, the government stepped in to broker partnerships between the villagers and local Xishuangbanna tour companies, providing them with a steady stream of visitors and giving rise to the ‘Crossing the Rainforest’ adventure trek. In turn, many young people have returned to their villages to work as guides.
The reason we avoid that fork is simple: a tour company moved first, commercialising the path for city visitors seeking leisure. If Saoqie takes paying clients down that route, the company claims a cut of the base fee.
Xiao Qin, a friend of both ours and Saoqie’s, voiced his frustration. ‘It’s hardly fair when the land belongs to them in the first place,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I think Saoqie and the others are just too accommodating.’
My romanticised vision of the rainforest shattered right then.
It is no untouched sanctuary. The Jino people have called this land home for countless generations, living in a sustainable, symbiotic relationship with the environment. As society and the landscape change, the Jino community and their rainforest habitat continue to adapt, facing new hopes as well as new challenges.
II.“Everything Can Be Leaf-Wrapped and Grilled!”
Indeed, Saoqie looks a good ten years younger than his actual age. The stern figure I had imagined him to be before our trip had completely melted away, replaced by someone witty, warm, and genuinely approachable.
I quickly plucked an ant and dropped it into my mouth, making sure to crush it before it could bite my tongue. A tart, savoury tang spread across my palate, giving me a direct, visceral sense of the intimate bond between the Jino people’s way of life and this ecological homeland.
For centuries leading up to the 1950s, the Jino people developed an agricultural system rooted in “slash-and-burn cultivation”. Villagers divided their communal land into 13 plots, practising rotational swidden agriculture. Trees were felled in the dry season, and the brush was burned just before the rainy season arrived. Seeds were then sown directly into the ash-enriched soil. Each plot was cultivated for just one year, left to fallow after harvest, and the farming rotated to the next parcel, completing a full cycle over thirteen years.
Rotational fallowing allows the cleared forest to regenerate naturally, firebreaks prevent widespread blazes, and using wood ash as fertiliser eliminates the need for chemicals. Through this practice, the Jino people have cultivated a symbiotic, mutually sustaining relationship with the mountain forests.
For Saoqie, respecting and protecting nature is not just an abstract ideal, but a fundamental part of his lived experience and everyday routine. The Jino people hold an animistic worldview; as Saoqie puts it, “mountains have their own spirits, rivers have theirs, and trees have theirs.”
Along the trail, Saoqie effortlessly guided us through a botanical primer: begonias to cool the blood and staunch wounds, paederia to dispel wind and dampness, figs and mussaenda to moisten the lungs and relieve coughs, amomum (sha ren) for stomach complaints, and the familiar isatis root, to name but a few.
By midday, we finally reached a jungle hut (known to the Jino as a *senbulu*), where Saoqie’s family had already arrived and started tending the fire. Drenched in sweat and practically steaming under the sun, I eagerly pitched in to prepare the picnic ingredients, determined to prove I wasn’t just a soft-handed city dweller who knew nothing of the land.
For the Jino people, hunting and foraging have long been vital sources of sustenance. As Saoqie is fond of saying: in the rainforest, anything can be wrapped in leaves and roasted! This technique involves wrapping food in freshly picked banana leaves and roasting it over the open flame, yielding dishes such as leaf-wrapped pork, eggplant, or small fish. For this picnic, aside from the wild greens foraged along the trail, we also had to wade into the stream to catch our own ingredients.
Under Saoqie’s guidance, we braced ourselves and set to work.
First, we built a makeshift barrier out of mud, banana leaves, and stones to divert the stream. Armed with iron basins, we steadily bailed out the water from the shallower side. As the level dropped, the red-tailed fish, water scorpions, crabs, and frogs on the stream bed were left exposed, ready to be scooped up by hand. Saoqie reminded us that once we’d finished, we had to clear away the barrier promptly and restore the stream to its natural flow.
Judging by our pace, we were surely doomed to starve out in this rainforest, but thankfully we had Saoqie and our Jino friends to rely on. Embracing the mindset that ‘every scrap of meat is still meat’, I managed to wrestle a few scorpions and water bugs into my grasp. I’ll admit I was momentarily taken aback the moment I actually had them in my hands, but I kept my nerve and tucked them securely into my fishing basket.
While we were enthusiastically foraging in the stream, Saoqie on the bank had already set about felling a banana tree. To our Jino companions, it is a veritable treasure. As mentioned earlier, the broad leaves are perfect for the ‘wrapped and roasted’ cooking style; during our picnic, they also doubled as tablecloths. The pale, tender core within the trunk has a mildly astringent taste yet is excellent for quenching thirst, while the banana blossom can be stir-fried with minced meat.
Before we could quite take it in, the sprawling banana tree had been entirely dismantled according to these very uses, leaving me quietly impressed by the practical wisdom of the Jino people.
I lost track of how long we had been busy, but at last our open-air feast was ready. We sampled the roasted pork first, which drew unanimous praise; then came the bamboo shoot-wrapped meat and the wild river fish soup, both equally brilliant!
Saoqie grinned. ‘Do you know the secret to making our food taste so good?’ he asked, meeting a sea of puzzled faces. ‘It’s exhausting you first!’ He broke into his trademark booming laugh, and we all joined in.
We certainly savoured every bite, and our Jino hosts sang a traditional drinking song in our honour. I sensed a genuine, heartfelt joy woven into the melody, an intuition that was later confirmed during a chat with Saoqie.
Times have shifted. In the 1980s, Jino Mountain yielded to plantations of cash crops such as rubber, cardamom and tea. Today, rainforest trekking has taken hold with unabated popularity, yet few stop to consider how the daily lives of the Jino people have transformed beneath these successive waves of interest.
The Jino rarely venture into the hills for hunting and gathering these days. Home-grown vegetables and reared livestock cover a portion of their food requirements, while the rest is bought at the market. Yet during Saoqie’s youth, foraging and wild picnicking remained a fundamental part of their lifestyle.
Saoqie notes that when leading trekking groups, he must strictly adhere to the tour company’s schedule; visitors do not forage for ingredients themselves. He is pleased we were given the opportunity to grasp their traditions. Perhaps, in orchestrating these picnics, he is also indulging in his own nostalgia.
III. Farewell, Saoqie! Farewell, Rainforest!
Yet Saoqie carries his own burdens. He grieves the fading cultural identity among the younger Jino generation, and frets over his own inability to answer every question tourists throw at him. Even so, he remains deeply devoted to his work as a guide. He hopes to meet people from across the globe and share with them every blade of grass and every tree in the Xishuangbanna rainforest.
That evening, Saoqie shared a traditional Jino folk song with me that he holds dear. Set to haunting drumbeats, the lyrics speak not of the wild, but of mortal love:
Yet as I ponder, a tide of sorrowful resignation rushes forth
Welling in my chest, an ache that cuts to the bone
Deep within, there is but one face I cannot erase
The girl as bright and clear as a cloudless day
From that very first glance
You and I knew, hearts aligned, love at first sight
Drawn deeply to one another
……
Many years hence, when heaven returns my body to the earth
The heart that loves you shall never wither
Lying in the dark soil, it will still keep you in mind
Perhaps what we need to unlearn is not merely a narrow conception of the rainforest, but also the lens through which we view the Jino people. The rainforest is no static, untouched wilderness, nor are the Jino frozen in time. They continue to adapt and change through the course of actual history and daily routine. Genuine Jino culture is woven into the meanings and emotions of ordinary life.
Editor: Zeen