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Bulangs get three wedding days
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IT is always said that the wedding ceremony will be the biggest day for any girl in the world, but for the Bulang girls, they can have three by marrying their only life companions.
With a population of 119,639, Bulang ethnic group mostly live in Menghai and Jinghong counties in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. Some other Bulang people also dwell in the Lincang and Simao regions.
“Puren” or “Puman” who were recorded dwelling around the Laicang (Mekong) River and Nu River basin since ancient times are said to be the origin of the Bulang people. They were once addressed as “Puziman,” “Puman” and “Puzi” in different dynasties in Chinese history. They were officially named “Bulang” since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Their language belongs to the Bulang language branch of the Menggaomian group of the South Asian language family. There are two different dialects, with the Bulang dialect mainly spoken in Xishuangbanna, and the Wu dialect spoken in Lincang and Simiao areas.
The Bulang villages are scattered in mountain areas with semi-tropical climate at about 1,500 to 2,300 meters above sea level.
The Bulangs enjoy a rich resource of animals, plants and minerals. It is one of the homes of the famous Pu'er tea.
Bamboo plays an important role in the Bulang culture. The Bulangs traditionally live in bamboo houses on stilts.
The house is usually a two-story building, with the upper one for the family and the bottom for supplies. A fireplace is set in the center of the second floor as the sitting room, while the bedrooms are set around.
A bamboo building can usually stay in use for 20 years and require an overhaul of the roof with new straw every two years. Every villager will offer help when a new house is built and hold celebrations when it is completed.
The bamboo is also made into furniture, tools and even artistic items in the hands of Bulang people.
The Bulangs take rice as their staple food, supplemented by maize, beans, and wheat. They prefer sour flavors. Pickled sour meat, fish and vegetables are among their favorites, and they even make their tea sour.
The tea makers boil fresh tea leaves first and cool them until they become sour, then put them into bamboo tubes before airproofing the tubes. They then cover the tubes with bamboo and bury them in earth. After three or four months, sour tea is ready to serve.
Beef, mutton, pork and chicken are among the most common meats for the Bulangs, while they are also fond of wild flavors including insects. Fried spider and cicada are among the favorites.
Home-made wines are especially popular among the Bulang people. “Jade wine,” which is filtered by a particular regional plant, looks as green and beautiful as jade.
Many Bulang people’s teeth are black as they like chewing tobacco slices together with betel leaves.
The Bulangs’ clothing is mainly blue and black for both men and women. Bulang men traditionally wear collarless jackets with buttons down the front and loose trousers. They also wear turbans of black or white cloth.
Women in the Xishuangbanna area wear collarless jackets and tight skirts. Their jacket is usually short and embroidered on the edges.
Young women tie their hair into buns and cover it with layers of colorful cloth with flowers on the hair.
The Bulang people enter their adulthood at the age of 15 through a special ritual — teeth dying. In this ritual, young men help young women to dye their teeth with black ashes from burned leaves of jute chestnut tree. Then young women do the same for the young men. It is not until they have had their teeth dyed that they are eligible for social outings and dating.
The Bulang people have two to three wedding ceremonies. After the first ceremony, the husband spends the night at his wife’s home while working at his own parents’ home during the day.
After the second ceremony, the wife will officially move to the husband’s house and live with the family. A third wedding ceremony will be held after the first baby is born.
The Bulangs mainly believe in Hinayana (Little Vehicle Buddhism). Buddha temple can be found on the top sites of almost every village.
According to the Bulang custom, a boy must go to a Buddha Temple to become a monk when he is 13 or 14 years old, and be secularized years later. A man has to fulfil this deputy before he is entitled to get married and have children, and to obtain social status.
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