Cliff Villages

Due to the mountainous terrain, many villages that lie among the mountain cliffs of Liangshan Yi are isolated from the rest of Sichuan. They are called cliff villages as they tend to be isolated and lie at vertical heights of about 800m (2,600 ft). Access to these cliff villages tends to be through vines of trees along the cliffs and steep ladders made of ropes. In 2016, the state run The Beijing News reported one such village called Atulie'er (阿土列尔村) where children climbed up a rope ladder for two hours to reach their home from school, often leading to falls and deaths. In light of this, the local government constructed a special steel ladder (dubbed "Stairway to heaven") in November 2016 for people to climb up and down in a safer manner.

The Yi Family

The lady was from one of the Yi villages up the mountain of Liangshan. We didn’t know anything about the Yi so we didn't ask many questions. She may have come from one of the “cliff villages”.

As we struck a conversation, we found out that she was nearly 80 years old. The hard to believe story was that her son-in-law and grandson brought her to Qionghai Lake so that she would se a large body of water of any kind. She was more than awestruck. Apparently, she never left her village.

Some of the photos you see Melissa conversing with them and laughing. We asked her how old she was. Then she asked how old Melissa was. We asked her to guess. She guessed nearly half her age. Everyone had a great laugh when we told her Melissa’s real age. I'm sure she had a story to tell her village upon her return.

The Yi's Unique Culture

Yellow and orange play a predominant role the Yi's color scheme. They also have a unique style of roofs. One unique aspect of the Yi culture is that whenever they resettle in a new location they take some of the stones from their home to the new area and place it on their roofs. It also serves as weight to keep the shingles of the roof weighted down. While the practice continues to this day, they now use pre-manufactures stones for their roofs. You can see this on bus stops, homes and any buildings.