ABSTRACT
It was the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the traditional Chinese day for celebrating romance, or 16 August 2010 by the Western calendar. I was in Lijiang, watching a colourful and noisy procession led by two people dressed as majestic, white-crowned cranes. Musicians beat gongs and drums and blew on a suona, a Chinese double-reeded horn. An old man with a flowing white beard, wearing a yellow vest and a long red gown covered with characters for longevity embroidered in white thread waved pine twigs in his hands; whatever incantations or blessings he may have been mumbling were drowned out by the band.
