The Yunnan Nationalities Village (Yunnan Minzucun) is located on the northeastern shore of Dianchi Lake and is a good place to show visitors to Yunnan the culture and traditions of the numerous ethnic groups in the province. In the Village compound, 25 different independent villages have been planned, but at present only about 20 have been constructed. In addition to these "ethnic villages", there are activities that take place such as a welcoming ceremony with performing White Elephants, the Dinosaur Island theme park area, a concert area for ethnic singing and dancing performances, as well as an Asian Elephant show in the Plaza of Ethnic Unity. The climax of a visit to the Nationalities Park is a film shown on a fountain of water. The "villagers" are all chosen from the youth of the relevant nationalities to act as guides and performers for tourists. The three major villages represent the Dai, the Bai and the Yi nationalities.The Bai Nationality Village:The Bai Village is famous for its Butterfly Museum, which is the biggest of its kind in China. The museum is a typical Bai construction, which is comprised of rooms and residences on three sides and a wall on the southern side. The southern wall is typically decorated quite beautifully with an ornate flower bed. Part of the reason for this architecture is that Dali (where a majority of Bais live) is a windy town, where the wind, while not very strong, blows all year round. Also in the Village, there is a replicated temple dedicated to the God of Erhai Lake (modeled after a temple in Dali). The young warrior, enshrined in the temple, was known as Duan Chicheng. He exterminated evil villains and spirits for the Bai people and has been worshipped as the safeguard of the Bai people around Dali ever since. If you burn several sticks of incense to him, you may also gain his protection, but we'd recommend trying it at the real temple in Dali.Welcome to Yunnan. Now we are on the way to the Yunnan Nationalities Village. As we will be there in a few minutes, let me give you a brief introduction about Yunnan.Yunnan has a very long history and ancient civilization. The creators of this wonderful land are not any others but26 nationalities who have been living on this land. Thereare altogether 56 nationalities in China, and 25 ethnic minorities are living in Yunnan Province. Yunnan is the only province in China where there are so many nationalities, and 15 of 26 nationalities can only be found in Yunnan. As Yunnan has so many nationalities, it has lots of different cultures. If you want to have a general idea of them, it is not practical to travel around all the areas. Then what you can do is what we are doing now; let’s visit Yunnan Nationalities Village! That’s why we built the “Yunnan Nationalities Village”. We can say, “They kill several birds with one stone”. The Yunnan Nationalities Village is now an important resort in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. It is located on the lakeshore of Dianchi Lake, the bright Pearl on the Plateau in the south of Kunming and occupies 1340 mu. In the Yunnan Nationalities Village 25 villages are meant to be built for each of the 25 ethnic minorities in Yunnna, now they are still under construction, only 13 villages have been finished, and we can visit them. In the village you can watch the song and dance performance given by different nationalists. And you willenjoy the beautiful scenes made by the blue sky, green trees, colourful flowers and so on. OK, now we are at the Yunnan Nationalities Village. The main gate is just over there. See? There are some white elephants wondering along the fields. They are singing to welcome you. The first spot we will get to is the Dai Nationalities Village. This village is a miniature of the Dai area with 3 sides facing waters and beautiful scenery. The population of the Dai Nationality is more than 1 million, mainly living in the Xishuangbanna and Dehong prefecture. “Dai” this word refers to “freedom” in the Dai language. So we often regard Dai nationality as a free nationality. The religion of the Dai Nationality is Hinayana, a sectionof Buddhism. The Dai people will feel proud if their boycan be a monk. It is a common practice to send 7~8 years old boys off to the temples to learn to read and write and chant scriptures as a form of schooling. Some of them become monks, while most of them return to secular life at the age of 20, which they call “becoming a real man”. The Dai people mostly living on the plains, near rivers of streams. They love waters and swimming. The Dais have a rich and colorful culture, their own language, and some famous literary works as well. By the way,peacocks and elephants are the auspicious animals for the Dai people. This is a typical Dai’s house with two storeys. The upper storey serves as the living room, while the lower storey, without walls, is used as a storehouse and for keeping livestock. Let’s go upstairs. Here is the living ro。