History and Old Towns: Tengchong

There is a village near Tengchong that is famous for jade. It’s our intended destination for the day, but the jade shops are crowded with Chinese tourists. We gravitate into the old town, where the people live, instead.

There’s a woman washing her laundry in three successive cement vats built into the street, water flowing in one side from clearest to soapiest. A man sits outside in the afternoon sunlight building low chairs from slabs of wood.

This story is the continuation of a series that begins here.