Dai villages are all near the water's edge of Pingba, on both sides of the river by the stream and around lakes and swamps. Where there are bamboo and green trees, there must be Dai villages. There are two or three hundred families living in the big stockade, and there are only one or twenty families in the small village. Houses are single buildings, surrounded by open spaces, and each family has its own yard. There are many earth-walled bungalows on the border of Longteng, and each house has three rooms, which are divided into bedroom and living room. This is obviously influenced by the Han people, and it is no longer an inherent form of the Dai people. The boundary of Sipu is all bamboo buildings and wooden frames, where people live above and livestock live below. The style is similar to a big tent, which is completely consistent with the situation of "nesting in South Vietnam" recorded in Huainanzi, and it is also the "dry column" residence of the ancient Liao people who lived by trees and building blocks recorded in historical books. This is a typical Dai architecture. This bamboo building is about seven or eight feet high, with four uncovered columns with horses and cattle tied to them. There is a terrace on the upper floor near the ladder, which has become a long big room, and a corner is separated by a bamboo fence, which is the bedroom of the host and the storage place of important money and things. What's left is a big bay with a low roof and sloping sides. The eaves are on the floor, so there are no windows. If the eaves are slightly higher, there are small windows on both sides and doors at the back. In the center of the building is a fire pit. Whether in winter or summer, making tea and cooking day and night, it is on this fire, and the host and guest get together and talk or squat or sit around the stove. The roof is covered with thatch and the floors of beams, columns, doors and windows are all made of bamboo. This kind of house is extremely easy to build. Cut down the big bamboo, call the neighbors to help each other, and it will be built in a few days. But it is also easy to rot, and it needs to be repaired after the rainy season every year. Toastmasters' houses are mostly made of wood instead of bamboo, and the style is still like bamboo buildings, only a little higher, and instead of thatched roofs, they use tile roofs. In Xishuangbanna, Dai people can burn their own tiles, which are like fish scales, three inches square and only two or three minutes thin. There are hooks on one side of each tile, and bamboo strips are nailed horizontally on the rafters of the roof, with an interval of about two inches. Tiles are hung on bamboo strips like fish scales, and the roofs of Dai people can't climb up. If you need to replace the tiles, just put your hand under the rafters and break the tiles. Anyone who lives in this kind of house is a big family in the village, that is, Xuanwei yamen in the car. There are so many architectural styles, but the area is much larger than the common Dai folk wooden buildings. The whole building consists of 120 large wooden columns, which are more than ten meters long and seven or eight feet wide. The upstairs is divided into several rooms of different sizes, surrounded by walkways, but without windows, it is dark and there is no shelter downstairs. I only see 120 big wooden columns arranged neatly. This kind of houses where people live above and cattle and horses are raised below are common in southwest frontier areas, such as Hani, Jingpo, Yi, Miao, Yao and Li, and so are residential buildings, but the lower floors are mostly made of stone or mud. The bamboo building of the Dai nationality is empty on all sides of the lower floor. Every morning, when the cows and horses come out of the cowshed, they will remove the feces, so that people living in the upper floors will not be smoked by the dirty air.
The furniture at home is very simple, and most of it is made of bamboo. All the tables, chairs, beds, boxes, cages and baskets are made of bamboo. Every family has simple quilts and tents, and occasionally blankets, lead iron, farm tools and pot knives imported from Myanmar are only used, which are rare and redundant. Pottery tools are also very common, and the patterns of water tanks are all local.
Dai people have lived in bamboo houses for more than 1000 years.
Dai bamboo houses are dam-shaped. Because of the hot and humid weather, most bamboo houses are surrounded by mountains and waters. Outside the village, banyan trees cover the sky and the air roots hang low; There are rows of bamboo buildings in the village, surrounded by bamboo fences and shaded by trees; Manwell field Village and Ganlan Dam in Jinghong County are the standard types of Dai bamboo buildings in the dam area.
In the past, Dai bamboo houses were divided into official bamboo houses and ordinary bamboo houses according to social class. The official bamboo building is spacious and tall, square, with a triangular pyramid roof, which is quite similar to the western "Gothic" building, with sawdust at the top. The whole bamboo building is supported by 20 to 24 thick wooden columns, which are built on stone piers, and some beams are carved in the shape of dragons or bows, which is the result of Buddhist culture, especially in temples and pavilions in Myanmar. The cross beam in the house passes through the column, and the structure is simple. After climbing the wooden ladder, it is the "palm room". The master room is a guest room, with a fireplace in the middle and two or three rooms on the side, which are the bedrooms of the master, the couple and the children. The official bamboo building guest room covers an area of about 30 square meters and can accommodate 10 to 20 people. The palm room is covered with mats, which is a place for enjoying the cool and spinning for women.
Folk bamboo houses are the same as official bamboo houses, but they are smaller. The roof is covered with thatch, and wooden columns are not allowed to use the feet of stone piers, nor are they allowed to cross columns with beams, nor are they allowed to carve patterns.
Why do Dai people love bamboo houses rather than bungalows? In the Yuan Dynasty, Jing Li had already made a reply in the Annals of Yunnan. The book says: "There are all kinds of gold teeth ... and the weather is hot and humid, and there are many bamboo buildings. I live by the river and take ten baths a day." It turns out that the wonderful use of the bamboo house is that it can keep out the humidity below, keep out the heat above and be close to the river bank, and it can take ten baths a day.