Standing on a high mountain above the east bank of the Honghe River, you will be swathed in the rolling magic cloud sea of the Ailao Mountains. In the brief gaps when the clouds disperse, you can see the Honghe River in the deep valley below, thin as a winding thread, weaving its way through the huge, naked-rock mountains.

It was the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, a time when the Hani people in the mountains had finished planting rice and were now welcoming the return of the God. The peima (Hani priest) is the busiest person in the village at this time. When elders follow ancestral tradition by holding memorial ceremonies for the God who protects land, people, crops and livestock, the peima acts as an intermediary between the human and the divine; he uses long historical poems or short eulogies to call on and console owners of land, and sends best wishes both to the greening rice plants and to all the village households.

This place, in the heart of the Ailao Mountains, is called Dayangjie and is located in Honghe County, Yunnan Province. Its inhabitants are known as the Yeche, a branch of the Hani ethnic minority. The Ailao Mountains are an eastern spur of the Yunling Mountains, the watershed between the Hengduan Mountains in the west of Yunnan and the palteau in the east of the province. Moist warm air currents moving eastward from the Indian Ocean meet the barrier of the Ailao Mountains where they are transformed into abundant rain and fantastic cloud sea spectacles, moistening and nurturing the splendid terraces on the Ailao Mountains.

Yeche villagers, as with other branches of the Hani and the Yi minorities living in the Ailao Mountains, are usually located at mid-level on the mountain slopes. Higher up the mountain are forests and below are the terraced fields like stairways to Heaven, stretching from deep down in the river valleys up the mountain slopes to 2,000 meters and more above sea level. The terraces stretch their way, hugging the form of the mountainside, connecting several mountains together. The smallest terraces at the steepest spots are only about two square meters in area. Apart from the words of the peima's songs, there are no written records to show when the Ailao Mountain terraces were first constructed. In any case, a project of this magnitude could not have been achieved in a day.

The rainy season was imminent, and the clouds massed in the Ailao Mountains were heavier with wetness. As the clouds moved lightly past, it was hard to tell if they were rain or fog. The fog had a taste to it - carrying the breath of all the trees, flowers and grasses in the forests. It carried sound with it too, of insects crawling among leaves, of little birds shaking their wings and of clear water dripping from ancient towering trees. One's vision, every human sense was mobilized in this dense fog. This was a place to move the soul.