Between October 2006 and October 2007, PCD organized a series of activities called “Community Health Walk” in three counties in Yunnan, namely Songming, Menghai in Xishuangbanna , and Deqin. Tibetan from Deqin, Miao people from Songming, and Blang (or Bulang) and Ani people (a branch of Akha or Hani) from Menghai came together in these activities to share each other’s cultural perspectives on “health”.

In the perspectives of these four ethnic groups, health does not only mean the health of human beings. Instead it means the peace and health condition of the whole ecological system of which human beings is only a part. In their discussion, they came to a consensus that human beings and the ecology will enjoy health only when there is a combination of a healthy ecological environment (including air, soil, water and forest), a healthy production and working environment, and a healthy community (including public hygiene and the spirit of the community). Each ethnic group then has its own unique understanding and explanation of what health means to them.

Miao people: “Health means community solidarity.”In Miao concepts, the community needs a good leader (tou ren in ethnic customs or an administrative leader) to lead and to unite the community to cope with external stress from markets or other sources. They believe that members of their community will be healthy only when everyone and every family are in good terms and wish each other well and trust each other. And it is only when human beings are healthy could they create a healthy ecological environment, a healthy production and work environment, and a healthy community.

Tibetan: “To be healthy is not to harm any living things.”: Tibetan Buddhism teaches Tibetan people that nature is composed of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. If human beings harm or destroy any one element, human beings will not be able to survive. Under the premise is not to harm any living things, human beings should treat animals and plants well, and the environment which all living things rely on for their existence. One should also consider how others could be affected by one’s action. For example, when people living upstream of a river throw rubbish into the water and pollute it, people downstream will be drinking unclean water and fell sick as a result. It is the actions of people upstream that lead to the ill health of people living downstream. For this reason, people living upstream are also unhealthy.

Blang people: “To be healthy is to have peace.” Blang people have many kinds of rites in their everyday life. For example, they have to wear their own traditional costumes, new born children have to have li (ritual ceremony), and boys have to be educated in monasteries, etc. They believe that only when one has kept all the rites would they have peace, and only then would their bodies be free of sickness and pain. When a family has a ritual ceremony, the young people will return from where they are working to join. They believe that only when people in the community help each other would there be a healthy community.

Ani people: “To be healthy is to have a comfortable environment.” In one of the Community Health Walks held in Xishuangbanna, Ani people made a body sculpture that symbolised an unhealthy asbestos house and trees. What they wanted to say was that human beings and animals would be healthy only if they could breathe clean air and when they lived in places surrounded by green trees. Their belief has to do with the environment in which Ani people of Menghai live. Ani people had lived on slash-and-burn farming at the border of China and Burma which was covered with forest. Later, due to change of policy related to forest management, they became “settled farmers”. However, this change has to certain extent led to the destruction of the forest environment affecting the health of all.

The different understanding of the four ethnic groups about health not only allow us to recognize the diversity of traditional cultures, but also free us from the dominating narrow outlook on health. When human beings put ourselves above all living things, we fail to see ourselves as part of nature. We have got only the health of human beings in mind and fail to see the health of all other beings, and the close connection between the two. Because of this human beings have been recklessly destroying nature, contaminating the soil, maltreating animals and ignoring the importance of human relationship. All these are the causes of sickness! The understanding of health in the traditional culture of these four ethnic groups (and also that of many other people) is a source from which we could learn.