Buddhist world: Last Women's Kingdom (video)

Brent Huffman, PBS Frontline; CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly

SHANGRI LA adjacent, China - Free love culture? Tantric sex for all with no marriage? A Han Chinese (Mahayana) tourist haven in a Tibetan Buddhist (Vajrayana) outpost? Not exactly, but close.

 

Keepers of one of the last matriarchal societies in the world, Mosuo women (Moso, Na) in this remote area of southwest China live beyond the strictures of mainstream Chinese culture -- enjoying great freedoms and shouldering heavy responsibilities.

Mosuo woman tailor (Gisling)

Beautifully shot and featuring intimate interviews, this short documentary offers a rare glimpse into a society virtually unheard of ten years ago and now often misrepresented in the media.
 

Mosuo women control their own finances and do not marry or live with partners. They engage in sex freely in a practice they call "walking marriage." A man may be invited into a woman's hut to spend a "sweet night," but he must leave by daybreak. The woman is in charge.
 

Women and men are equal.

While tourism has brought wealth and 21st century conveniences to this remote area, it has also introduced difficult challenges to the Mosuo culture -- from pollution in the lake, to the establishment of brothels, to mainstream ideas about women, beauty, and family.

This finely wrought film by Xiaoli Zhou and Brent E. Huffman. is a sensitive portrayal of extraordinary women struggling to hold on to their extraordinary society.

• VIDEO: Frontline (pbs.org)

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Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Nermeen Shaikh (DemocracyNow.org)

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