Lugu Lake

This guide to Lugu Lake, on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan near Lijiang, opens with the dugout canoes tied at nearly every dock, and the delicate cargo they carried after dark for generations of Mosuo families. It traces the matrilineal households here, built around a grandmother, her daughters and their children under one roof, and the custom of walking marriage that lets a man visit but never move in. You'll hear what a decades-old survey of thousands of Mosuo men and women found about how long these relationships tend to last. Watch the water at dusk for a boat gliding out quietly toward a flower room upstairs.