Choo Waihong, author
SHE SPENDS SIX MONTHS A YEAR LIVING WITH A FEMINIST TRIBE
For the past seven years, Choo Waihong has spent six months a year living with a matriarchal tribe at the foothills of the Himalayas. For the Mosuo, marriage traditionally doesn’t exist, and men are mere studs to impregnate the women. Women head the household, and men only own land that’s passed down to them.
For Waihong, it was a refreshing departure from the life she had led as a corporate lawyer, always having to work harder than the male colleagues to prove herself.
The tribe’s glacial pace of life also taught her some important life lessons. “With the tribe, time is measured by the seasons, and the chores they have to do,” says Waihong, adding that this way of living taught her to stop watching the clock. “When work piles up, anxiety builds up. It took real effort to drop what I experienced every day.”
So charmed was she by her time with the tribe, she decided to build a traditional Mosuo house to stay in whenever she visits. When she’s there, she helps out during harvest season, and sometimes waits tables at a friend’s restaurant.
Waihong has since chronicled her experiences in a book called The Kingdom
of Women, documenting the tribe’s distinct culture, and her personal journey with them.
She says she’s had no regrets giving up corporate life, as she now has time to give back. Waihong currently volunteers with a group that helps foreign workers here, and one day hopes to build a vocational school for the Mosuo.