[^i] The Gaoligong Mountains divide the Nu River and Irrawaddy River systems, where several continental plates converge.¹ This region nurtures a botanical diversity and varied soil types distributed vertically. This means that distinct life stories unfold at different elevations across varying slopes.

Perched at 1,800 metres, Heifeishu Village, which translates to “black flying squirrel,” was the highest settlement I reached in the Gaoligong Mountains. Its name references a bygone ecology—once rich with flying squirrels and the dense forests they depended on—and the villagers’ former way of life—hunting these creatures, then smoking and drying their meat. Today, the squirrels are gone, but the villagers’ timber-framed houses remain, their worn structures reflecting the region’s ecological shifts.

We initially came to document the traditional baishi singing practice of the local Lisu people.² This singing tradition involves improvised expression in a set of conventions, demanding both physical stamina to sustain its rigorous vocal style and a mastery of Lisu linguistics to channel a deeply emotional charge. In Heifeishu Village, the keepers of this tradition were a handful of women like Shuohuama. She is nearly sixty and always smokes a pipe on her breaks. She has a gift for improvising her thoughts by singing. Beyond that, we knew little about her—we didn’t even know her real name. People called her Shuohua ma, which means “Shuohua’s mother.”

Shuohuama always rises first in the morning. In the house built around the hearth, she simmers corn porridge, then slips out back to feed the cattle. Around eight in the morning, her friends—the wives of her husband’s brothers—arrive. With dry provisions and water strapped to their backs, the women chat and laugh as they vanish into the woods to forage for moss. When dusk creeps in they emerge from that same forest, hauling woven sacks larger than their bodies. By that time, they’d already become too exhausted to speak.

[i]: This article is dedicated to Little Uncle. It traces my early journey into bryophyte ecology. Returning to Heifeishu Village in September 2024, we learned Little Uncle had fallen from a cliff during foraging. His house still stands with its century-old wooden floors, now inhabited only by his widow.

The woven sacks are filled with a damp moss. Lisu people called it ꓢꓶꓹ ꓑꓲ ꓡꓲ a loose term for mosses vaguely defined but distinctive from lichens or usnea. Five years ago, a touring, out-of-town merchant came to Heifeishu Village with a photograph of a very kind of moss, asking if anyone had seen it. The villagers knew it thrived in abundance on the mountain behind their homes—a place they called ꓠꓲ ꓚꓵ ꓛꓵ: ꓗꓹ ꓛꓲ ꓛꓲ meaning “where little ghosts play.”¹ This mountain used to be where villagers foraged for medicinal herbs, mushrooms, and firewood, and where they first began foraging moss for the merchant. It is said that, because the moss had never been disturbed, its stems and leaves grew so densely intertwined that when the villagers first foraged it, the entire patch stood taller than an adult’s knee.

Being the closest forest to the village, the ꓠꓲ ꓚꓵ ꓛꓵ: ꓗꓹ ꓛꓲ ꓛꓲ mountain was stripped clean of moss in the first year. After that, the villagers had to venture farther each dry season. People believed the moss would grow back in five or six years and were confident their harvesting wouldn’t harm the ecosystem. Over time, the foragers became mostly women since men—who tend to drink more—are more likely to fall off cliffs on long treks.

Merchants only come when villagers have gathered enough moss to make their journey across the trenches worthwhile. Over the past few years, the young buyer from the nearby village traversed high-altitude villages deep in Tibet and Nujiang, including Gongshan Derung and Nu Autonomous County, Fugong County, and the town of Liuku to collect the foraged moss with his small truck. Prices fluctuate constantly—sometimes 80 yuan per bag, sometimes 100 yuan.¹ Once bags of moss fill the warehouse, out-of-province merchants collect them with larger trucks.

The merchants weren’t entirely sure about the commercial purpose of moss, but they said it was excellent for growing orchids. Only later did I realize that they were collecting sphagnum moss. Its unique ability to retain moisture while maintaining soil aeration allows orchid enthusiasts to replicate the natural growing conditions of these delicate plants—a symbiotic relationship observed in the Gaoligong Mountains. This region’s flora boasts China’s highest orchid diversity, with 74 genera, 263 species, and 3 varieties of the flower documented to date, a figure expected to rise with further botanical exploration.² Historically, during periods marked by inadequate transportation and weaker regulation, the Gaoligong Mountains were a hub for plant hunting and illegal trade in rare plants. Locals would fall precious woods, forage orchids and other flora from the mountains, selling them to middlemen at minimal prices. These plants would then be transported to markets where they were sold for prices far beyond what the locals could have imagined.

Young people here often jokingly point to a plant and say, “Look, here’s a new variety.” The word “variety” slipped into everyday speech through the orchid trade, where it marks a plant’s worth. Though illegal harvesting has not vanished, it has slowed down, curbed by the dwindling presence of rare wild orchids, repeated crackdowns on poaching, and the slow pull of wage labour, which has been drawing villagers into the migrant tide. The lives of sphagnum moss, orchids, and the villagers unexpectedly became intertwined through the botanical industry. Before going to Heifeishu Village, I had overlooked mosses, considering them merely a sign of humidity, a mark of wilderness. For the villagers of Heifeishu, sphagnum moss was a natural water source long before outsiders came to buy it. An experienced forager whom we affectionately called “Little Uncle” told me that he could squeeze a drink from sphagnum whenever he found it in the mountains—no need to carry water. I became curious about what the women foragers did during those long days in the forest. When we asked to join them in the mountains, everyone objected. Little Uncle warned us the cliffs were deadly and we wouldn’t make it. Since we promised that we would turn back if we encountered any impassable terrain, the aunties reluctantly agreed to take us along.

The aunties laughed and chatted on the way as if on a picnic, making me question just how dangerous these cliffs were. Or perhaps their joy came from the social space that foraging moss created—a rare chance to share off-colour jokes, exchange village gossip, and still come home with their harvest. After walking near the cliffs for a while, I turned back out of fear. In September 2024, we returned to these mountains to further document the ecology of sphagnum moss, and we followed the aunties again on their foraging trip in the mountain of ꓠꓲ ꓚꓵ ꓛꓵ: ꓗꓹ ꓛꓲ ꓛꓲ. From a bird ’s-eye view, this mountain is one faint crease among the countless folds of the Gaoligong mountain range. On the ground, I began paying attention to shifts in soil colour and identifying common epiphytes on rotting logs and stumps. At 2,000 metres, the coniferous forests faded away entirely, leaving only open clearings and stands of Nepalese alder trees. As we approached the summit, the density of pine trees reduced until they were completely absent, replaced by trees gripping sheer cliffs.

The path ahead was too dangerous—I could not reach the cliffs once again, stopping beside deadwood. At my eye level, this decaying wood displayed a vertical tapestry of life: Racopilum hugging the base, twist-tail moss spiralling upward, porella gleaming with waxy fronds, parmelia crumbling—each occupying its place. On the flatter surfaces, several Bulbophyllum orchids bloomed with tangerine-hued flowers. Perhaps these orchids could only overtake this deceased perch with the help of moss and lichen, which conserved the moisture and nutrients. This was where the aunties had gathered years before; now they ventured farther afield, allowing the moss to reclaim its plundered patches.

There was no sign of sphagnum moss left on the entire southern slope, not even at the mountaintop where the villagers had once foraged it. We thought ꓠꓲ ꓚꓵ ꓛꓵ: ꓗꓹ ꓛꓲ ꓛꓲ no longer harboured any until Auntie Shuohuama said that some still lied below the northern slope. The intense sunlight and relentless weathering made the soil here thin, with patches of dry lichen peeling from the rocks. The few clusters of sphagnum moss barely reached 2 centimetres high, their colonies no larger than my palm. Cladonia lichens grew just a foot away, their crimson apothecia resembling fungi, which, in a sense, they were, being a symbiotic mix of fungus and algae, which are capable of enduring extreme aridity. It surprised me to find sphagnum moss—a plant that thrives in moisture—living here alongside Cladonia lichen, which typically live in dry environments.

On the narrow slope where I had stopped, sphagnum moss, Cladonia lichen, and Polytrichum—along with other unidentifiable or overlooked species—appeared to partition microclimates mere inches apart. While peatlands in North America and Northern European regions progressively convert depressions into aquatic systems over millennia, the colonies I encountered in the Gaoligong Mountains cling stubbornly to slopes rather than hollows. Their choice of habitat resists standard scientific explanation, and their trajectory seems enigmatic. Even after returning to more regulated urban spaces, I have noticed moss’s untameable vitality—so spontaneous that it defies spatial governance.

Such intimate encounters left me wondering: what does it mean to see the world through the sensibility of moss? To view them merely as micro-botanical subjects is to ignore their proliferation and diversity. Sphagnum moss alone spans over 300 known species across every continent. Iron Age Scandinavians harvested peat formed by accumulated sphagnum moss for smelting, while North American First Nations peoples relied on the moss’s absorbency and mild antibacterial properties to make diapers, menstrual pads, and poultices.[^6] Across cultures, sphagnum has been inextricably tied to human societies, with its ties to labour and gendered survival to its role in the rise of botanical-aesthetic markets. Meanwhile, their global migration likely occurred before human existence, driven by the collision of continental plates, and continuing through periods of human migration. Yet to reduce mosses to mere distribution patterns also misses their genius, for in the humblest crevices and most neglected corners, they devise unexpected survival strategies. Such plasticity challenges taxonomy: a single species may rapidly alter its morphology to adapt to environmental change.

The life story of moss cannot be recounted separately from its surroundings. Even a palm-sized colony’s life is closely braided with seasonal rains and droughts. To engage with mosses, then, is to attend to their relationship with time as much as space. Across centuries, their proliferation has reshaped landscapes, healing what was broken, and transforming what seems unchangeable. Nowhere is this more evident than in peatlands, where sphagnum moss’s slow negotiation with time—layer upon layer, millennium after millennium— transforms the forest into a swamp and builds symbiotic habitats with other beings. These layered worlds are at once cellular and genetic, yet planetary in reach—a gesture toward the tenacity of life.

“Peat Cutting and Bog Finds,” Moesgaard Museum, https://www.moesgaardmuseum.com/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/grauballe-man/the-bog/peat-cutting-and-bog-finds/; Jeffrey Speller, and Véronique Forbes, “On the Role of Peat Bogs as Components of Indigenous Cultural Landscapes in Northern North America,” Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research* 54, no. 1 (2022): 96–110.

I began thinking of the soundscapes of moss while I was collecting samples of the Lisu singing tradition of Baishi. At first, the villagers who foraged moss spoke of this activity as a way to support their livelihood and, out of curiosity, I began to document their trips. But as I walked with them through the mountains, I witnessed the subtle, musical ways that foragers communicated: vocalizing and signalling each other across the terrain with sounds shaped out of both necessity and care. That was the first time I saw moss on such a vast and breathtaking scale—lifted by the wind, flooding the sky, drifting like breath across the mountains. At that moment, I found myself wordless, unable to grasp my impressions with language.

Before that, I’d often spoken with friends about how to evoke the texture of fog through sound-making. I wondered how might sound let me approach these seemingly silent, sensory ecologies. In 2022, I was commissioned by Times Museum, Guangzhou, to create a sound installation based on fieldwork along the Nujiang–Salween River basin.[^7] One evening, as I was recording the river’s murmur from the bank when the water was still low, I noticed someone waving at me from beneath a distant bridge. As I approached, I saw two figures: a woman, perhaps in her sixties, and a man in his forties. Later, I learned the woman collected plastic bottles to exchange for alcohol. The woman didn’t speak much Mandarin—only Lisu. Unsure how to address her, I simply called her dajie, meaning elder sister. She drank in silence, offering only a quiet smile now and then. After a while, I asked, almost without thinking, “Do you like to sing?” She fell still. The silence stretched—two, maybe three minutes. Then, she began to sing. The sound was unlike anything I’d ever heard—steeped in profound sorrow, yet at the same time, joy surged through me. I later learned the rough meaning of her song: “Today, we meet like sister and brother. It is a rare twist of fate. When you leave, promise you won’t forget me. And I won’t forget you.”

Baishi singing faces a devastating decline among the Lisu. This singing is born from the trembling of the throat, a vibration drawn deep from the body’s core. To sustain such resonance is not only demanding but punishing; the voice is worn down in the act of summoning it. Perhaps this is one reason why Baishi is not practiced widely in the present. The musicality, narrative depth, and textuality of Baishi held profound significance in Lisu social life. Singing, at one time, was an essential mode of storytelling, a vessel for truth and justice. Before, people would sing Baishi to argue their cases in court—to debate not with raised voices but through song, continuing until one could sing no more. In resolving conflict, people also found, in some ineffable way, a kind of entertainment, comfort, and emotional release. But this form has all but vanished now. I can only imagine what it must have been like. Perhaps I’ve romanticized it too much; those sung debates could’ve been fierce, even unfriendly.

Younger generations are rarely exposed to this mode of lyrical exchange now and rarely learn its techniques. Today, those over fifty are mostly those who carry this tradition. I worry—when they grow old, will Baishi fade with them?

When I first encountered moss, it was completely unknown to me. No matter how closely I observe it, it remains enigmatic. Of course, I could approach it through the language of science: botanical names, characters, and their survival strategies. But those facts can’t capture the bodily response I had in its presence. Through sound and music, I try to express the relationship between myself, the moss, and those people who forage it. During this acoustic research, I try to forget its name, its form. Most of the time, I’m still, sitting before my computer experimenting with different textures of sounds and feelings. Through experimenting, waiting, a channel emerged—a fragile intimacy connecting my body and the moss.

The soundscape and the space of emotion it creates are, for me, a process of composing a story. Each piece carries its own relatively independent mood and scene, yet as a complete album of soundscapes, they collectively and fully shape a life story of my perception of moss, and ultimately, a story about people. At first, I only saw it as a story about survival—and quite literally, about my own experience as an outsider connecting with the Nujiang people. But after finishing the album and listening to it in its entirety again, I now see it as a story about the cycle of life.

During the creation of this album, I was constantly travelling, moving between many places and staying at different friends’ homes. I would often play different parts of this album while I was working on it, which also became their first encounter with moss. We began to realize how close moss always is to us. While staying at a friend’s place, we noticed moss growing outside their yard. Most of the time, it looked withered, only coming alive when rain fell. These everyday observations became small stories woven into the album. Over time, this proximity to moss naturally became part of how I observe the world in my daily life.

I came to realize that field recording gave me courage. At first, walking through remote landscapes, I often felt unsafe and afraid. That fear came from a deep uncertainty, a fear of the unknown. But as I attuned myself to the sounds of each place, I began to encounter different emotions. Through spending time with sound, I became braver. This is a very tangible kind of courage, one that carries over into daily life. Field recording gave me the strength to face things that once unsettled me—with more clarity, and calmer.

In the process of working with sound and crafting the soundscape, I didn’t simply use untouched field recordings from Nujiang—I focused more on sampling as a way of preserving the sonic temperament of the place while allowing room for transformation. I used various ways of shaping sound to evoke my geographic impressions and the contours of the terrain. For instance, when depicting the aunties climbing up cliffs to gather moss, I used rising, tilting high frequencies to express that feeling of verticality, of steepness. I also used swirling, circular movements of sound to sculpt the soundscape’s form. I relied on these techniques to imagine the world of moss and try to capture its uncertainty. Sometimes, the sound becomes a kind of riddle—coded, elusive—and that mystery is part of its joy.