Of Double Happiness and Disappearing Shadows

Do you want to lose your shadow in the sunlight?

You can, but only for about 15 minutes at midday on June 21 or 22, in Mojiang, a small city 264 km southwest of Kunming. Around that time, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun to its maximum extent. As a matter of fact, the sunlight can shoot its beams into a tiny hole.

Mojiang's precise latitude is 2326 22 north of the Equator, commonly known as the Tropic of Cancer or Northern tropic. Local officials say it is the only city that can make such a claim even though the invisible line crosses as many as 15 countries.

What are the benefits of straddling both the tropics and the Northern Temperate Zone?

For one thing, you see palm trees on one side of a plaza and broad-leaved plants on the other. But Mojiang is more than a botanist's delight. It is a fountainhead for twins. No, not the singing duo from Hong Kong, but real twins. Legend has it, if you make love on the Tropic of Cancer, you're more likely to give birth to twins.

Actually it's more than a legend, but supported by statistics - kind of. Mojiang's 360,000 residents include more than 1,000 pairs of twins, 60 percent of whom live near the imaginary line. Considering the family planning policy in China, newlyweds flock here and pray for "double happiness". A Kunming woman who failed to conceive for eight years got pregnant when the couple conjugated here. Hotel rooms with the line passing through are booked solid, notwithstanding higher rates.

Some say it's not the line, but a 1,800-year well. Drink from it and you'll be the happy parent to a pair of twins. The well is in a village inhabited by ethnic Hani. According to Hani legend, long time ago there was a primitive forest and their ancestors chose a tree that had two trees folded into one as a deity. Miraculously water seeped from under the tree into a nearby well. Hence the Twin Well.

Think this is a tall tale? There are only 30 households in this village, but six pairs of twins.

Hani people worship the sun. Their ancestors made fire from the sunlight. Nowadays, people retain the custom of using scrapes of light-reflecting objects and make a fire on the summer solstice.

In the town plaza there is a sundial and a slew of other sculptures that illustrate the Chinese art of cosmology. In the mountainside park built along the Tropic of Cancer, mythical tales of the local people flourish in carvings and pillars. The pillars of five elements not only embody the usual explanations of the Han people, but the ethnic Hani and Yi calendar, which is divided into 10 months a year, with 36 days for each month. They are called wood, fire, metal, water and earth, corresponding to the traditional Chinese theory of Wu Xing.

I don't know how Western astronomy, Chinese cosmology and local myths are fused together but everything seems in place. For those who go in early May, you'll risk getting your face blackened. Locals have a custom of wiping ash on your face because they see it as a blessing. But for the northernmost place where the sun shines directly above, it may serve as a perfect substitute for sunscreen.