we've traveled more than 7,000 miles to southwestern China through four different airports over the last 36 hours to get to this beautiful stunning Lake lugu lake with its crystal blue water and sharp clean mountain air but we didn't come here just to take in the breathtaking scenery we're here to explore a corner of China that is known as the kingdom of women it's the home of the Mosul an ethnic minority group of about 40,000 people for centuries these cloud covered mountains sealed off their secrets the lessons they could teach us all but now as the region becomes more accessible the modern world is threatening their unique way of life I stumble across this female utopia utopia utopia strong turn everything everything revolves around the place of womanhood at the pinnacle we needed a guide to help us understand a society very different from our own so we asked why Hong Chu author of a book titled the kingdom of women as a corporate lawyer working in Singapore and Los Angeles she was fed up with her male-dominated workplace a visit here ten years ago transformed her life forever do you think this place is unlike most places on earth yeah it is the woman's voice comes a bit louder than the men's you hear young women sing when you're born you just shoot like you're really treasured that wasn't immediately clear to us at first we saw moso women doing the kind of work you see in many less developed countries weaving cooking or harvesting in the fields but we started to get a sense for how radically different this place is and how much power women really have as soon as we went inside a moso home typical moso homes have an ornate front door and then in side a really big courtyard and everyone lives around this courtyard all the rooms bedrooms around the outside the corn drying out to feed the pigs we're here to visit the ahlu family for generations living under one roof you're the grandmother you're the eldest daughter you are the youngest daughter and you are her daughter yes yes one family and your family is structured along your grandmother's line yes here grandmother is the head of the family and the fire in her room is never allowed to burn out while every family member contributes money to the household it's the grandmother who controls the finances in the rest of China property passes from father to son but not here and yes here things are passed down from the mother the men are obedient to the scheme of things okay the scheme of things that grandmother and your sisters a bit more important than you are Zuma whose daughter is that fourth generation hopes to one day be the grandma in charge in the future whoever makes money and is the most capable will manage the household affairs so I'm really looking forward to becoming the woman leader of this family there aren't very many cultures like this one anthropologist Tammy blumenfield has been travelling here to study the moe so for nearly 20 years how would you describe what exists here that's a matrilineal Society your father doesn't really matter as much in a matrilineal society your mother is the one who counts in terms of your family membership here brothers and sisters live their entire lives in their mother's home where they were born and raised and only the children of the women are part of this extended family always the children of the women right staying in the home the men would be having children with other people somewhere else and those children would stay over there mm-hmm so in my family I would live with my mother and I would live with my brother and my sister and my sisters kids right and my kids right there wouldn't be so much distinction of this is your child and that's your sister's child they're all taking care of each other including the brothers who help care for they're sisters kids the uncles have responsibility for the children exactly we couldn't help but notice what's missing from Moe so homes husbands the kind of marriage we have in the US doesn't exist here traditionally but they do have relationships so how do they then sort of accommodate the human needs you know for interaction right they call it the walking marriage a walking marriage when a moso girl comes of age she gets her own bedroom overlooking the courtyard with its own separate entry way a man can visit but only if she invites him the man comes overnight spends the night Rita is her lover and you might do that for the rest of his life you know like with a single woman or he might do it was once or never again but then he has his own female bloodline family to return to he goes to his mom yeah and his grandma and you got a room up on the second floor here right yes right here Zuma has been in a walking marriage with the father of her daughter for nearly six years people are together because they like each other and if you no longer have feelings for that person then you break up without question it's a natural separation it sounds like women here have a lot of freedom but yes you have a choice who you like we asked a guy named Joshua about how a man gets a woman's invite now people can chat through a messaging app called WeChat but before it was during dances at night if I liked her I tickle her palm three times and if she liked me too she'd also tickle my palm three times okay like this 1 2 3 how many times do you think you had a walking marriage pedal too many too many to count okay so then we wondered is this kingdom of women a society of free love and promiscuity it doesn't mean that not at all blumenfield says the vast majority of moso couples these days are monogamous they just live apart but Tammy what about love and getting married and they follow my household so the thing is they actually say it's better it's a better system for love because in the United States we combine everything and then you have you have the household together and bills to pay if you separate all the pressures that we have in terms of taking care of a family then it's just love at daybreak on lugu lake we met up with our Chama who takes tourists out on row boats she's been in the same walking marriage for more than 30 years the best part about a walking marriage is that I can be with my sisters we don't have in law problems no arguments it turns upside down it does everything that we Americans and most societies do and then they will tell you since we don't know marriage we don't have divorce we don't have orphans because everybody belongs to this being the extended family yes do fathers visit yes if they choose to but they don't have to they don't have to we met up again with her Jimbo popped open beers all night while wearing her finest traditional dress along with white Hong and some girlfriends we talked about our kids and home life but as the night went on we should talk about men which led to plenty of jokes about men but outside this tiny corner of the world the problems confronting women today are no laughing matter people in this society think it's really weird when they hear some of the issues facing women in other societies domestic violence and rape and everything like that they don't understand it you know I understand it researchers would come here and ask like do you have you ever heard of this does this happen in your society and they just think the question is disgusting even the most old language shows how profoundly different a society can be when men don't have power over women there's no word for rape it's just a concept that doesn't exist here we've heard that there are concepts that we have in the West violence toward women that you don't even have a word for Mayo Mayo no no here we value it not just your own mother but always in defense Angela so not only do women pass along the family name and all their property but women are worshipped here literally there's a female goddess named Galu I'm hiking up to her shrine in their local religion she's the most revered among all their gods and goddesses and worshiped precisely for her female spirit they hold a huge festival every year in her honor but just how long will that tradition last increasingly tourism is changing this once isolated society there are bus loads now they come and they bring the outside loading the cell phones the selfies social media it's all here now and with young moso seeing how the outside world pairs off many couples in the younger generation are getting married I don't know I think it's cool something's trendy is Chingy as more and more people are choosing to have wedding ceremonies and then they're inviting all the village to come to their wedding then the other families think oh well we want our child to have the wedding ceremony to blumenfield says mo so culture is still unique even with the changes and there's great hope that this ancient kingdom of women and its progressive ideals will survive in a modern world if the most small idea dies off then we would have lots of a precious thing in humanity I think [Music] you