This paper investigates the language situation in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in the province of Yunnan in China's southwest. By examining language use in certain domains of public life in Dehong, namely public signs, radio and television broadcasting, publishing, and education, certain discrepancies between government policies for minority languages and the reality of the everyday use of the minority languages in Dehong are revealed. The paper proposes some possible explanations for such discrepancies.