These are sights on our way to Zhaoxing
We stopped and walked around one of the farms. The fields were bright yellow from the blooms of this plant. They use the seeds from this plant to make oil. They called it rape seed oil.
One of our tour buddies asked our guide if we could stop at some of the villages that were not on the government "tour list". He said sure! So we stopped at two villages on our way to our evening destination.
You can tell this is a Dong village because of the drum tower. These were used in the old days to signal messages to the village people. Now they are used as a meeting place for the villagers but they no longer have a drum.
Our guide found one tower being used for a village meeting. The men invited us in to visit.
There was a huge fire in the middle of the tower. This tower was enclosed which is unusual. It was nice and warm inside and really fun to meet the men of the village. They had many people at the meeting this day because many of them were back from their work in the cites.
This is the ladder that went up to the area where the drum used to be.
This village had three drum towers.
The butcher shop
This is a memorial to a women warrior from a long time ago. Only the women of the village are allowed to enter the building.
Sewing in progress.
This little guy was sitting in the tree watching us.
This is a fish trap. They plant fish in the rice patties every time they plant rice.
this is a public notice telling who has paid their fees to the Communist Party. There was a similar notice that showed which families got subsidizes from the government and how much money they received. This is all very "public".
As we left the village three kids from the "younger generation" (they were in their early twenties) came out of one of the houses. They were dressed like fashion models from Shanghai. They looked so out of place in this village. All three of them got on one motorcycle and ripped through the village and out to the main road. It was an eye opener to see this. We have heard that the young people leave the villages to find work in the cities and do not want to return. There is a real problem with the aging population in these remote villages. Many of the traditional marriage "rules" are also being changed and this is causing some problems between the generations.
We arrived in Zhaoxing Village around 3 in the afternoon. This is the largest Dong village in this area of China. There were lots of special events happening in the village because it was the Chinese New Year holiday.
We arrived in Zhaoxing Village around 3 in the afternoon. This is the largest Dong village in this area of China. There were lots of special events happening in the village because it was the Chinese New Year holiday.
This village has several different clans. Each clan has their own drum tower. One of the clans was having a banquet. I think it was "potluck". They had large woks were they prepared some food of the food.
They ate at long tables
This lady was watching all the activities.
Tom was pulled into the drinking games. He made a mistake of touching the glass so they wanted him to "down" the whole thing. This drink is really strong so it is really not easy to go with "bottoms up". Our guide had to rescue him from the group.
They really wanted is to drink with them.....yikes!
This little girl was knitting.
More of the banquet group
There were several pigs tied up all through the village.
Indigo dye pot
This lady is hammering the fabric to make it shiny. We could hear hammering all through the village.
Dyed fabric hanging to dry before the "pounding process".
That night we had dinner in a restaurant in the village. This is the wine they served. We thought it was soooooooo funny. This is a "knock off" of Great Wall wine. Notice the label....Greet Wine. It was really awful. Great Wall is not very good either so we could not figure out why they would want to copy it. We saved the bottle for our guide. He also thought it was funny and gave it to his friend in the village.
Jason (our Guizhou guide) felt really bad that the bus had broken down the night before. So...he arranged for us to have our own performance by the local folk song singers. The concert started at 9:30 that evening and lasted about 45 minutes. It was another very long day.
No comments:
Post a Comment