Yanshan look around

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Bang-e was my first market in this Yanshan trip, a small market deep inside the country's greenish paddy landscape. The majority are the Nong-Zhuang rather similar to those in Wenshan, only they wrapped their headdress bigger here. Then there were the Miao in sharp bright colur(mostly in orange tone), head turban rolled up like a tower, some wear a motley vest set with sequins, typical plaited skirt, and they wore their legdress thick...like a hundred layers! There also couple of Yi, I was sure I'd saw this tribe before but just couldn't name the place. And yes... they are the Puyi like those in Pingzhai market in Qiubie, there also a very small amount of Yao present, those were the same like in Nanwanhe in Maguan.
In the small Ganhe market I saw the same kind of tribal, in addition another Yi sub-group, the Wenshan majority Yi group with headdress full of silver-studs. Thn the huge Wenshan market came without much surprised, as all tribal groups would come to attended the township market, there even the Tu-Zhuang appeared in the market, it was rather busy, especially the farm's tools and products quarter in the north-west corner of town, chaotic traffic with buffalo carts jammed with motor vehicles, topped up with humans movement and car honking. I wouldn't blamed or counted on the traffic police, there really nothing the could do! Indeed...I saw them just walked away from the scene!
My main object for this Yanshan trip was trying to located an Yi's festival call "cao-ma-jie" "the straw horse festival", legend said once in ancient time the Yi tribe was under a severe famine, at the most critical moment 2 horses came carrying foods and materials from heaven and saved the whole ethnic, but at the end the horses was dead of exhaustion, so for memorial the Yi people in this area will hold a festival by making a life style horse with straw and displayed it at the entrance of the village after paraded it crossed the village from west to east. historical book said it should be held on the 1st rat day in Lunar August, of course I came here before the date, but...when enquired most of the locals had no idea of this festival. Asked in Bang-..."oh, it was finished on the 1st Lunar August", that was 4 days ago! Why? Not according to the traditional date? No idea! Then in Ganhe they said it happened on the day before. "what!!! "I cursed myself, but it still happened a day before the rat day. Someone said there should something going on in Weimo area, so I went to bus station and tried to checked with the drivers. One said it had been finished. one guy even tried to discouraged me by saying "people there is lawless in the area, dangerous there if thing happen where no one will help you", I was sure he was Han. Anyways...no succeed and dead-end in each direction. But still some drivers promised to call me if they heard anything after I left them my number, so...hope something would turn up in the next few days, otherwise will try my luck in the western end of Yanshan county.
Yanshan is a small and not so small town, most of the happening were around the main market place near the bus station, but the town did spread out in all direction. there wasn't much to write home about Yanshan town. beside the many gambling game machine parlors and pink light shop-front where sexy dressed women trying to get attention from passing-by men,then there wasn't much different from any other town in China.

Note:
Bus Yuanyang to Mengzi 33 yuan
Bus Mengzi to Wenshan 32 yuan
Bus Wenshan to Yanshan 11 yuan
City bus No.2 from Mengzi new bus station will get you to the cross road, then a short walk to the old bus station.
City bus No.2 from Wenshan North bus station to South bus station for Malipo direction. and city bus No.4 will go to East bus station for Yanshan and Guangnan direction.
Bus Yanshan to Bang-e 11 yuan
Bus Yanshan to Ganhe 7 yuan


15/9/10

The shape of Yanshan is like a pair of eye-glass with a bigger pane on the right side, think of those in Elton John's collection. the village Haizibian was located at the narrow bridge between the 2 panes where lay a local sight Yuxianhu lake, you could see there was some kind of developed in the past with some houses build in the old style, but now it was a run-down and deserted place.
I went to Jiayi market which seem far bigger than Yanshan market in size, but it wasn't feel crowded as the small town population couldn't filled in, the market spread far just because of the vast valley with huge space. Muslim (the Hui) is the majority here, then the Nong-Zhuang and the Yi filled up most of the space, there also a small number of Miao and Tu-Zhuang. Jiayi was an important trading market for dried chilli, you could see lines of trackers on both side of highway 323 waiting for business, villagers came with sack almost 2 meters in height filled up with red hot chilli. They name a street "Chilli Trading Arcade", there even a small hotel call "Chilli", so you could see how much "Chilli" mean to the local here.
Ameng market was nice and busy even under small rain. It was more like a market in Quibei area, people came with buffalo or horse cart, dried chilli still the main trading product here, also walnut and chestnut were in season. With the harvest coming soon, farming tools was another hot items in the market. Here tribal distribution were quite even, although Miao could be seen more often. The Puyi with their nicely embroidered apron presented a large number as well. Tried to enquired about the Caomajie, but was bounded back by cool and unconcerned faces, "no", "no" or "I don't know", even when asked "are they Yi"? Still..."I don't know" was the answer. They seem scared but...for what? Perhaps they still lived in the culture revolution period! It really ruined my day when encountered unfriendly moment. But they Yao saved my day afterward. They are cheerful people, they talk with you, they laught with you, and they invited you to their village, "come, only an hour from here" the Yao woman told me. Ahaa...I thank her and said I might do it some other time. This is the blue collar Yao with a round hat, many women still wear silver chest plaque and colour glass beads chain. finally there was Nong-Zhuang and Hui in the market.

Note
Bus Yanshan to Jiayi 11 yuan
Bus Yanshan to Ameng 7.5 yuan

18/9/10

Tried my last effort to locate the Caomajie festival in The western end of Yanshan county. But seem like it didn't existed, was it my own fantasy? No one ever heard of Caomajie! Somehow someone said they don't celebrated it anymore. "it used to be big festival involved many villages" a man told me, and now it became kind of family dinner style event. Ok then...not much I could do about it and better concentrated back on my market hunting.
Pingyuan was another Muslim community town with a huge market place, couple of mosques with pinnacles marked the skyline. Pingyuan was kind of one street through-fare across town. But the hidden man-made lake tuck on the edge of town was a surprised, a wall of krast hill tops made the view rather pretty. It was an refreshing walk around the lake(around 3 hours) and great sunset spot, a small corner of the lake was occupied by bunch of gamblers gathering setup slides with 3 huge dices, and it created many garbage laced the water front, in between paper wrappings I saw other things once in awhile, a bra...a panty...under garment...even an high heel shoe. Sometimes I saw those thing while I went hiking in the mountain too, but wondered why only woman item? Seem like women always dispersed in a hurry after whatever they had been doing...the Sherlock in me began to worked...!
Even Dehou is belonged to Wenshan county, but when asked any local in Pingyuan where is Friday market? they will tell you Dehou. And it turned out to be a nice market with great atmosphere. It wasn't just happened in a market place but involved inside many small lanes in the old village. The majority was the Tu-Zhuang, and many still carried the nicely indigo dyed apron, you could even buy the beautiful apron in the market for about 120 yuan, many of the indigo pattern were still hand paint. Miao also in great number in the market, here you still could find the hand draw pattern design for indigo dye, the Miao women drawn their favourite pattern on a roll of cotton fabric and brough here to the market, there was a vendor who help them to prepared the dyeing procedure for a price, so the women could took back the finished fabric in the next market day. In the stand I saw many beautiful hand drawn cotton rolls still covered by wax, each with the name of the owner, all the women need to do was boiled it with hot water back home, and the designed pattern would be come out sharply. I hadn't seen any hand drawn indigo dyed for a long time, it had been disappeared in many region as the machine printed product was far more cheaper, came in handy and saved a lot of time. But here in this market, I was so happy and surprised to see it still existed.
Beside the Tu-Zhuang and Miao, there were small number of Nong-Zhuang and Puyi, and the costume of Puyi here came with more details, a tight and tiny vest dotted with red cotton balls, nicely embroidered apron and baggy pant with a band of pattern on knee area.
Didn't wait to see the Pingyuan market, as I hadn't seen many costume dressed tribal in town for the last 2 days, and with the setting of that huge market square, I didn't think it will be any interesting, but I went checked out Ashe market not far away, and it was a total disappointment, an unfriendly town with unfriendly people. manganese is the important mine here, an top economic for Wenshan prefecture. Heard the area offered beautiful krast hill scenery and a French church date almost 100 years old located 30km away but there was no transportation for the site. Together with the unfriendly responded by the locals, I gave it pass. The market did light up the spirit of the quiet town a bit, not much minority scene though. Some Miao and Zhuang(both Tu and Nong), and the Puyi, but here is the tribe same like in Mengzi and Beige with the orange favourite. The worse was none of these tribal had full costume, either a jacket of a skirt. I didn't even took one picture!
So...this festival hunt was a failure, but...I still got my last trump card! As I did met a Yi woman last month while in Qiubei, and she told me her village had Caomajie on 13th Lunar September. Perhaps I will try again next month.

Note
Bus Yanshan to Pingyuan 17 yuan
Bus Pingyuan to Dehou 9 yuan
Minibus Pingyuan to Ashe 5 yuan
Bus Pingyuan to Kaiyuan 17 yuan
Bus Kaiyuan to Nansha 36 yuan

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