Baise

---

The first festival each year for the Chinese is Yuanxiaojie on the 15th day of Lunar January. The first full moon after newyear. I spend it in Baise where the temperature was warm and no rain. In fact...everywhere in China there should be celebration like parade and dragon dance. Here in Baise they held they gathered all the 12 county in the region with their own ethnic favour, marched out a parade through the town, so...the Zhuang, the Miao, the Yi, the Buyi, the Yao...all came out with colourful monkey's costume, why not...all they need was a clip to show on tv for the Prefecture's image promotion, after all...it was just a show!
I find Baise a rather relaxing place to hangout, the town build along the Youjiang river, many leisure walk along both side of the bank and the area around Jiefang Street, Baise is not too big a city to walk around, many small lanes hidden behind shopping street to wandered around. Zhongshan Road is the main through-fare in town, the commercial part with the People Park on one end, and the grand Revolution Park on the other end where the monument on top of the small hill, up there in the vast area also has a museum where you could have a glimpse of the local minority information. further on followed the path and cross a steel bridge will lead you to the Red army Revolution Memorial Hall, with the huge Dengxiaoping statue stood in front welcoming us the patriot! Baise is an important site in the Communist Party's history in China, and Deng actually stay here to setup The 7th Troop of red army, which said did linked up with the local minority group. Anyways...you could have a nice view to the town up there. Baise has more than enough choices of food, not just bbq grilled like in Yunnan, I love the soft rice roll here, the congee, the clappot rice, the bbq-pork and roast-pork with noodle, they even had the herbal drink in the street like they sold in Hongkong! The baguette in the supermarket actually taste like French! With the reasonable accommodation, and...with cantonese spoken is widely available...I wouldn't mind to lay low for a few days here in Baise.

---

Comments

[Joel Stottlemire]

What Colors
Great photos! One of the things that surprised me most about Southern China was how colorful it was. I travelled to the incrdibly small town of Xin Du to meet my fiancee's father. It was a surreal experience. I was the first westerner in living memory and got stared at like I was a rock star. Even in far away Xin Du, all the canopies were bright and colorful and the signage was an adventure. I had the same experience with the fishing village of Ti Po on Lantau Island Hong Kong. One minute we were walking through a sleepy fishing village. The next we were in the middle of the daily parade where the village dragon comes out to bless the fishermen. Awesome! Thanks, Joel http://hongkonghonky.blogspot.com