Advertisement
Published: June 24th 2010
Edit Blog Post
16/6/10
A long and tiring bus journey for the last few days. Through Gejiu, Mile, overnight in Qujing before heading into Guizhou, the sky made it known right after we drove over the border, fog prevailing the air, the space between valley became narrower and need more time to covered short distant. Heading up northward through many mining town along the Yunnan border I got to Xinfang where I would attended the 5th of May festival. Although not the ideal place to stay but it was the only place you could find accommodation in the county. and when I saw the big banner about the festival would be organized by the government had spoiled my stomach, no turning back now as it would be too late to looking for another one. Shenxianpo was where they held the festival, in the middle of nowhere about 20km away from Xinfang. Weather wasn't promising as most of the places in Guizhou was under heaving rain, but here although bit foggy, at least there was no rain until the show was over. The festival was a bit disappointed, the writings in internet seem far more interested than the real event. Yeah...many people, an official
arranged performance on stage, it wasn't really a Miao festival as I had expected, no wondered they only called it Duanwujie instead of Huashanjie. Here you could see 2 tribes of Miao, the majority was those knot tied hair on top of their head, plain colour sleeveless shirt with piece of pattern panel on the back behind their neck, some also with pattern covered both sides of their shoulder, long plaited shirt like the Yi in Daliangshan. Another tribe had slightly more details on their costume, hair wrapped heavily with dark cotton threads with an moon shape wooden comb shown on the back of their head. Long dress open from the right with many patterns on it, but mostly were printed material, an apron hanged in front, long plaited skirt like the Han Miao in Laomeng with heavy indigo and stitching works. Yi mostly didn't wear costume here, but couple old women provided a brief costume scene, white head scarf, long sleeve shirt in plain blue, dark trousers and a long apron in front around their waist.
22/6/10
After couple of uninteresting market I came to Dafang region. Everywhere I went along the trip people all told me
how I should come to their township for the festival...how there was thousands of people...how there were many beautiful costume dressed tribals...yeah...how would I know??? But...seem like there was only one tribe of Miao in this part of Guizhou, the plain knotted hair and long plaited skirt one, still...I hadn't see many in any market along the route so far, not because of the rain and plantation season, they just not wear costume anymore. I hadn't took more than 5 pictures in the last 4 markets. But at least in Pojiao market I saw 2 old Miao women had their head dress on, an wooden comb in half moon(up-turn) shape, wrapped up heavily with dark fluffy thread, with the two point exposed like the horn of a buffalo.
23/6/10
It was rather depressing on this market hunting trip(especially after witness a boring football match at midnight)... not much costume dressed tribal could be seen, rain and cloudy most of the time, and uncomfortable accommodation excepted in county town. Luckily they all provided tv set which I needed the most for the world-cup broadcasting, that was one of the reason I came up with this journey as I hadn't
got a tv in Yuanyang. And now I need to separated a day in 3 sections, morning till noon for market, then sleep and watch football at night.
Checked in a small guesthouse next to the bus station in Dafang, I began to enquired about market date, minute later the owner surprised me by handed me a completed list of market date of Dafang. Which send me stuck my face on the map for the next few hours. Came up with an itinerary then I looked around for bus drivers for more infos and advices. Only 3 names came out. Babao, Xinglong and Xiangshui has the better possibility to spot minority, "not many people wearing costume nowaday" was the answer and they just kept telling me different festival date to attended if I wanted to see minorities costume. Yeah...seem like that was the case nowadays.
I went and checked out Xiangshui market today in high hope, but it again...turn out to be a Han(or disguised in Han dress)dominated market. But finally I saw 5 Miao women show up, no particular costume shirt, the skirt was similar to typical Miao in this region, long plaited skirt with blue, white and black,
but here they got a section with stitching work, and wore it like the flamingo dance. There was one woman still kept the headdress, an up-turned half moon wooden comb in bigger size(compared with the one I'd seen in Pojiao market), same...wrapped up with black fluffy thread on top of her head.
24/6/10
The most famous person in Dafang is Madam Shexiang, an Yi woman from Sichuan, who married to the local governor in 1375. But her husband died 6 years after and Shexiang picked up his work, provided and encourage many good policies, people in the region lived peacefully and grow into prosperity. Nowadays they name the main street the Shexiang boulevard, also a delicate museum honorary her name in town.
Dafang is an old city with a long history, local authority trying to promoted and claimed the Yi culture heritage, but you won't feel anything ancient her, it seem only existed on paper or banners inside the museum.
The landscapes in Dafang region are rather pretty, especially around the area between Nayong, the Danxia Landforms created a dramatic scenery, although with the drought still troubled some townships, but the area were full of green and crops,
no sign of any lacked of water. Road were surprisingly good in the area, modt were paved concrete road. Foods scene in this part of Guizhou are not much different from Yunnan, the speciality were the "suantangfan" and "guailufan"(rice in sour soup & vegetable fried rice), also the tofu rice is very popular as well, beside the mixian, they got all sort of noddle with different kind of meat, of course...potato was everywhere. Bean products is famous here, you could see tofu curb not grilled but fried in oil at road side stand, snowed up with ton of shreds chilly and it taste just lovely. But my favourite snack so far was the fresh pop-corn.
Rain again...gave myself a day off from market hunting, 2 days more to wait for the Babao market.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.26s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 61; dbt: 0.1934s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb