Guizhou exploration - Anshun Region

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3/7/10

Rain stopped and sun finally broke through. Immediate heat made outdooring during the day unbearable. Left Bijie region behind I rolled into Anshun district. I first choose Pingba to wait out the week for the festival on the 9th July. At first Pingba was rather frustrating, bus station almost 3km outside of town(even big Anshun city had its station inside town), and buses to different county spread in 3 different bus stations, it made enquiry rather difficult. But after unloaded in a guesthouse and walked out with a lighter bag, Pingba just a small town. Beside the Han population there also lived a number of moslem communities, it made choice for food one more variety, and here they served not just the standard beef dish but goose meat. but the streamed rice roll was my favourite even the sauce wasn't as good as in Hongkong.

5/7/10

Perhaps it had been a while since I saw any costume dressed people, no wondered I got rather excited when I finally saw some in Pingba area. But guess what..."we are Han" one woman told me after I took her picture. There was a name for them too, the Tuan-pu people. They were the descenter of the soldiers from the Ming empire, 600 years ago when the new found Ming dynasty established, the king send army down here to eliminated the last of the enemy from the Yuan dynasty, and finally ordered them to stay behind to prevented any uprising in the future, so...many tiny castle like village sprung up which they called it tuan-pu, and those Han people slowly merged into the local system and created its own culture, there were still many villages like this left in Guizhou, whenever you saw the word "tuan" in the map should be one of those. And those still kept historic background had already turned into tourist village, there was one in Anshun and one in Pingba, you need to pay entrance to be able to see it. I took the chance to visited the one in Tianlong when I was there for the market. No...just a stupid tourist site, new build houses with a street of souvenir shops. Saved your money as it really not worth it!
Yangchang, Xidajie, Tianlong, Pingba and Huangla market, sound like a really full schedule for the last few days, they offered the same sight with Puyi and Tuanpu people. The Puyi dressed simple with typically style like everywhere in south-west China. Blue long sleeve shirt open on the right, easy to recognized with the unique knot style, 3 on the neck,2 on the shoulder and 1 on the waist. Front apron with embroidery on chest area, they wore simple head turban. The tuanpu people wore long dress like the Yi in Yuanyang, but here they used machine made pattern stripe for decorated, waist tied with girdle, black or white head turban, hair set on the back of their head like a mosquito coil, with two patches of hair came down from both side covered their ear like a headphone, many of the women still wore embroidered cotton shoe.
There also Miao live in the northwest of Pingba, I did saw some in Pingba market yesterday, not any costume on them, I only distinguished them by their shoulder bag with couple of hand embroidered figures.

7/7/10

Anshun wasn't that big after a day of exploration. Everything were aroung the north-south & east-west of the Zhonghua Road. And the area around Wenmiao Temple was rather nice with a small river curving along. Anshun was famous for its nearby Huanggoushu waterfall, although a tourist city but you wouldn't feel any specific tourism facilities, Anshun more like any other county city in China, shopping and wholesale market everywhere. After 18:30pm the street vendors went into action. one of the street turned into makeshift food store, hadn't been to any night market for a long time, at least there wasn't many in Yunnan. street food scene was great in Anshun, many choices, the sticky rice soaked up with tasty beacon grease, mixed with ham stripe and herbs...lovely! Another delight was the crispy roll with sticky rice. Then there were many different grilled dishes, not mention the standard Xinjiang sheep meat and all those sausages and vegetables, but the grilled tofu skin and squid was on top of my list. There also many type of deep fried rice cake, either sweet with sesame or salted with onion meat. There were fried potato and boiled peanuts on one side, and grilled chicken wing on the other side. And the street was lined full with hotpot eatery, in between was ice-cream and fruit drinks stands. There even Japanese sushi...what a surprised! Beside all these, there also many homecooking small restaurants, noodle and dumplings places, see...it easy to made Anshun a pleasant place for me to hangout.

8/7/10

Wouldn't expect much for market scene in Anshun, so Yangwu market was just a day out after midnight football watching. But Ganpu market rescued my spirits, or should I say the Miao always done the magic. Actually I caught 2 market today. Mushanpu market was on the way to Ganpu, a small market in the middle of the road blocked al the traffic, dominated by Tuanpu people and Buyi, but I caught sight of some different costumes, the Miao. Not many of them, and disappeared well before 10am. "they come here very early for cattle trading" a local woman told me. The main tone of their costume is dark indigo, long sleeve hip length dress tied up by waist belt, a stripe of white ran all along the rim of the lapel, knee length plaited skirt and with many layer of back aprons. Head cloth tied with embroidered ribbon. I was in heaven as it was the first time in this month I had seem any (almost) full costume dressed minority in Guizhou.
Further to Ganpu I again surprised by the sight of minority, and the Miao here was different from Mushanpu. They wore long sleeve dress, sharp shoulder shape with patch of blue or green on both side, a line of stitching pattern ran along the rim of the lapel, more pattern decorated the cuff area, an unique tiny stitched work patched on the back of their neck. wrapped a towel size cloth in black and white stripe acted as skirt, tied together with a blue front apron. No headdress mostly coiled up together with a plastic comb.

9/7/10

Not much had been mentioned about this May 28th festival, all I could find in internet was "a festival for the united of different ethnic group" on the way to Jiuzhou where the festival was being held, a group of Miao women got into the bus, the same tribe I had seen in Mushanpu market. The sang all the way to Jiuzhou, at first I thought they were singing their Miao song and I was enjoying it, then I started to pick up word like "Maozitong", "gongchandang" then I knew they were sing the party song praising chairman Mao. Suddenly the sound of the women became an annoying noise, not pleasant anymore! It was like market day when I arrived Jiuzhou, everywhere was vendors and makeshift foodstands. I began to enquired about the festival, "it was a temple fair" someone told me, and he pointed me up to the small hilltop where the Chenghuangmiao stood. It was a Han festival where the Tuanpu people came to paid respected to Chenghuang, also to visited Guangong, Guanyin and Chaishen, the god of wealth. There will be dance performance from different ethnic, Miao from different townships, buyi and of course the Tuanpu people. And there was also "Tanqi", the Han mask opera too, but the most important event was to carried the statue of Chenghuang paraded around in Jiuzhou, they also. Carried some lucky idols which chinese like to see. Families along the route would offered red-pocket and fruits to the marching group, it was a cheering event and everybody seem to enjoyed it a lot. For local it was an extra market day and fun-fair occasion, the street was so crowded and people still pouring in well after the parade.

10/7/10

Further eastward to Zhenning county and I caught the small market in Dounou today. I find Zhenning was a rather scenic county, full of green with krast hilltops surrounded, stream or river snaked in between valley with crops filled up every space. Buyi were the majority ethnic in Zhenning county, you could see them everywhere with their eye catching headdress, the blue and white tartan cloth either coiled up into big disk or wide like a rugby ball. Young women wore typical tight long sleeve shirt and normal trousers, and older women wore long sleeve jacket with embroidery along the rim of the lapel, pattern designs on cuff area, beautiful indigo dyed skirt with patterns, an dark blue front apron, headdress was a beautifully embroidered turban wrapped like a bicycle helmet. Miao also presented in the market too, I could distinguished 2 different tribes here, the majority one was similar to the Miao in Nayong with printed polyester skirt, sleeveless vest with embroidered panel on the back of their neck, another tribe was kind of like the Miao in Ganpu market with the black and white cloth for skirt, as they were not totally in full costume here, so I couldn't really tell if they were the should same tribe.

12/7/10

Jianglong said to be the busiest market in the county, although it wasn't the biggest but it was indeed busy and got every kind of merchandise you could find in any market, all sorts of livestock, and all had their own section, even a small quarter for illegal gambling games too. For minority scene, of course the Buyi with the huge headgear, also there was Miao, the same tribe like the one in Ganpu market with black and white stripe skirt. and they call themselves Mengzheng Miao.
today I went to Dabang market for one last market in Anshun area. Nothing needed to be write about the market, not big not busy(maybe because of the rain yesterday), and the market was separated into two part, new town and old town which was about 2km in between. Some Buyi show up but mostly Han in the market, I could tell there were many Miao hidden inside distinguished by their shoulder bag, and I saw couple of women wore black turban, heavy silver ear rings loaded down their earlobe like the open mouth of Jason in the horrible movie, and they called themselves Black Miao. Although not an interesting market, but the scenery on the journey to the market was pretty, especially along the Dabang river, the sudden drop of altitude near Guanjiao created a rapid and water vaporizing the air, with the unique mountain shape of Guizhou, it heighten my spirit even I was dead tire from the late world-cup football final last night.

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