Jinping quick tour

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Drove through Tongchang and the mining area became more bigger, luckily the road had already well paved with rock made this part of journey a bit more comfortable than before, villages growing getting bigger too as it attracted more people came down from the mountain to live in the valley, the landscape around Tongchang still pretty filled with wild lines of the rice terraces. A quick guide tour in Jinping I revisited Nafa market, like many town in Yunnan, rebuild construction work is underway in town and the market had been relocated down by the river, they were widening the road and I suspected they would up-grade the border into international standard in the future, if that is the case...in and out to Vietnam will offer more options. The market was full of Sha Yao as they all came down shopping for the 2nd Feb ceremony, no idea what kind of festival was that, "we celebrate it individually for every village" a Yao man told me, and there is no dance or singing he added later. the Sha Yao crowds created an busy scene for the day, and their modern style costume with pattern stripe tied on headdress and addition embroiderey on their original plain attire, their new outlook for beauty! There also the unique Hani in long cotton robe with patterns like decorated of a general. In Jinping you could see many unidue minority tribe, like the Red-head Yao with pointy flag, of course...the most outstanding are their intricated cross-stitch trousers. there also another Miao you could see in the market. More than 50% of the people in the market were coming from the other side of the border in Vietnam, future down the market street and you will find the floating bridge crossing where minority walk over from Vietnam, no border guard in sight but a money collector charge 1 kuai for using the bridge.
By chance I caught the Nanrenjie festival in nearby Zhemi the next day, I had attend one at 2002, but this year they only organzied the festival in small scale with no activities but dinner and performance, beside the free meal...the show was boring, I heard there will be celebrate like this in other villages during this few days, now they tend to do it separately I guessed. The story of The Nanrenjie said...the men went to war during the Chinese new year period, when they finally came back and the women rewarded them with this celebration...to serve and treat their men with best foods, a compensation for missing the Chinese newyear, men just sit back and relax, no need to do anything for the day, so it called Nanrenjie(The Men-Day). I stopped in Laomeng on my way back to Yuanyang and again...I caught another Nanrenjie there. haha...another free meal....Dai's cooking always up to standard!!! the grilled chicken and pork were superb! here they had their special preserved steamed fish which taste like sardine!the event...same...with performance show in the evening...but in small scale and it turn out a better atmosphere with only local, no officials no speech. dance after dance and seem like those women didn't wanted to stop...where the energy came from????! looked at my watch...almost midnight......woaaahhhhh......

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