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Published: July 11th 2011
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One Sunday in Lunar June, locals in Azhahe would took to the street and dance, to celebrate Kuzhazha. The Hani had two Newyear in a year, The October and June Newyear. different area celebrate in different way. I came to see the Kuzhazha June Newyear in Azhahe. Honghe although finally got its upgraded road, but to travel there still a pain in the ass from Yuanyang. I mean the most despised place Nansha started and made my unpleasure day, not mentioned the heat while there, the waiting for transportation was hell, you would never know when there will be bus to depart, normal buses nowaday went from the bypass road along the river into Honghe area...should had wait at the bus station! many minibus there in town but hardly any passenger, well...passengers had been splitted up by indiviual car, finally someone willing to grouped up people from different cars and I departed the most-hated Nansha after 90 minutes.
"no ticket for the day, all sold out"! couldn't believed what I hear, all 5 buses to Azhahe for the day had been full ! I already came to Honghe earlier than I had to be. I didn't realised this festival would attracted
that much attention, then I find out it was because of the school holiday had began and youngers was on the way home on this very Saturday. Just bad luck I guess. "many ticket for tomorrow" came behind the ticket counter. well...why not and I like the friendiness of the voice which was seldom from behind any ticket counter. so...0730 am bus mean I will still make to the festival before it start as a day trip. of course I would prefer more to got there a day before to research a little bit, beside...it will be Azhahe market on Sunday. again...caught with road work! The direct road to Azhahe had been under condtruction and we need to made a big loop through Jiayin. Once our bus off the station and the conductor came to collected another 10 yuan and said " because we will driver for a longer route"! HA!!!! It did travel longer distance but also gave them more chances to pick up more passengers!!! Anyways...it gave me a tour to revisited Jiayin and the spectacular Tasa rice terrace scene. And further onto the Nuoyin road there are couple more area of terrace area are well worth explore
I would say. the landscape are more steep and wide, even at the moment were all green, but I could imagine what it would be like in winter when all the terrace were in water. The road once after Jiayin became unpaved and dusty, and the tiring journey to Azhahe ended after 3 hours. The market had been setup right at the entrance of town, busy as usual and you could see all the similar merchandises and...seem like nowaday no festival go without a camel for photo! and further down the single street in town I saw people were ready with itchy feet! There was no government people or any official speech, seem like it was kind of self organised by indiviual villages, they squared themselve into its own space in the street and dance away, whoever want could join in(but I did not see many outsider participated), there was more than 10 indiviual groups and it gathered huge crowd occuplied more than 200m of the main street. The thing I like about was they didn't used any of those terrible cassette played dancing music like they used in Yuanyang, they all go live and unplugged! be it the string,
the flute, the gong...and there is an instrument made out of a piece of bamboo, half spitted in the middle, and you clapped it on the open end, the sound was great, also the used of bark of the palm tree by beat it on the ground, very African and with great effect! Kuzhazha celebrate during the summer day, free of agricultural work, what better than festival and dance and have fun, on the other hand wishing for better rain water and a good crops on harvest time later in Autumn. by 2pm people started to thin out and the market place began to filled up with tiring costume dressed people with sweating faces.
Azhahe live mainly Hani people, the typical Honghe Hani you could see in every market in the area, I call them Robinhook Hani as they set their head turban with a pointy end. here on festival day of course you could see more detail of their costume. There aslo couple of Yao villages in the area so you could see the Landian Yao wandering in the market as well. Azhahe is right next to Shalatuo region, so no surprised I spotted couple of Shalatuo Hani too.
note
minibus Nansha to Honghe 25 yuan
bus Honghe to Azhahe 17+10 yuan
Honghe bus to Mengzi 45 yuan
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