Mengzi Torch Festival

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There should be 3 Torch festival on my list this year in Mengzi area, before the 24th I went to checked out the exact happening time for the festival in Xibeile so I could well organised the routing between the 3 festivals on the same day. well...I was in Xibeile market 2 weeks ago and find it rather quiet, but this time there was quite a lot of people, perhaps because of the coming festival event. when enquired about Torch Festival, "this afternoon" said the group of men sitting in the outdoor madeshift canteen happily drinking. "today???" I question again. the confirmation came again, said they push forward the festival to this market date so more people can attend, and added "it will be raining on the 24th". woahhh...perhaps the Yi's shaman really could read the sky! anyways...there was only one program for the festival...bull-fight! which wasn't really interested me. you could see villagers shipped their fighter into town with red ribbon, heard the prize was about 800 yuans. kind of tiny I would say, also some people said a buffalo worth more than few thousand yuan, and there are danger in the game for the beast. "800 is nothing!" one spoke out from the crowd. I wasn't really happy because I hadn't bring along with my camera as I thought there wasn't anyrthing new to shot, luckily my phone could still captured some decent picture. The orange colour dressed people kept pouring in during the day, for them...a day out just idling about in the market street was more than fun, and the bull-fight top everything in the year event in this quiet mountain area. this day you could see more detail of the the Puyi costume, the old woman headdress more in black than the normal red colour.
Yesterday the Shimajiao village suddenly canceled their festival this year, no reason was given, we contacted them since month ago, everytime we call and they said yes, and they actually practising dance everyday for the festival, every year it was an evening event, that was why I thought I could visit more than one festival on the same day. now...it left only the Yongning Torch festival and it was solid on the date! This morning the sky was dark clouded and the prediction from Xibeile seem came true, and rain came down by midday, not until afternoon the sun show its face. Yongning is belong to Yuguopu region not far from Mengzi, live the Nisu Yi that wore the very simple costume, I mean...among the colouful and complicated costume style with the Yi in this area. Plain colour long sleeve shirt and trouser, front apron with embroidery in center. towel like head-scarf with pompon on both end, but old woman still wear the tradional dark head scarf. This Nisu Yi had a traditional dance call Huadengwu dance, I think it should be inheritaged from the Han as it was almost the same kind of dance that the Han did in Guizhou, kind of like a singing opera with dancing steps. the evening preformance also had lion dance, Dongjing music, and some other local dance, not bad actually, at least there was no electric guitar and Hindie music. there also a banquet and the food was tasty. The evening ended with ...sure you know...a bonfire! There was a lots of guests from the government tonight and also a TV crews, suddenly I thought I knew why the push forward and cancelation of festival in other villages....maybe they need to give way for Yongning festival.

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