Follow Me to a Typical Miao Village in Southwest China(2) 苗寨印象（二）

Generation after generation, the native Miao people here have been working in the surrounding rice paddies and making exquisite Miao silverworks, batiks and embroideries. They chase away bad spirits with silver jewelry, and cure their illness with all kinds of Miao herbal medicine from the dense mountain forests.

They celebrate life events with plenty of local festivals, when people (mostly women) put on their finest silver jewelry and embroidered costumes. I tried out one copy with fake silver jewelries (pictured above), and it's not that easy to walk around with the huge headpiece and all those bling bling decorations. You can imagine how heavy it is when it's genuine silver all over your body, but well, like always, many are willing to pay a price for looking good. ;) Plus it's a cool tradition to wear this on festive days, and there were not many choices in clothing or accessories in deep mountains in the early times...

Also in these events, they have a famous way of sharing food called Long Table Banquet, which is a big group sitting around a long table to share all the food and joy. Sounds fun, isn't it? I'm going to talk about this in details in my next post, since this one is about the general impression. :) Another topic I plan to dive into is the traditional singing and dancing Miao people is known for. In my coming posts I'd love to share the video clips of their colorful lively performance.

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The most typical architectures in Miao villages are the wooden stilted houses(Diao Jiao Lou 吊脚楼) and Wind & Rain Bridges(Feng Yu Qiao 风雨桥), as you can see from my photos below.

Like most visitors, I stayed in a beautiful guest house modified from a local building. The wooden stilted houses are usually built on a 30-70 degree mountain slope without any nails and rivets. What a smart way to fit into the environment, and it creates the magnificent views for both the inhabitants and people watching from afar.

There are normally three floors in a building for different uses. The lowest floor is for raising poultry and livestock, storing tools, etc. The second floor is the living space, with central room, bedroom, kitchen and place for making embroidery. The top floor is used to store grain, fodder and other goods.

The five Wind & Rain Bridges are crossing the main river in the village. They are popular venues for villagers as well as visitors to have a rest. Just like the rest, I loved enjoying the different but equally fabulous views from these bridges both during daytime and at night. They are built based on “Feng Shui” in Chinese culture to bring good luck and convenience to the locals. These bridges used to be built in wooden structures without any nails, but now they are rebuilt in more sturdy concrete and wood to withstand floods.

I was walking along the Xijiang river that snakes through the village, and it's sad to see the polluted unclear water. I witnessed some restaurants by the banks directly discharging waste water into the river:

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Tourism has brought new opportunities for the Miao villagers, but I've seen locals stick to their traditional ways of living, not just for the tourists.

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Hope you have enjoyed the trip to this amazing Miao village! Tell me what you think in the comments, and check out the first part about this place! Until next time. =)

All content by @itchyfeetdonica