Miao Minority

Day 3: The last two days have been a sort of build up towards today: For our visit to Guizhou, the cultural department of the local government organized several visits to small villages in the area to see traditional dance and musical rituals of the Miao people, one of the many ethnic minorities living in the region. Today we were able to visit two villages out of the four we will see on this trip. It was an amazing but also a bit unsettling experience.

This morning we left the hotel very early and drove several kilometers to a small village perched up on the mountains. The landscape here is quite impressive and very hilly, in fact 90% of the region is mountains and they say you can't drive three hundred meters without going up or down a hill. (Incidentally you also never get three days of sun in a row - we are on our second sunny day, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow.) The ground in the region is very tough but despite the hard conditions the people here have managed to cultivate the land, and the hills have been terraced with rice paddies wherever possible.

Traditionally the Miao people earned their keep by growing rice and other vegetables, though today they seem to survive mainly on tourism. The region is still very poor and the tourist industry is still (luckily) not very developed, with the exception of our brand new mega hotel and the recent paving of the main roads. You definitely feel that a lot will change here in a few years time. The houses directly on the main roads are modern, while those set back from the road, like in the villages we visited are still made of wood following the traditional construction method, which does not use nails or screws.

In the first village we were welcomed by the local villagers who played their instruments from the top of the hill as we climbed. In order to enter the village we had to pass through a gate and drink several cups of rice wine from women standing at the entrance. A custom that kept repeating throughout the day, the goal of which seemed to be to get the guests as drunk as possible. On the central square they performed their traditional dances and sang traditional songs. The women and men wore beautiful costumes and headdresses, which made noise as they danced. One of the ways the villagers can earn money is by participating in dance competitions, and so in some of the dances you could feel the influence of Chinese modern dance along with some less highbrow dance forms.

We were able to visit the local farmers, in the home I visited we were invited into the summer living room, where the woman of the house brought us fresh raw sweet potato to eat. On the wall was a huge poster of chairman Mao, who the guide (a new one named billy), explained was a hero for the Miao people. He even sang us a Miao song in homage of the chairman. Indeed communism declares all people to be equal, a policy which raises the status of farmers and countryside workers who were previously considered to be lower class peasants. And it does appear that in the mid '70's a policy was created which allowed the people to own and develop their land. (Until as recent as 2004 however it seems that they had to pay 15% of their incomes to the government in exchange. In relation to the growing income of the average city dweller this sum must have become absurdly low in recent years).

Despite the presence of communism, the villagers still seem to follow their own religious practices, which are centered on the role of the shaman to help protect them from evil spirits and bad fortune. In the houses we passed their were frequently bunches of dried sticks, roots and chickens feathers tied to the doors or in the corner of the rooms to ward of an illness or misfortune in the family. Could they have been placed there to ward off any bad luck visitors like us might bring to the village?

The second village was much much rougher and less scenic. Their proximity to the main road makes it an easier tourist site and the spirit there felt a bit more forced. We found out afterwards that the local government paid the villages to perform for us and it is not clear how much this actually benefits the locals. One of the local women hinted that everything in the village was for sale, when one of the participants asked if they could show her how they tied up their hair. However when they learned that we were dancers and musicians and not the normal tourist fare they opened up somewhat and one of the elder women spontaneously performed an extra song for us. Luckily we are here within the week of their new year celebrations and tomorrow we will spend the day in a village during one of their actual rituals.

The goal of this trip to China is for dancers and musicians from Europe and Asia to visit the Miao people and for us to get to know their traditional culture. Upon returning to Beijing we will have a few days to work together in groups and to come up with a 'response' to the experience. What exactly this response will be is still a mystery to me, but for the moment it is definitely interesting to be here. The experience brings up many questions about traditional customs, practices and beliefs, if and how they can be preserved and what our contemporary relationship to them should be.