miao minority new year day

miao minority is one of the minorities which locate in the north of china. now there are totally 7,384,000 miao people in china, with 430,000 in guangxi, which are mainly spotted on the four autonomous counties-------rongshui, longlin, sanjiang and longsheng, with the other are on ziyuan, xilin, rong’an, huanjiang, tianlin, napo, laibing. except their own traditional festival-----miao new year day, miao people of guangxi observe the same festival day of han people, while their activity is a little different from han minority people.

on 9th february,2006(12th january, lunar calendar), we photography team were invited to antai countryside of rongshui county to celebrate the miao minority new year, the destination is to zaihuai village of antai countryside. we started from guilin at 8:30am (guilin----lingui----yongfu-----rong’an-----rongshui), we arrived at rongshui county at 1:00pm, just eating some rice-noodle, we continued at 1:30. unfortunately, when we arrived, we met a strong fire, which burnt two wooden storied building, and had obstructed us for an hour.

at 5:00pm, we the team with more than 90 people, we went to the village as we are with our guns (tripod) and cannons (cameras) as if we are devils, while the villagers did not look us as that way, they were exited to heard that we are photography fonder, and some of which were from media units, so they welcomed us with the most warmest ceremony.

the villagers dressed up in queue met us with fresh flowers, the others played the yaogu (a kind of chinese drum which can hang on one’s waist), and lusheng (a kind of traditional musical instrument of miao minority people), a pretty girls toast us one by one.

when we arrived the village square, the villagers served us with the most wonderful lusheng dancing; we felt the atmosphere of festival in their skilled performance, beautiful and honest dance posture. we could not help clicking the shutter as to catch the most brilliant instant.

this night the arranged us stay in the villagers’ families, with the way of dahongbao (the host serves us a night sleeping, a supper, a breakfast, and each of us pay the 20 yuan, cheap? so cheap! )

lao xu and i were arranged to the family with the master whose name was lao shi, lao shi was pretty veridical and honest. he guided us to his house and showed us the rooms which are ready for us, in which there is simply a bed, maybe that can not be titled as “bed”, which was built by several wood bat, ok, it does not matter, we originally came here to experience the life of people here, while the problem is the bed is not large enough, i thought we would fell on the floor in the night, lao shi caught our he explained i had three children, lao’er (his second child) stay in his friend’s house as to provide for us, if this does not enough i will ask laosan (his third child) to do that too. when he said he veiled his eyes all the time. we said ok. at last we have others two even three persons slept in a bed.

our supper was simple, (we ate in a wood building, which may be owned by collectivity, the first floor is kitchen, the second one is dinning room which displayed about 6 big dinning tables, and the minority people were very hospitable.) every 8 persons sat by a table, all the food were placed by large bowls, two bowls of stewed beef, braised pork, net radish, cabbage, soup, a bowl of meat was stewed with big boiler, which had little attraction for us, compared with the delicacies of every kink, it was a bad one, while their we cannot buy in the restaurant and also i knew it was the best for the local residents, they did their best to satisfy us, i, too, tried my best to taste my food, even though i felt i could not swallow them.

finished our supper, we went to our residency, the lowering lamplight backed me to my childhood, my home was very poor at that time, much poorer than laoshi’, that was hellish.

the scale of the celebration this year is the largest; the lusheng teams joined us, too. the ceremonious performance lasted until 2:00 at dawn. zaihuai village was divided into 5 production teams, lao shi’ family was the first one. there are six persons in laoshi’s family, his old father, his wife, his three children and he, the eldest and the elder ones are boys, the eldest one is disabled on his leg, while the littlest is a girl, who is a senior grade 2 student, laoshi worked at a power plant as a casual laborer, salary is 400 yuan per month, with the three pigs they fed, they could earn 10,000 yuan per year, which was on a low level in their village, with the mail earning on curing his eldest child’s leg, and on the girl’s study.

i had a bad sleep that night, i could not adapt to the condition, and the cock sang at about 2:00 at dawn, since then i opened my eyes turning over from time to time, since their breakfast started at 10:00, and it’s raining all the last night, i had to got up until 8:00, at about 10:00, the members of the family got up one by one, and then they were busy with our breakfast. they began to boil youcha(a kind of tea), kill the chicken, and youcha is the necessary meal to the miao people and the dong people, which was considered as breakfast. it was very simple to make it. first of all, put some edible oil in the pan when the oil is heat, we could fry the mihua (a kind of sticky rice which was boiled and dried) then put 1,000km water with 20-30 grams tea, and boiled it, adding some salt, monosodium glutamate was ok, we can enjoy a wonderful tea, it was a traditional food there, this morning, or we can say it was noon, we had a wonderful meal.

laoshi treated us as honored guests ,he asked us to drink more all over the time, they called it quangjiu, in their way quangjiu means the host respect or welcome you very much, they would make many excuse “cheat” you to drink more, the more you drink, the more happiness they got, i could understand this, so that day i drunk much, though i usually drunk little, i loved the family, loved their custom, at last, lao shi exchanged his cup with mine, i felt some his wife told me, that mean he want to close to you, it was also their custom, i nod my head, did that and smiled, suddenly i remembered my father, i did not know why. our main food was sticky rice ,it was very funny, we ate it with hands. 12:30, we finished our breakfast, and went to the plaza, both of we gave another 20 yuan to laoshi for his hospitality.

the celebration was held for a while when we arrived, we saw there were many lusheng pillars of every camp and the body of the pillars were carved as dragons, with a favonian bird on the top of the pillar. lusheng pillar is the signal of holy. thousands of miao minority people and dong minority people and several dozens of lusheng team ran from all aspects. they sacrificed and prayed under their own pillars, they prayed the god to give them a harvest next year. i forgot everything as if i was the member of them, together with them to feel the exiting and happiness which the god gave us. and it was also a good chance to make young people fell in love; this was another custom of them. the remainder was perfect, too. the particular one was which called horse-fight. maybe it is more bloody and, but it was also a kind of culture, as if the bullfight on abroad.

how time flied, we have to leave. when we got on the bus, all the villagers in the street, their mood was same with ours. “wait for me next year”, i shouted with my heart. see you next year, thank you for your hospitality; i will miss you, with the beautiful photos in my camera, which is eternal in the shoot, also in my heart.