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We woke up at 6 a.m., showered, and went to breakfast at 7:30. We tried to eat a slightly smaller breakfast today as we had so much food
yesterday, and expected the same for today. The buffet was once again amazing, so we had to make an effort to pace ourselves. When we had finished eating, we went back to the room to finish packing. We turned on the TV and there was a very interesting cartoon on: Chinese soldiers were up to various hijinks and their commanding officer had a Hitler mustache. Very strange.
We checked out of the hotel just before 9 o'clock. Mr. Zhou loaded our luggage into the van. He is always very professional, wearing white gloves, stocking the car with water bottles, and being very friendly despite not having language in common with us. We told Wang Jun that they hadn't had stamps at the hotel. He asked the desk clerk where the post office was. When we got into the van, he asked Mr. Zhou to take us there. We turned down a narrow side street. People were illegally parked, and it was an absolute gridlock. We only needed to go a couple of blocks, but nothing was moving at all. After 15 minutes at a dead stop, we got out with Wang Jun and walked the rest of the way to the post office / postal savings bank. International postcards take 2 1-yuan stamps each, so we bought enough to send to our family. By the time we got out, the gridlock had cleared up and we hopped back into the van and were on our way to Kaili. The whole adventure had taken half an hour. The drive took about 3 hours. We saw lots of car carriers bearing brand new cars coming in the opposite direction. Most of these were double-wide on the top deck, something that we never see at home. Wang Jun told us that cars are much more affordable now in China - you can get a brand new Chinese-made car for $5000. We had always heard back in the 80's about the proliferation of bicycles in China. Now it is all motorbikes and cars. Our destination of Kaili is an area of ethnic minorities, and on the ride, Wang Jun told us a lot about their history and culture. There are 56 ethnicities in China. 93% are Han Chinese. The other 55 ethnicities make up the remaining 7% of the population. Wang Jun spoke with fondness about his friend Gina Corrigan. She is a textile expert whom he befriended while guiding and translating for her as she visited the minority villages to study their embroidery. He said that she has amassed an amazing collection of textiles and traditional clothing from the nminorities of southwest China, which is on display at the British Museum! Wang Jun is credited with helping with translations for her books, including Guizhou Province, which we coincidentally purchased prior to the trip, and have used extensively for research since returning. The most populous ethnic minority in Guizhou Province is the Miao. The Miao are comprised of over 100 subgroups. These subgroups have been given nicknames by the Han Chinese to distinguish them from one another. Most of these nicknames are based on descriptions of their physical appearance: clothing, hair, etc. Examples include Long Horn Miao, Small Horn Miao, Short Skirt Miao, and Long Skirt Miao. Wang Jun visited between 60 and 80 of these Miao subgroups with Gina Corrigan. The supergroup which the Chinese refer to as the Miao are known internationally as Hmong. There are 9 million in the world, and 8.6 million reside in China (4.3 million of them in Guizhou). They were originally from the Yellow River Valley. 3,000 years ago, the Yellow Emperor and the Yen Emperor joined their empires to form the Han Chinese. Ci You was the leader of the Miao. The Miao have always warred with the Han Chinese. The Miao were defeated and migrated South. In the 2nd century B.C., they settled here in Guizhou Province. They also proceeded further south, emigrating to other southeast Asian countries (we had visited several Hmong subgroups in Vietnam the year before). They fought for the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and then emigrated to the U.S.A., France, Belgium, Argentina, and Chile with refugee status. As Wang Jun told us these facts about the five migrations of the Miao / Hmong, I was reminded of my experience with Hmong immigrants in Massachusetts near where I grew up: While I was studying early childhood education in college, my class mentored first graders. The little kids each got to pick out a college buddy, and I was chosen by a petite Hmong girl named See. She spoke no English. I am embarrassed to say that my first reaction was a thought about how much more difficult it would be for me than my peers. All of their little buddies at least spoke the same language! But I quickly realized how selfish this thought was. See needed a buddy more than any of those other students did. I made up my mind to do my best to help her to navigate activities where she didn't necessarily understand what was being said to her. Ok, now where was I? Oh yes, the Miao. They had no written language until the 1950's (just after the founding of the People's Republic of China). History and culture were passed down through songs and embroidery prior to the existence of a written language. A good wife was judged by her ability to make embroidered clothing. Girls are trained to embroider at age 6 or 7. They marry at 16 and usually start working on wedding / festival clothes at age 10. They also make elaborate baby carriers as a prerequisite for marriage (the legal age for marriage in China is now 22 for men and 20 for women). The Miao believe that their ancestor is a butterfly which married bubbles in the water. They laid 12 eggs of different shapes. The mythical Ji Yu bird found the 12 eggs and spent 49 days incubating them. A human hatched from the first egg. Then water buffalo, tiger, snake. There were also bad eggs of a more abstract nature: hatred, disease, disasters. The man in the first egg was a Miao man named Jiang Yang. The motifs from this creation story have been handed down throughout the generations through the embroidery. There are 13-14 distinct embroidery techniques amongst the various Miao subgroups. Wang Jun's favorite is thread splitting embroidery, in which they use a paper cut on cotton as a pattern and then use silk thread which they separate into 7-13 strands. They can only do this work before the agricultural season begins in spring, when their hands are fresh. It can take 3 years to make a small square. In a lifetime, a woman can make a maximum of 3 sets of festival clothes. When they reach age 40, they generally can't see well enough to continue. They make one for themselves, one for their daughter, and maybe one additional. Professional embroiderers can make 8-10, and then rich Miao can purchase rather than making it themselves. Nowadays young girls don't want to take the time to learn this elaborate artform. Embroidery can be mass-produced by machines. Tourists wishing to purchase authentic embroidery should make sure that they trust their source. Dealers in cities will sell machine made variants of embroidery, claiming that they are handmade. Disreputable sellers will also smoke embroidery or dip it in tea to give an aged look, so that it seems to be an authentic antique. Wang Jun told us that the Shanghai Museum has the best collection of Miao embroidery, and a woman named Mrs. Yong, whom we will visit in a few days, has the second best. There is also a nice collection at a university in Taiwan. Once we had exhausted Miao history as a subject of conversation, Wang Jun taught us the hand gestures for numbers in Chinese. When we visit markets, we may need to bargain. Without common language, hand gestures are helpful. One through five are common to the way we do it in the US, but 6-10 are quite different. They are performed with a single hand, and we never would have guessed them. We could tell that we were entering minority areas as we started to pass wooden pagoda-like structures that we would later learn are actually drum towers from the Dong ethnic minority. We arrived at a strip-mall restaurant in Kaili for lunch. It is not customary for guides and drivers to eat with travelers in China. We sat in back-to-back booths with Wang Jun and Mr. Zhou. We had rice, tofu with chilies, a whole carp in tempura and served with sweet and sour sauce, sweet and sour eggplant, rice, a mixtre of corn, carrots, and peanuts, and a potato pancake made out of sticks of potato with scallions on top. Everything was absolutely delicious. We couldn't stop eating. Craig had a Pearl River beer and I had tea. There was a young girl (probably around 8 years old) whose mother worked at the restaurant. She watched us but was shy. But when we were getting into the van, she brought her bike outside and rode around the parking lot, showing off for us. It was much warmer and more humid here, and there was a lot of constructon, and subsequently, dirt and dust. This was another city with a lot being built. We checked into another skyscraper...the Zong Heng (Good Fortune) Hotel. As we got into the elevator, we had a hard time locating the button for the 19th floor. The buttons were arranged in a 3 column configuration which read from bottom to top. It was certainly disorienting. Not very usable for Western tourists. The hallway smelled vaguely of cigarrete smoke. A lot of the clientele are Chinese, so there are many smokers. We got settled in our room, #1923. The decor was a little weird, with contemporary naugahyde furniture, dingy carpeting, and a glass wall separating the bedroom and bathroom. But it was comfortable enough. We rested for about 30 minutes, enjoying some Chinese TV, and then met Wang Jun in the lobby. Mr. Zhou drove us to Shi Qing village, a settlement of Small Horn Miao. Wang Jun explained that they practice silk felt embroidery (applique). Silkworms are placed on a piece of wooden board. The Miao cut a pattern and put it onto the cloth. They dye it yellow, green, and blue with chemical dye. In the past they used natural dyes were made from tree saps, mountain berries and roots. But since natural dye isn't as permanent, they opt for chemical dyes nowadays. It sounded like an interesting process to witness, and we were looking forward to it. We drove under a towering bridge for the new high speed rail whih would start operating next month. It would reduce traveling time to Canton from 24 hours to 4 hours. There were huge concrete pylons, and they were tearing down the mountainside with excavators. Progress has its price. As we walked into Shi Qing village, it was like stepping back in time. Or into a Tolkien novel. We saw doors in the sides of the mountains, which led to root cellars which permeated 30 feet into the mountain. Picturesque rice paddies were dotted with cheerful conical haystacks. Karst mountains formed the backdrop for the landscape. We saw some Miao women washing in the river. They have very beautiful and shiny hair which they wash in fermented rice starch and tea. Houses were made of stone and brick, with more traditional houses made of dark brown fir planks. The foundations were often made of tightly packed stacked stone. Craig was in awe of the craftsmanship in both the stone and wood construction. The houses had tile roofs. Drying ears of corn hund from the eaves. In front of one of the houses was a round burial mound / tomb which had plants sprouting out of the top of it. There was a carved slate tablet marking the grave. The weather was very sunny and hot. Wang Jun talked to the villagers and hoped to find someone to demonstrate silk felt embroidery, or at the very least to show us their traditional festival clothes made using this technique. He has been to this village many times, and has always had success. He spoke to one man who brought out some embroidered arm bands, an apron, and ribbons, but he refused to show us the beautiful traditional jackets. This village is also known for blacksmithing, and we could see his anvil and setup. We ran into two women, one of whose hands were dyed blue from the indigo she was using to dye and prepare the traditional pleated skirts. Neither she nor her friend would show us their traditional jackets. Wang Jun was noticeably irritated by their lack of forthcomingness, when they had always done so in the past. When it became obvious that they wouldn't budge, we walked back to the car. On the outskirts of the village, Wang Jun was flagged down by an acquaintance. This middle-aged man was a "peasant painter," a style of painting which depicts the peasant farming lifestyle. He had won first place in a national contest for this style of painting. The man had recently moved out of his traditional home in Shi Qing village to a 3 story modern brick house, a status symbol. He boasted to Wang Jun that he was now a rich man. He showed us his paintings, which were very beautiful, colorful, and bold. They depicted Miao men making silver jewelry, Miao women with red dots on their foreheads (indicating that they drank alcohol the night before), a man catching fish with shallow baskets, a boy riding a water buffalo, etc. Our favorite of his paintings was a very large piece that showed representatives of each enthic minority group as children in school, surrounded by their dream careers: astronaut, nuclear physicist, pilot, architect, military, etc. This painter was obviously an eccentric guy, wearing his motorcycle helmet in the house. He never even approached us to buy a painting, but was happy to let me photograph his work. Mr. Zhou wandered into another room and emerged with a sword drawn and a big smile on his face. He was a character, this Mr. Zhou. He was starting to loosen up around us, which we really liked. We looked forward to getting to know him better. Wang Jun was disappointed by the whole visit to Shi Qing Village. Not only is the once peaceful village now surrounded by a construction zone and a high speed train track, the Small Horn Miao who live there no longer seem to be proud of their culture. They no longer practice their traditional specialty embroidery, they will not proudly show off their traditional arts, and they want to move out of the village into more modern accommodations. Wang Jun decided that he will remove this stop from future itineraries as it is no longer very interesting for tourists. He said that it is good that we are visiting the minority areas now before the culture totally disappears. Sad. We got back to the hotel at 4:30 p.m., and had two hours of free time before dinner. There was a square right next door to the hotel, and we now knew how interesting these could be, so we decided to explore it on our own. It was a Saturday, and there were lots of activities for children. There were tables with outlines of pictures that could be purchased, and the children could sit at tables painting them. There were also plaster figurines that children could paint. One little girl was sitting at a table by herself, painting a plaster figurine, with a cellphone on her ear, chatting away with a big smile on her face. It was adorable. There were amusement rides for infants and toddlers, where they sat in little swingss and it gently turned in a circle. There were also inflatable ball pits, a sandbox with all kinds of toys (not filled with sand, but with brown rice or small brown stones - we couldn't tell what the substance was), and a bouncy house. All of these were fillled with happy children. We walked around, saying nihao to the children and the parents. People were very friendly and encouraged the babies to say nihao, hello, bye bye, or to wave to us. Some were happy to pose for photos. We didn't see any other westerners, and everyone we encountered was very friendly. If we said nihao, they often turned around to see who we were talking to. When they realized we were talking to them, they smiled and returned our greeting. Little kids were driving cars around the square...some were small Power Wheels type cars and motorbikes. Others were large inflatable cars shaped like cartoon characters. We got a kick out of watching the kids drive around. We walked past a restaurant which was hosting a wedding reception. The bridal party was standing outside, and the bride was wearing a white western-style wedding dress. As guests entered the restaurant, the groomsmen were handing out peanuts and cigarettes, and the bride was lighting cigarettes for people. There were a lot of Miao wedding attendees, and they were all dressed up in their traditional finery. As we walked back to the hotel, two little girls approached us and said "Hello, what is your name?" We spoke to them for a few minutes. They were very cute. Boys on BMX bikes were doing tricks on some large rocks in the park. It was amazing to see this up-close; their command of balance was excellent. We loved the vitality of the square on a Saturday afternoon! We met Wang Jun and Mr. Zhou in the hotel lobby at 6:30 for dinner. It was starting to get dark, and much like Guiyang, the place was lit up like Las Vegas at night. All of the skyscrapers had interesting colored lights which flashed on and off in different patterns, and there were large TV screens lighting everything up. We walked a short way to the Victoria Chinese and Western Restaurant. This place was very unusual. The ambiance seemed to be what the Chinese perception of an English pub might be, with dark woood, dim lighting, and plush paisley-upholstered booths. There were a lot of statues of a caricature of a French chef (think Chef Boyardee), and there were replicas of Italian classical statues. We were seated right in the front window. This seems to be the custom in China, to seat the Westerners in full view of the street, so passers-by can gawk, and it might even attract business. We found it very amusing. Craig got a Tsing Tao beer. I asked for tea. There was no tea. Whether this place was trying to be Chinese and/or British...it should certainly have tea! Instead, they just had boiled water. Weird. This would prompt us to steal tea bags from the hotel room to keep in my purse in case this happened again. For dinner we had fritters made of corn powder and wheat powder, broccoli, fungi with chilies, minced cabbage, sesame noodles with pork, and rice. Craig didn't even find the chili dish to be hot. Wang Jun told us that he had once guided a group for his friend Gina. He ordered them 12 dishes per meal for 12 days... a total of 288 dishes. On the last day, one client revealed that he was a chef, and said that Wang Jun was amazing because he had only repeated a meal once - and that was at the group's request. Wang Jun likes a challenge, and now he challenges himself to never repeat a dish during the course of a trip. He said that he would order us around 5 dishes per meal for the days that we were together, and that he would try his best not to repeat. He said that this would become more difficult as we traveled to more remote villages, but he would focus on localo specialties in each place. Eleven days times two meals a day times 5 dishes per meal = 110 distinct dishes! Thisseemed highly unlikely to us and a little unnecessary. We wondered if it would mean that we would be served some pretty obscure and not all-together appetizing meals. But we trusted Wang Jun and appreciated that he wanted us to be able to try as much cuisine as possible during the course of our trip. We had paid attention to the location of the restaurant so that Wang Jun and Mr. Zhou could head back to the hotel to get some sleep when they were feeling tired. At around 7:45, Wang Jun made sure that we were all set with food and drink, and then he and Mr. Zhou went back to the hotel to rest. We left about 15 minutes later. When we got to the park, there was so much activity! The Kaili Minority Museum loomed large and well-lit in the background, reminding me of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Two different large groups (mainly comprised of women) were doing group dancing / exercise to recorded music. One lady tried to get us to join in, burt we preferred to observe. There was one woman who looked like an archetypal gym teacher who was especially good at the routine. There was a small group of ballroom dancers also dancing to recorded music. Men and women were dancing as partners, and also pairs of women. They were all dressed up in fancy dresses and high heeled gold shoes. The inflatable cars were now all lit up, and kids were still zooming around in all manner of vehicles. We once again said hello to everyone and waved to babies, etc. It was like a large, Saturday night block party. We got a lot of attention from the locals. A local man who went to school in Chicago approached us and chatted with Craig. Many people returned our smiles and hellos. A group of 20 western tourists walked by with very sour looks on their faces. They did not look approachable and nobody paid any attention to them. They didn't try to interact with the locals, they just snapped some photos and then followed their guide back to the hotel. The difference in how they were regarded by the locals was remarkable. It just goes to show how much your attitude as a tourist shapes the experience that you have! We had a lot of fun. The organized large group dancing ended at around 9 p.m. By 9:30, most actvity was winding down, and we headed back to the hotel. I wrote in the journal, downloaded pictures, and went to bed at 10:30. Kaili Square |
 Mr. Zhou and Wang Jun at lunch  Kaili Square  Idyllic Shi Qing Village on the brink of modernization  Shi Qing Village root cellars  Shi Qing Village  Shi Qing Village  Burial mound, Shi Qing Village  Blacksmith in Shi Qing Village shows us some embroidered arm bands  Shi Qing Village  Mr. Zhou emerges with a sword  Peasant painter shows off his work  High speed rail construction near Shi Qing Village  Kids play in a sandbox in Kaili square  Wedding party welcoming guests  Balloons for sale  Kaili Square  The bizarre Victoria Chinese and Western Restaurant 
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