China 10/19/14

Sunday 10/19/14 - Weng Xiang Village, Kaili Sunday Market, Matang village

We woke up at 6:15 a.m. We took showers, got ready for the day, and went down to breakfast on the 12th floor at around 8 o'clock. It was a Chinese buffet, complete with a noodle station. Neither of us were up for spicy noodles this early in the morning, so we ate dumplings, heart-shaped bread, bread shaped like a silkworm (which looked much more appetizing than the actual silk worms we had seen for sale on Snack Street in Beijing), watermelon, peapods, coffee, and tea.

It was a large banquet hall, and we chose an empty table. Two Chinese tourists sat with us. We didn't see any other westerners. People were spitting on the rug as they ate. As much as we try to be open to cultural dfferences, this skeeved us out, and reinforced that we wanted to be sure to wear the complimentary slippers when walking in the carpet in our hotel room. No wonder the carpet looked so dingy. Yuck.

Wang Jun and Mr. Zhou showed up for breakfast at 8:45, just as we were heading back to the room to collect our daypacks. We met them in the lobby at 9 o'clock. We drove out to Weng Xiang village, a Folded Embroidery Miao village. We passed by a lot of construction. We saw cement plants with worker housing, quarries, large machinery, and people carving tombstones out of what looked like slate.

When we reached the entrance to the village, Mr. Zhou dropped us off and we walked the rest of the way. At our drop-off point, we saw a cluster of what appeared to be small tombstones. Wang Jun explained that these were actually "arrow-blocking tablets." Traditionally, Miao villages have used shamans for medical care. If someone had a sick child who was cured by the shaman, they would erect a tablet in their honor. They would carve a bow and arrow on the tablet, to indicate that the child had dodged a dangerous situation. It was refreshing that these markers, which looked like tombstones, were actually commemorating someone's recovery.

We walked along a path into the village past some groves of bamboo. Athough there were some modern houses, there were also traditional ones made of fir wood. Most of the houses have tile roofs now, but in the past they used fir bark for shingles. At the apex of the roofs, there were designs made to look like ancient Chinese coins, to bring wealth to the inhabitants of the houses.

Wang Jun hoped that he would have better luck today finding a household that would be willing to demonstrate their intricate and painstaking folded embroidery, and show us some of their festival costumes. Today was Sunday morning, and he felt pretty confident that most people would be home.

He spotted a traditional house which had a mannequin on its porch dressed in traditional clothing. He called out to the woman of the house. She immediately came out to greet us. She invited us in and offered us some sweet potatoes that she was cooking. This was already a much warmer welcome than we had received yesterday. Wang Jun offered her husband a cigarette. At first he declined, but then accepted and the two smoked together.

The woman was dressed traditionally, in an indigo knee0length pleasted skirt, a silk tunic top, and a fez-like red cap. She had large holes in her earlobe which were plugged by round silver earrings around the diameter of a quarter and very thick. She took them out to show us, letting us feel the weight of the silver earring. Her earlobes sagged until the earring was replaced.

She put on some reading glasses and demonstrated the intricate technique of folded embroidery. The process starts with securing a papercut onto a sheet of silk as a pattern. Then rectangular pieces of silk are folded into tiny triangles, layered on top of one another, and stitched down in accordance with the pattern. It can take three months to create a narrow panel using this intricate technique. Everything is so small, we can see why reading glasses are essential!

The woman brought out samples of her work, and we were able to examine it close-up. The silk triangles in the folded embroidery technique are so small! It was amazing. She showed us a piece that she will be entering in the annual provincial craftmanship competition. It was unbelievable!

There are braids on the perimeter of the embroidered panels. She showed us an old loom used for braiding the silk thread: it is a small wooden stool, and 13 antique coins were used as bobbins. It takes approximately 8 hours to braid 6 inches of silk thread.

She explained that there is a third technique that is used: knot stitch. They often use this technique to create motifs of Ji Yu, the mythical bird of their creation story.

Wang Jun asked if we could see her personal festival clothes. She was happy to show us the festival jacket that she had made for herself. As per tradition, it was bright red, with various embroidered patches and panels appliqued onto it. It was breathtaking! The folded embroidery elements consisted of 800,000 silk triangles!!!! The sheer scale of the workmanship involved was staggering. We marveled at the jacket, and she was clearly proud of her cultural heritage.

Wang Jun asked her to show us what she had for sale. She brought out a collection of pieces and let us browse at our leisure, with no pressure to buy. We selected a small piece which demonstrated all three embroidery techniques practiced here: the folded embroidery, the knot stitch, and the braided silk.

We asked to get a photo of the woman with her husband. She ran inside to get his traditional vest, so that he could wear it over his western style shirt. As with most places we visit, the women seem to be one the ones who continue to dress traditionally day-to-day, while the men only do so for special occasions.

As we were leaving, they showed us the silkworm cocoons that she spins into silk. The cocoons were bright yellow, answering for the first time Wang Jun's curiosity about where the natural yellow dye originates. He knew what substances could be used for all other colors, but never yellow. And here it was, right in front of him! The woman broke open a cocoon to show us the inside, and she gave us two to take with us. They were a very sweet couple.

Wang Jun felt relieved for such a positive interaction after yesterday's village visit, which he considered somewhat of a debacle.

We drove back to Kaili. When Wang Jun had realized that today was Sunday, he wanted to give us a chance to explore the weekly Sunday market in town. He warned that this would mean that we wouldn't have time for a full-blown lunch, but that he could get us KFC or something similar. There are an awful lot of KFC's in China - probably more so than any other western fast food that we saw. Though we prefer to eat locally when we travel, this was an acceptable compromise in order to be able to experience the market. "It's still different from what you have eaten before, so it's not cheating!" Wang Jun assured us, based on his self-imposed "never repeat a dish" challenge.

The market took place along a main road lined with skyscrapers, and also down the little alleyways which intersected with that road. We had from 11:30 until 1 o'clock to explore on our own. We saw a man doing calligraphy in chalk on the sidewalk of the main road. He was gathering quite a crowd of locals as he played recorded music and wrote Chinese characters.

We turned down one of the alleys and wandered around, smiling and saying nihao to locals. There were quite a few Miao dressed up in their traditional clothing, and we got to admire their intricately woven baby carriers, worn by both men and women to transport babies on their backs.

We saw lots of things for sale: fruits, vegetables, chili peppers, tofu, pork, beef, live ducks, roast ducks, live chickens, and live fish. We saw a vendor who was selling roasted dogs. Three charred dogs piled on top of one another looked like a very macabre Cerberus, with blood dripping from their noses. Another vendor was selling a raw pit bull head. It was definitely a bit of culture shock to see man's best friend so graphically represented among the other meat for sale.

It was definitely a market for locals as opposed to tourists. We didn't see any other westerners there.

We wandered through an area devoted to clothing items (mostly machine-made), and saw a woman making traditional hats. Then we entered a covered pavilion which served as a farmer's market. We saw some enormous produce. I made Craig stand next to it for perspective while taking a photo. We saw a wide variety of eggs in large baskets, including some that had very bumpy gray shells and looked like rocks.

After exploring several alleyways, we went back to the main road. A group of older men were buying tobacco leaves (tobacco is the main crop in this region) and invited Craig to smoke with them. He appreciated their offer, but he politely declined. It wouldn't be wise to take up smoking just to be polite!

We continued up the main road to a plaza where folks were seated outside eating. Hawkers sold all types of street food. Barbers cut people's hair on the sidewalk. There was so much to see and we enjoyed taking it all in.

We met Wang Jun back at our starting point at one o'clock. He didn't actually get KFC as threatened, though he still called it "KFC." He had bought the food from a fast food chain called Dico's. Mr. Zhou picked us up in the van, and we stopped along the side of the highway to eat. Wang Jun gave us what he called "hamburgers", which were actually nice breaded chicken breast sandwiches with mayonnaise, cheese, and lettuce. They are served with packets of chili powder, which we sprinkled on liberally. We also had fried chicken poppers and fountain Cokes. We had kiwis for dessert.

This afternoon we would be hiking in a Ge Jia area. The Ge Jia are known for their wax-resist batik textiles. We would be visiting an artisan to observe this technique.

The Ge Jia tribe was formerly "unclassified", then was classified as a subgroup of the Miao. They hated this because they have warred with the Miao throughout history. The Miao defeated them, and they purposely never intermarried. Their traditions are quite different from the Miao, from their traditional dress (warrior style) and their origin story. Their mythology says that there were 10 suns in the sky. The earth was scorched and no plants could grow. Yi was their national hero. The village built him a huge crossbow and 10 huge arrows. He climbed the highest mountain and shot down 9 of the suns. He was about to shoot down the last when the villagers stopped him, as they realized that no suns would be just as bad as 10.

From the highway, we could see Xiang Lu, Incense Pot mountain. This is a large rock cliff which resembles an incense burner. It is revered by the Miao of the area as a symbol of where their national hero, Zhang Xiu Me, was defeated by the Han Chinese in the mid-1800's.

Mr. Zhou dropped us off and we started hiking up a dirt road up a hill. We crossed a bridge where an excavator was working on construction. It reminded us of hiking on the road to Shelmakha in Bhutan.

We had been expecting a walk similar to the one we had done this morning to get to Weng Xiang Village, so we only took a single water bottle each. It was hot in the sun, and if we had known how far we were going, we would have brought more water.

As we got further away from the construction equipment, it became very idyllic. We passed some burial mounds, obviously older than the one we had seen yesterday in the Small Horn Miao village. They were slightly overgrown with grass, and a white flower protruded from the top of one, reminding us of Lord of the Rings. We passed many colorful flowers, and saw a bumblebee alighting on one. Ducks swam in the rice paddies.

A local man was leading his two water buffalo up the road alongside us. He stopped at a rock and blew air into a hole in the rock and it sounded like a water buffalo call. This is known as "Water buffalo rock."

We arrived at Xi Jia village, and Wang Jun explained that it is a clean village, running its electricity from marsh gas, and has been a prototype for other Chinese villages to reduce their environmental impact.

We passed through the village, up a path with steps. It was a very peaceful and pretty hike, and made us feel far away from the hustle and bustle and construction dust of the city. Some locals were walking along with us. They stopped at a waterfall for a refreshing drink of water and invited us to join them. It was so hot that it was very tempting, but it was too risky. But I was quite worried about Craig overexerting himself. The hike was longer than we had anticipated, and if we needed to walk back the same way, we would definitely need more water. The water was in the van. So I tried to conserve my water, and let Craig drink the majority of it. We still had too much of the trip left for Craig to get dehydrated and/or end up in the hospital.

We were awfully sweaty when we finally arrived at Matang village. The geese announced our arrival while we checked out the performance space where village festivals take place. Three little kids let me take their photo and giggled very cutely when we showed it to them.

We walked to the wax-resist batik workshop. There, in the parking lot, was Mr. Zhou, along with the freshly-washed van! We could drink some water, and we wouldn't have to walk all the way back to our starting point! We were very relieved to see him. As usual, he was always taking care of us!

We entered the workshop, which was in a traditional fir building. The artisan was a woman wearing a hat that looked like an up-side down tulip. She sat down at a work table and demonstrated the technique of wax-resist batik. She uses copper "knives" (more like a stylus) housed in a bamboo stick. The copper head is hollow, and holds a mixture of paraffin and beeswax (liquified over a hot plate). One end of the stylus head is flat and the other is pointed. There are many sizes of stylus, and of course the smallest is the most difficult to use. It can make designs which are quite intricate, and subsequently, expensive. The level of detail is amazing.

All designs are eyeballed. They don't use patterns; they just use their fingernail to trace out freehand shapes and then they trace over them with the stylus full of wax. The wax mixture is a brown color on top of off-white cloth. Once the design is complete, the fabric is soaked in indigo dye. When dry, the brown wax is peeled off, and the design appears as off-white on an indigo background.

She let me try it, and it is very difficult. I used my fingernail to trace a fish motif, copying her design. Then I dipped the metal end of the stylus into the liquid mixture, and then scraped off the excess so that it wouldn't drip. I traced the indentation in the fabric with the brown wax.

There was a Chinese tourist couple there as well, and they photographed me as I worked. It was very difficult to get even, unifrom application of the wax. If we had tried to dip my finished design in indigo dye, the uneven wax would flake off and not properly resist the dye.

My attempt made me appreciate the intricate and delicate patterns which she was able to create. We decided that we wanted to buy something, so we browsed through the various pieces which she had for sale. Although some of the pieces for sale seemed to be museum-quality, there was a very laid-back vibe to the place. Beautiful pieces were tacked to the wooden wall slats with rusty thumbtacks, making them look a bit more gritty.

We liked the contrast between a finished (indigo) piece and a piece which had not yet been dipped in indigo. We chose two 12"x12" pieces that would look nice together. We would need to be careful of the unfinished one and not store it in a hot place, or the wax might melt. We bargained a little bit, but she didn't bring her price down very much. But since she gave me a free lesson, it was still worth it.

We drove back to Kaili. Along the way we passed a funeral where they were lighting off firecrackers on the side of the road. We also saw an accident where a large truck had collided with a car. Luckily nobody seemed to have gotten hurt.

We arrived back at thehotel at 5 o'clock. We relaxed in the room before dinner, as it had been a very busy day. My stomach started to hurt, and I took some over-the-counter meds to try to settle it down.

Today was my mom's 70th birthday. Due to the 12 hour time difference, I sent her a text message in the evening and she got it as soon as she woke up.

We met the guys in the lobby at 6:30 for dinner. We walked through the square and down a street known for dog meat (though we must admit that it was much less recognizable on this street than it had been in the market earlier today).

We went to the Miao Wang Cun Restaurant. Its logo was a little animated girl dressed is Miao traditional attire. It was a large and tourist-friendly restaurant, but we still managed to attract a lot of attention. The fried milk fritters were delicious. They were gooey and sweet. At first we thought they contained melted cheese, but it was actually condensed milk. We also had pork with chilies, greens, an "egg roll" (which was actually a stuffed egg), pork spare ribs with taro, rice, and stuffed eggplant. Craig had a Snow beer, and we both had tea. My stomach was feeling worse, and I couldn't eat much at all, even though it was all delicious. Craig tried to pick up the slack.

After making sure that we had everything we needed, Wang Jun and Mr. Zhou left around 7:45 to get some rest. We stayed for about fifteen more minutes and then walked back to the hotel. We stopped at the square for 45 minutes to observe the activities at the close of the weekend. Kids were driving around in their light-up vehicles, groups were doing exercises, and women were ballroom dancing. I filmed the ballroom dancers and an older woman dressed to the nines approached us an invited us to join in. Ordinarily I probably would, but tonight I was not feeling up to it, so I smiled, thanked her, and politely declined. Once again, everyone we encountered was incredibly friendly to us.

We wanted to stay longer, but my stomach was bothering me and I needed the bathroom, so we went back to the room at 8:45. I wrote in the journal and went to bed at 9:45, hoping I would feel better in the morning.