Today we visited 3 villages- it was a bit of a fast tour. Mostly we spent time driving, because the villages are so remote. 3 in one day was a bit much actually- the last village turned out to be the biggest and the best one for shopping for local Miao products, and we had barely any time at all to see the shops.
At the first village, which was called Jidao, we got to experience another welcoming ceremony complete with rice wine, drank this time from bowls though not horns. We saw the local people spinning yarn, weaving, and sewing. All very interesting- the ladies here use their spinning wheels in an upside down way, so they have the needle down at their feet and they control the yarn with their toes, while they turn the wheel with the hand. I thought that was interesting, and wondered why no one thought to do it the other way like the Europeans did, with the needle where you can control it with your hand, and your feet turning the wheel.
The second village was unique in that they stored all their rice in special barns that were in the water, raised up on stilts, but not in their houses. This was meant to reduce fire, but I'm not sure if it was to protect the rice or to keep the fire which might have been caused by rice out of their homes. The Miao houses are all made of wood, and are 2 or 3 floors high. The bottom floor is used mostly like a garage or barn, for storing stuff, and the second and third floors are for living in.
The third village has been designated a special village for tourists to visit. The local government charges you to enter, and they have special Miao traditional costume performances, and you can have your photo taken in a Miao costume in different places around the village. We had ours taken at the entrance to the village- turned out pretty well! Miao people are lighter skinned than Han (Han are the majority people group in China) so I didn't look too different, though my face isn't wide enough. J Anyway with a Miao costume on I attracted a huge crowd of Chinese tourists wanting to take my photo, which was slightly embarrassing but the norm for me here. It was fun to wear the traditional costumes.
Being of a somewhat crazy nature, crazyness seems to find me everywhere. I wanted to buy some of the local pickeled peppers to bring back to make Miao food, which is very very tasty indeed. I also wanted to dried peppers to add to food- the peppers here have a unique flavor and are extremely tasty combined with garlic. So our guide asked a random Miao restaurant lady if she'd sell me some of hers, which resulted in a small crowd of language students surrounding us talking to the lady, and various negotiating, though she was more than happy to sell me hers. In the end I walked away with a kilo of dried peppers with oil and a big old jar of picked peppers for cooking. Yum!!
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