We bought a ticket for a tour to two villages in the hills about 3 hours from Guilin. The first village is inhabited by people of the Yao ethnic group. The Yao women grow their hair long, and have customs related to this. The part of the village we visited is geared to tourists and we saw a show demonstrating the customs, music and dance.The women only ever cut their hair twice in their life. It is grown long but hidden from view under a hat until they are married. Their husband is the first to see their hair and it is cut. They keep the cut hair and wear it with their growing hair. I didnt catch what the second hair cutting occassion is. A group of married women demonstrated the unfurling of their hair - 2 long cut sections plus their own hair - extremely long, and very well kept. They wash their hair with rice water.
I am often cynical about the use of the ethnic minorities for tourism here in China, and in SEAsia (Thailand and Vietnam), however on this trip I got a different perspective on this. The operations were run by the locals by the look of things. In the two villages we visited (more on the second one soon), there was an obvious area where the tourism takes place - restaurants, shops, hotels (the majority seemed to be run
by locals). You only had to walk down 1 or 2 paths to get away from that and see that normal life was taking place in the village also. Tourism has become I would guess a healthy supplement to the traditional agriculture and other sources of income, much like in many societies. Hopefully it ensures improved health conditions, education and so on. I do know that minorities in many parts of Asia are exploited and often trafficked for tourism - even in Thailand for example - so it was nice to see what to my eyes appeared to be a healthy balance. Always hard to tell who is benefiting how much of course.
We didnt spend long in this Village, and I have forgotten its name. We jumped back on the bus and headed to the next village - Ping'An.
Yao Village from tgoodwin on Vimeo.
1 comment:
The dancers look like they're wearing kilts and Scottish socks. Found it interesting about the women's hair being cut only twice in their lifetime, and Tere, I need to know what was the other time!! I won't be able to sleep with wondering about it.
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