Guizhou Province, September 2006

A Han woman, on the outskirts of Jichang village. The ancestors of these villagers migrated from Jiangxi Province to Guizhou Province in the Ming Dynasty and women here are still dressed in traditional Ming dynasty costumes. Houses also remain faithful to the Ming architectural styles.

Also in Jichang.

Baby gave that beard a good yank!

We watched a performance of a "ground opera". This guy is playing the role of a female army general.

More opera. I get the sense the ladies in the back row have seen this one before....

Group photo with the cast

One of the snack stalls in Guiyang

A huge spider on the border of one of the rice fields just outside Xiaba village.

It was market day in Xiaba so folks took the opportunity to tend to their healthcare needs. Bloodletting remains a favored treatment for "getting the dead blood out". Ooof.

Tea for sale in Xiaba.

Meat for sale in Xiaba

Hiking through the Damochang valley. On the right, you can see part of the irrigation system for flooding the rice fields.

In Dazhai village, where we would spend the night. The yellow sheets hanging from the rafters is newly-made paper drying.

Making paper. In Dazhai, they supplement their income by handmaking paper "ancestor money". It's tremendously labor intensive given how inexpensively they sell it for.

One step in the paper making process involves grinding up the bamboo fibers, using a mill stone powered by a water wheel.

A very nice man we met along the way.

In the valley. Horse on bottom left provides scale.

Arriving in Kaili, we were fortunate that a collection of minority performances had been organized in conjunction with a "Rural Tourism Development Conference". I of course ran around like a nutter taking pictures of all the fabulous textiles and metal work.

A Miao woman, sub-group unknown to me.

Basha boys waiting for their portion of the performance to start.

These ladies belong to the Geija minority group.

Another Basha boy waiting for the performance. The Basha men still wear their hair in the traditional fashion.

Another Miao sub-group.

Houses in Xijiang village, the largest Miao village with a population of ~5,000

I started referring to these two as Lunch and Dinner. Dog is very popular food item in the area.

A typical Miao house, also in Xijang village. It's harvest time so everyone is drying corn by hanging it on the eaves.

On the way to Paika village where we spent the night. It was very hot that day so swimming was the first thing we did after arriving in Paika, a bit further upstream.

Harvesting and threshing rice in Paika village.

Chili peppers hanging to dry.

One of the water wheels used for irrigating the rice fields, on the way out of Paika.

More waterwheels

A Kaili delicacy -- ground wasp larvae. They actually are pretty tasty

We happened across a market day, en-route to Zhenyuan. These ladies are Geija.

A "Shiny Cloth Miao" lady.

Just a grab-shot on the way to Zhenyuan