Minority Cultures - Miao and Dong

Kris and I are exploring the Miao and Dong villages of the Guizhou Province. Today when we arrived in a Dong village, women dressed in their traditional clothes were singing. There were also video cameras taping two young people that looked like they were hosts of some show. Before Kris and I knew it, we were part of the Dong welcoming ceremony that was going to be aired on Chinese TV some time in the future. We were given some liquor from a ram's horn, and embroidered scarves as well as a dyed pink egg wrapped in yarn around our necks. We then walked down a gaunlet of the costumed singers as they sung. It was pretty cool to be part of the ceremony and funny that it will be viewed by maybe a billion or so people. LOL! Pays to be white--even in China--they put you on TV. :)

I've started taking pictures of the people were seeing, not just the scenery. I love faces. You know how some racists say that all Asians look alike? That couldn't be further from the truth. Even though I've been here for over two weeks now, I don't think I'll be able to go back to Hawaii and pick out which people are of Chinese decent. They all look so different from each other; so many faces of different colors, different shapes, different features. There's no classic Chinese "look" that I can discern, especially after meeting the minority cultures. So, from what I've heard (someone told me about a study) and from what I've seen, I think they are much more right in saying that white people all look alike. Ha!I thought this lady had a great smile, so I couldn't resist. You can sort of see from the background how pretty the scenery is around here.