Room With A View II

This little back room was in one of the Miao houses in Wudong village where we did an interview.  Can you imagine brushing your teeth every morning with this view in front of you? [NOTE: See Room With a View for another beautiful dwelling vista]. 

Matriarchs

A group of older Miao women enjoying the afternoon in the main plaza of Lang De village in Guizhou province, China.

Miao Seamstress

Our last interview in Xijiang yesterday was with a women who makes embroidered panels for traditional Maio garments. The amazing skirt that she is holding took over a year to produce.  A detail of one of the panels is shown below.

When combined with the blouse, the necklaces, the bangles, and the headress, the whole Miao ensemble looks like this:

[NOTE: The women shown above are from the Miao village of Lang De].

Miao Decor

Interior of one of the Miao houses in the village of Wudong where we did interviews. How many clocks can you find in this picture?  [HINT: There are as many clocks as posters of notable Communists.]  If you zoom in, each clock shows a different time.

Transect at Wudong

In spite of the constant rain, we managed to finish a 1,000 sq. meter transect down a 40% slope in the forests outside of Wudong.  Was a slippery mess. That's Yang Chenghua in the back (with the great hat) from the Guizhou Academy of Forestry; he identified all of the trees for us. Zhiyao Lu, a Master's student at Minzu University in Beijing, leads the way down the slope. Yao did a great job tallying the data and keeping the fieldbook dry.  And all the tree names were written in beautiful Chinese characters (many thx, Mr. Yang and Yao).   

Wudong

Another day of household surveys, this time in the Miao village of Wudong.  The first interview of the day was with this wonderful fellow and his dog.  Non-stop smiles and much good information about the local use of Chinese fir. The only bad thing was that I left my baseball cap in his house.  

The shot below is mostly to give you some idea about the architecture of the houses in this village.  It was the cute kids giving me the peace sign, however, that actually motivated me to dig the camera out of my pack. [NOTES: All of the boards and poles used in local house construction are Chinese fir, or "shamu" (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook).  I'll stop by and pick my cap up tomorrow; we're running inventory transects in the forests behind the village].

Tau Jiung

Did a series of household interviews in the Miao village of Tau Jiung in southeastern Guizhou, China today. These guys were in the audience during the general meeting when I explained to everyone what I was trying to do. Looked like a tough crowd at first, but the interviews turned out to be quite animated, informative, and fun. [NOTE: Dr. Dayuan Xue and Zhiyao Lu did a wonderful job of translating]. 

Noodle Cooks

Fresh hand-pulled noodles in a Beijing noodle shop. For a quick, inexpensive lunch, it doesn't get any better than this.  And these two young cooks made it all seem so simple and effortless.  

Beijing Recycles

Beijing is a big city, and it generate a lot of empty plastic bottles.  These are the guys that deal with this problem. They collect the empties, sort them, pack them into huge bags made from old rice sacks, load them into a truck, and take them someplace where they are undoubtedly paid a very small price per kilo of plastic. [NOTE: The "someplace" where they take all of the empty plastic bottles is probably a pretty impressive site. Mountains and mountains of plastic].

Landslip Carefully

Have just arrived to Beijing and am advised to landslip carefully in the bathroom of my hotel room.  I certainly will. I hate landslips...