🥦Mizuo´s Travel Blog🥦 No.6: Visiting a local village in Qingyuan, China, 2017

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We visited a local village in the suburbs of Qingyuan, China

Vising a Han Chinese village 

We visited a very small local village in the suburbs of Qingyuan, China in 2017. I wrote blogs about how my mother, aunt, uncle, and I got a chance to visit China in 2017.  In short, my friend invested us to join their field trip in China learning how Han Chinese and Yao Chinese live in the area. We visited the area with a group of 7 people, three Japanese, two Chinese, one Taiwanese, and One American. And, these two Chinese students were finishing their thesis about their research on how Yao people live in the area with Han Chinese, and how Yao people adopt Han Chinese culture. So, after we visited the Yao village, we decided to visit a local Han village to compare how different people live close to each other. Well, close is not the right word to describe the distance, I guess. Because it was about 1 to 2 hours away from the Yao village. But, there are no major residential areas or towns in between, so at least we can say that these two residential areas are next to each other. 

Who is Han Chinese? - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese

One of the entrances to the village

They use Chinese characters. Well, of course! Haha. Well, but we did not see many Chinese characters in Yao village except for some in the market, which they have to speak Han Chinese to communicate and sell products to Han Chinese. Yao people learn Han Chinese as a Lingua Franca, I believe. Also, they learn Han Chinese at school as a mandatory subject.  

This stone pedestrian road looks pretty old. There were no paved roads in the village. It is like the Old Town of Stockholm (Gamla Stan) in Sweden. 

We walked around the village, but somehow there were few people in the village. We had no clue how come there were few people in the village. Probably village people were outside to work on the farmland or something. We just met a dog in this small village. So, we decided to go outside of the village and checked what was like outside of the village.  

There was an old pedestrian road to another village, but we did not go farther. So, we went back to the village. Haha.

The grasses were cut pretty neatly and the road was well taken care of. It was like a very beautiful old tracking trail in a rural village in China. 

We decided to leave the first village and moved to another village. 

We moved to the second village

I saw him when we are driving to the next village. What a cool guy!

The outside wall of the second village

Sorry...I forgot what they were....they use the holes to put a bar to hold a village banner, or something....well, not so sure! Please let me know if anyone knows how to use them!

Decoration at the entrance of a small gate to the village 

This is a family altar in the village. Interestingly, in the village, they all have the same family name. So, these village members show respect and pray for their ancestors on this altar. 

This is a dragon decoration made of straw, which village members used on New Years Day and dance with it. People use firecrackers to expel the evil spirits away then welcome good spirits. 

Oh, gosh! Empty coffins! 

They were harvesting peanuts when we visited there,. 😄👍

There is a small stream outside of the village.

People were washing their clothes in the small river. 

We moved to another village for lunch

She was making some peanut crackers. Delicious!

Video how she made sweet peanut crackers 😄 Tasty! 😄

The Guys were playing some table game. Well, gambling obviously. LOL. 

Our favorite time! Yes, food! Luch time!

Guess what? Sliced pig ears!! 😅😆 It was delicious though. 

Well, these, you do not wanna know what we ate. 😄😅😉 They were very very delicious, but I regretted it a bit after I learned what I was eating. LOL! 

We did not see any Yao people in these villages. They were all Han Chinese.  I learned clear differences between the Yao villages and the Han villages although they live in the same area. And also, it was very interesting to see how they act differently. As Han Chinese expanded the population in the area, Yao people had to move up to the mountains to keep some distance away from them. Well, I do not blame Han Chinese here. They have their lives and families to take care of, which is why they had to expand their territories. I hope that the Yao and the Han Chinese will not have any conflicts between them in the future. And, that is the reason why these two scholars are studying the lifestyles of the Yao and the Han in this area, and I hope that they will find some mutual way to solve some tensions between them in the future. 😄👍🙏

  🥦Ha det så bra! 🥦
🥦See you again! 🥦
🥦じゃ～またねぇ～🥦