Japanese Influence in Yao Culture? (or Vice Versa?)

After an action packed day in Yangshuo we set off to Lonji Titian. Dragon’s Spine Rice Terraces, as they call Longji in English, is an area a good 4 hour drive north of Guilin and populated by the Zhuang and Yao minorities. On the way we passed by Baisha market and decided to experience the hustle and bustle of a typical Chinese market. Baisha offers almost anything you can imagine, and in the largest scale I have ever seen. Every service, or product, is offered in row-upon-row –folds. There are the prêt-a-manger food stalls offering dog meat, cat meat and rabbit meat and occupying a semi-open air space the size of big delinquent warehouse. Then there are the dentists, a handful of them operating on patients from a single display table (one with a promotional display saying “咳声脱牙”, something which I do not understand to this day. Do dentists in China deal with coughs as well?) and chair on the sidewalk side by side with the chicken vendors. There are the barbers who line the park while men get their shaves sitting on single wooden chairs, and the glutinous rice cake makers by the dozens, all rubbing and churning out the exact same food. Even the patrons shop in the exact same way, live chicken in hand albeit grabbed in slightly different ways, some by the feet and some by the wings.

Arriving at Longji we had to choose between visiting the Zhuang minorities in Ping An or the Yao minorities in Jinkeng due to our time constraints. Being adventurous backpackers as we are (no doubt about that - we left our luggage to the poor village women who charged us RMB20 to carry our suitcases in baskets up for us) we decided to skip the more popular and more easily accessed Ping An and head further inland to the Jinkeng Yao Village.

As we watched the black turbaned and pink jacketed Yao women disappear swiftly uphill with our 15kg suitcases on their backs, we processed slowly up into the Yao village perching alongside the rice terraces. Jinkeng reminded me, much to my surprise, of the set for the Tom Cruise movie the Last Samurai. Even the Yao houses and the cobblestoned streets looked oddly Japanese. The rice terraces, each only a few feet wide, are painted an autumnal golden yellow. Smoke rises gently from some of the houses. I realize it is perhaps inching towards supper time. The only noise that is breaking the quietness and stillness of the valley is the sound of schoolchildren shouting and laughing in the local school playground. Jinkeng seems almost idyllic, an existence that is increasingly hard to find in modern day China.

After a leisurely 3 hour hike we arrive at our hotel, Meijinglou, or Beautiful Scenery Mansion which occupies a typical吊脚楼 (literally - “hanging feet structure” - the sizes of each floor increases slightly as we progress upwards to reveal “feet” – or extended wooden pillars - hanging from the four corners of the floor above). Outside the hotel, where our luggage is being offloaded, gathers a loose crowd of around 20 Yao women selling their wares in various forms. I decide to buy from our porter in acknowledgment of her hard work and paid RMB100 for an extensively embroidered bright pink jacket and RMB20 for a hand woven belt. I will probably never get to wear them but such is the magic spell a beautiful place like Jinkeng casts on its visitors - you feel like you become a Yao, living high amongst the mist, care free.

The next day we woke up early to hike further uphill. A good number of Germans who had been staying at the same hotel had already started coming back down from their morning hike when we started to walk up. We were too late for sunrise, but the view from viewpoint no. 1 was breathtaking nonetheless. Chains upon chains of rice terraces seem to coil endlessly from the foot of the mountains all the way through its 1000 meters in latitude, some lush green, some golden yellow, some even a silvery white in the morning drizzle.

Coming back from Longji we spent mid-Autumn Festival with Qing Qing’s friend’s family in Sanjiang and tasted their twenty-year old pickled duck, a Zhuang specialty saved for only their most revered guests. Sanjiang is not a small town for rural China and mid-Autumn festival is celebrated with fireworks, albeit to a much smaller scale compared to those we see in Hong Kong. We decide to take the night easy and called the hotel “spa” for an in room massage. “Do you want the proper kind?” asked the receptionist. We burst out laughing. China always has a way of reminding you that you are indeed, in the motherland.

We had one last stop to make before heading for Guilin airport. Ma Pang Drum Tower in Ma Pang Village, 23 kilometers from Sanjiang, along with the few wind and rain bridges along the way are exemplary of Dong architecture and could not be missed. We spotted two little girls running up the stairs leading to Ma Pang Village entrance and followed, trying to be professional photographers and taking pictures of them as we went along. Turned out the two girls were professional models themselves and led us all the way to the Drum Tower, not forgetting to stop and pose for pictures whenever possible.

Ma Pang Drum Tower is an impressive institution, a 12 meter high pure wood construction spanning nine Chinese pagoda-esque stories first built in the Qing dynasty. However, what we remembered most about that last day in Sanjiang was the innocent giggles of the Ma Pang children. How little do they have, but how much. Perhaps, indeed, happiness is just a stone’s throw away.