Monday, May 28th
After climbing down Mount Qingcheng, visiting the Xuankou Middle School (which was destroyed in the 2008 earthquake), and experiencing a lot of traffic the day before, our nights' rest at a beautiful hotel near the Qiang ethnic village was well deserved. A typical breakfast of hardboiled eggs, lots of vegetables, bread, and, of course, soy milk, was served from 7:30am-9: 00 am and after eating we made our way to the village.
In order to protect the integrity of the two-thousand-year-old village, hotels and other businesses are not allowed within the walls. We had our tickets checked and proceeded past the checkpoint to meet our tour guide, an older Qiang woman who had married into the village over twenty years earlier. We began our tour by learning some background on the Qiang people, their long history within the region, language and customs, and current way of life. The actual entrance to the main houses was dark with special windows for defense and telling time, with a narrow passageway to protect against large numbers of attackers. The entire village was built on top an intricate waterway system that flows under every house to keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter, protects against fires, and even allowed for people in the past to hide underground in case of invasion.
The entire village is built like a maze (a feature our hotel also drew upon which had me lost a few times) with 90+ households being completely connected and more on the outskirts which were not. The Qiang also use a special wooden lock specific to each home which requires wiggling and maneuvering that I had a hard time figuring out, but we were told they mostly leave their doors open so everyone can move freely throughout the village.
The typical house consisted of ladders that led to the many floors and the central kitchen/dining area contained a place to cook and eat, with a small altar to worship their ancestors, although they only have one god represented by the white rocks owned by each family which is scrubbed white and celebrated yearly. The embroidery made by the Qiang is truly beautiful and the skill has been passed on from generation to generation, with some of it being made completely free hand. Before a young woman can be married off, she must be able to make shoes, usually made of hemp like most of their traditional clothing, which can be heavy. One thing that was unfortunately not passed on was the Qiang's written language, so they use Chinese characters to represent the sounds of their language. We went through most of the village via the houses and ladders connecting each floor and ended up on a roof with a fantastic view of the rest of the village and the mountains surrounding us on all sides. It was a truly beautiful location and I'm really glad we got to see into the lives of one of China's ethnic minorities.
We ate lunch and hung around the village a little longer, which resulted in me buying 3 different kinds of cherries from the countless people selling them, then headed back to campus, which took about 3 hours. Overall, it was a relaxing and informative day.
- Taylor K.
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