Although Chen Chunyu, leader of our group, told us to be ready at 8 o'clock, my friend Xiu Xiu and I were up before 6, alert with excitement.
We were going to visit Basha, a Miao village on the Rongjiang-Congjiang Road in the southeast of Guizhou Province.
It was the most mysterious place on our travel plan, only a few kilometers from Congjiang County, but very different from other Miao villages nearby.
I still remembered the discussion about Basha between Xiu and I the previous evening.
"I have heard that it is the only minority group in China in which men carry guns, and they have a special hairstyle," Xiu had said.
"Oh, with guns, they must like hunting, and look very strong. I want you to take photos of me with the men there," I laughingly replied, daydreaming about meeting some handsome Basha men.
We talked and talked, passing a restless night. The next morning we found others were also up early.
There were six in our group, three men and three women, who all love traveling very much and had long planned to visit Guizhou in the country's southwest.
We had traveled more than 2,000 kilometers from Nanjing, the Jiangsu provincial capital, specifically to see the villages of the Bouyei, Miao and Dong people.
After breakfast in Congjiang County, we hired a minibus to take us to Basha. It was exactly 8 o'clock.
The mountain road zigzagged all the way, leaving us all feeling a little dizzy. But our talkative driver distracted us and taught us many interesting things about our destination.
"Actually I do not quite understand Basha people," he said. "The village is only about 7 kilometers away from the county, but the villagers still keep their traditional way of living, so they are actually penniless and have poor health."
One from our group asked if they ever venture from their village to work in Congjiang.
"Yes, they sometimes do," replied the young driver. "Some Basha people come out in the morning and go back in the late afternoon. Each can earn 14 yuan (US$1.69) a day, but take off the 5 yuan (60 US cents) for traveling expenses and they are only left with 9 yuan (US$1.1)."
Quiet simplicity
About 20 minutes passed and we entered the village. Our first impression was how quiet it was.
Except for the noise of the minibus, we could hear nothing and saw few signs of life.
We were also struck by the simplicity of the place. Wooden houses were built close to each other, narrow roads were covered with water and mud, and small fields of green vegetables were dotted around.
Feeling like intruders, we walked as unobtrusively as we could into the village.
The first people we met were women and children.
Dressed in their traditional dark blue clothes, with little decoration, the women wear their long hair twisted into a coil and fastened simply with a comb.
Camera shy, they lowered their heads and hastened away whenever we tried to take photographs.
All we encountered, old and young alike, were busily engaged carrying water, working in the fields or doing housework.
Maybe because of the harsh living conditions and limited resources, the women here were very short and slender, but beautiful.
Somewhat disappointed, we walked around the village but found no trace of the Basha men, in whom we were particularly interested. The first males we spotted were some teenaged boys sporting a curious hairstyle - shaved around except for a central area of hair twisted and styled rather like a shuttlecock.
We gave some sweets to one, who smiled and with gestures explained his "shuttlecock" hairdo was made by his mother.
More youngsters approached - the universal language of sweets a great inducement - quizzically looking us and our cameras over. Some were eating sticky rice cakes, a traditional local food, some of which we persuaded an old man to sell us.
Placing them over a fire he said: "They will be very tasty after being baked, you should have some patience to wait."
The man was not dressed in traditional clothes, and carried no gun. But having heard we wanted to see "real" Basha men, he promised to find a guide for us - the head of the local shooting team.
Living legend
When Gun Yuanliang appeared we saw what we had come for.
Dressed in the traditional Basha clothes, his hair worn in the shuttlecock style, he carried an old hunting rifle and long-stemmed pipe.
The shooting team used to hunt in the old days, but nowadays rarely. But they proudly retain their traditional costumes, especially their guns, and occasionally give performances to visitors.
But Gun was neither big nor muscular as we had imagined Basha men to be. In fact, he was half a head shorter than me, standing about 1.5 meters.
Nevertheless, he set a striking pose and we strove to be the first to have photos taken with him and bombarded him with a string of questions.
Gun proved the perfect guide and it seemed as if he had received many visitors.
"It is said our village has a long history of about 1,700 years, however, I don't know whether it's true or not. Today there are more than 400 families and over 2,000 villagers," he said.
He told us he had worn his hair the same way, "since I was 16 years old, when I had the growing up ceremony."
When a Basha boy reaches that age, the old men in the village will hold a ceremony marking the transition into manhood.
As part of this traditional rite of passage, the boy's hair is shaved all but a circle in the centre of the head, which is styled into the shuttlecock-like bun.
Gun then gave us a close-up look at his old rifle, its wooden stock buffed to a shine.
"It was left to me by my grandfather," he said with a proud smile. "Now, almost nobody can make a gun like this!"
He told us that guns have become an indispensable decoration for Basha men nowadays, although they seldom use them for hunting.
As he talked, Gun led us to a place where there were many huge wooden shelves.
"These are used for drying the sticky rice in the sun. If you come in the autumn, you will see golden sticky rice everywhere. Many photographers come to take photos here."
He regaled us with stories of the festivals and special traditions of his village.
And whereas traditional costumes have been abandoned for day to day wear by many minority people, who dress up only on special occasions or to entertain tourists, almost all the villagers of Basha wear their traditional clothes every day.
Girls normally marry when they are 17 or 18, and boys a little older, around 20.
But the newlyweds cannot live together until they have a baby. After the wedding ceremony the bride returns to her own home, only visiting her husband's when her in-laws need her helping hand.
The couple meet secretly and at all costs try and avoid being spotted together, or else they will be laughed at by the other villagers. Gun refused to elaborate on how and when the newlyweds arrange their assignations; it seems to be their secret.
When a villager dies, the family bury the person on the mountain and plant a tree of remembrance, in front of which a small wooden plaque is placed, but bearing no name.
The villagers do not, it seems, need any reminder of where to find the tombs of their ancestors. Whenever something happens, for example, a child becomes seriously ill, they will visit these ancestral graves to pray for blessings.
It is customary to take a duck and two chickens to the grave, where they cook and eat a meal, taking any leftover food home when they finish.
Basha people, it seems, are customarily environmentally conscious. Since ancient times, they have paid much attention to protecting the forests surrounding their homes.
There is a rule in the village: If someone cuts down an old tree, he will be punished by treating all the villagers to eat 60 kilograms of rice, 60 kilograms of meat and 60 kilograms of wine.
We were deeply absorbed in Gun's words when we arrived at a hillside and found a group of villagers building a wooden house.
"It costs 7,000 (US$840) or 8,000 yuan (US$967) to build a house like this, and the house can be used for several generations," Gun explained.
A number of thoughts and feelings welled up among us as we watched the people toiling together.
Here was this village, not far from the county seat, and yet its people were sticking resolutely to their own traditions and refusing to be swept along by the forces of change.
No one seems to know why, and they themselves cannot explain the real reason.
But on the other hand, if they did change, visitors and photographers such as us would have no chance to witness such a mysterious, beautiful and simple place.
(China Daily March 17, 2005)
