Nocturnal Eel Hunt

＂Lighting up yellow eels＂ or ＂pincering yellow eels,＂ are terms used by the Miao people to refer to their custom of eel catching. In Miao villages of western Hunan, the first ten days of May, just after plowing but before planting, is the time when the process of eels＇ sex change is at its height （When born all the eels are female, they mature and immediately after mating and spawning they turn male）. They swarm to the edges or to the center of the fields in order to spawn, preparing to become male. During this period, they always emerge from the mud at night, so it is easy to catch them, which the local people do, carrying torches and bamboo clamps to hunt their prey.     

城步吊龙舞(英文)

正Chengbu Dragon Dance is the traditional live performance art among the Miao people in Chengbu Miao Autonomous County,Hunan Province,in which the dancers shift different parts of a colorful"dragon"to create snake-like twirls and slithers.Underneath the dragon cover,the Mia dancers lift poles of varying lengths to move the head,back and neck as they parade through the streets to the delight of the crowd.     

Badai：a living fossil of Miao History and Culture

＂＇Badai＂ is the name the Miao give to their shamans, who officiate at sacrificial and customary rituals and indeed all ceremonies for Miao social events. The culture of rituals is called ＂Badai culture,＂ and it holds a significant place in Miao culture. The process of rituals and ceremonies, the ＂living fossil＂ of Miao history and culture so to speak, enabling the Miao people of today to inherit their ancestors＇ culture and social conventions. A ceremony may involve from seven to 36 Badai, and it is they who have taken up the torch from their ancestors, perpetuating the survival of the ancient culture. Though predominantly an oral tradition, the words of the rituals have now been brought together in a 176-chapter, 2,866-section ＂classic.＂ It is an authentic record of Miao history and culture, with copious information about Miao religion, philosophy, history, arts, medicine, and health preservation.     

Making Huadai

Miao huadai （patterned belts） are the most common handicraft product of the Miao people of western Hunan. An important part of Miao costume and adornment, they come in a variety of types, developed over their long history. This kind of handwork is known as ＂making patterns＂ or ＂making patterned belts.＂     

The Rongjiang Miao： Deep in the Mountains

<正>Located at the southern foot of the Miaoling Mountains on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau,Rongjiang County is home to some 80,000 Miao people.Locked in bv towering mountains,they and their colorful folk customs have remained little known to the outside world.I spent one and a half months in Rongjiang discovering all I could about the ancient villages,costumes, festivals,and weddings of this branch of the Miao.The story represents the first comprehensive coverage of the residents there.     

Miao House Building Ritual

July 4, 2012 （the sixth day of the filth lunar month） was Meizhen, a couple living in the village of Lixin, Malichang building the timber frame of their new wooden house. the ＂＇auspicious day＂ selected by Long Zaiyun and his wife Ma Town, Huayuan County, Hunan Province. This was the day for For the Miao people, before erecting the timber frame, the foundation of the house needs to be installed and the timbers moved close alongside. Trees on the nearby hill, pre-selected as timbers for the house, are tied around with red cloth to mark them out for felling when the house owner comes along with friends to cut them down.     

Miao New Year Celebration

Miao New Year, as opposed to Spring Festival （Chinese New year）, is generally celebrated by the Miao people of western Hunan after the winter solstice, in the l Oth month of the lunar calendar, which they have always regarded as the beginning of the new year. In advance of its coming, every household will prepare copious amounts of food, rice wine, corn wine and rice cakes made from the best glutinous rice to entertain visitors or to give as gifts. Major activities include butchering pigs, salting meat, making rice cakes, worshipping ancestors, reunion dinners, drinking from village to village, song competition, drum contests and duck-catching, and so on. The celebration usually lasts for three to five days but sometimes for as long as two weeks.     

A Taste of the Southwest

Li Sulan gets up early in the morning to begin her daily routine.She prepares a breakfast of traditional rice noodles for her customers at a rural home inn where she is the owner.Li is of the Miao ethnic group from the Xijiang Miao Village of Leishan County in southwest China's Guizhou Province.Xijiang Village is home to wellpreserved aspects of aboriginal Miao culture,and is now a widely known cultural tour destination. "As many tourists from China and abroad learn about the Miao ethnic culture,we've seen a sudden boom in tourism in the past few years in our village," said Li with a smile.The flourishing tourist industry boosted the local service sector and revived the traditional Miao culture,bringing a host of benefits to local villagers like Li.     

Equal Opportunities for All

RAPID industrial development in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, has brought the city great wealth. The city's new development policy, moreover, has been of benefit to all Ordos residents, including herdsmen and farmers living in areas of pastureland."We've been hit by droughts in our banner in recent years," says a farmer in Ejin Horo Banner of Ordos, "so the more sheep we raised, the greater our losses, as they either died or had to be sold at rock bottom prices. A times, all five members of our household lived off the income of our son, who has a job in town. Luckily, the government sent officials to our house to assess our situation, and we were provided with a minimum living subsidy. Otherwise, we would have starved."     

Badai Culture and Art Festival

On February 17, 2013, the eighth day of the first lunar month, in the Miao village of Wodazhao in Huahuan County of Xiangxi, Hunan, the scene at the Willow Pond was one of great animation, bustle and noise： the first Badai Culture and Art Festival was taking off in grand style. Thousands of Miao people from Huahuan, Jishou, Fenghuang and Baojing in Hunan, and Songtao in Guizhou congregated here, dressed in festive finery, to celebrate together with visitors from all parts. It was a varied spectacle, including the grand Miao ritual of bull sacrifice, folk dances in original form, dragon and lion dances, Miao arts, folk songs, drumming and dramas, all to celebrate the Spring Festival, to pray for good weather, bumper harvests, thriving businesses, and a peaceful and prosperous nation in the newly- arrived year. It was also a curtain-raiser for the start of the spring tilling by the Miao farmers.     

烧龙（英文）

<正>"Paper Dragon Burning"is a worship ritual observed by the Miao People in western Hunan Province.Traced back to more than 300 years ago,this ritual is held to pray for good weather and a bumper harvest.On the evening of the 15th day of the first lunar month every year,Miao people in Majingao Town and Hexi Town organize their Dragon Teams to pay New Year     

Substantial Incentives For Farming Needed

正In the decades since the great rural-tourban migration began in the 1980s,the children of the first migrants frequently choose to remain in the cities where they were born and raised.They have no desire to return to their parents’hometowns or to follow in the footsteps of their grandparents and become farmers.Never having been taught how,these"second-generation migrant workers"are instead desperate to integrate into city life.     

Witnesses to Reform and Opening-up

Humble Beginnings When Lin Mingyue and Fan Zeng- sheng made the decision to leave the U.S. for China's mainland 26 years ago their friends were at a loss as to why they should choose to exchange their large house and family car for a poky apartment, a push bicycle and a public transportation in as yet underdeveloped Shanghai. Many of these incredulous friends, however, have since followed the couple's example and also settled in Shanghai. Lin made her first visit to the munici- pality in 1…     

Random Thoughts On Praying for Rain

Drought bites again, and people are craving for rain but it doesn't rain. That brings back my childhood memory of people in my native town—officials plus the local gentry and elderly—going to the Dragon King Temple to pray for rain. Before that, they would fast and perform ablution. Once in the temple, they would offer sacrifices to the "Dragon King," a fierce-looking clay or wooden sculpture, who is said to take charge of distributing rain. Amid smoke that kept rising     

Partnership Program for Poverty Elimination

No sooner had we enteredthe room than the old cou-ple came up to show thehouse and a tricycle, thetwo objects they are mostproud of.The new brick-and-tile house wasbuilt in 2002 and the new tricycle wasbought in 2005."We had never imagined that wecould ow…     

Mini Mountain Wear

THE depths of the southeastern Guizhou Province mountains are inhabited by a branch of the Miao ethnic group known as the "Short-skirt" Miao. They number 50,000 to 60,000. Some live in Langdong, Kongshen, and Konglie villages of Rongjiang County, while others may be found living in the Datang     

Transitions:an Art Form

正The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines transition as "the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another."These transitions should be given special attention. Generally speaking, most people stress and worry when they graduate from high school or university and make the transition to the next important stage in life. Going to a job interview, moving to another city and even starting a family are usualy life-chang-     

苗族丧葬习俗(英文)

正The Miao continue a special tradition of inhumation,or burial in the ground.After the tombsite and date are chosen by the local geomancer,several steps must be taken to release the soul of the dead.The host of the ceremony burns talisman paper in the grave and draws talismans in the tomb with white stone sand.He draws eight diagrams.Then,he brings a rooster to eat rice sprinkled in the tomb,after which the coffin is placed in the grave.The core philosophy of this funeral rite is the     

Hill Dwellers Climb Cultural Mountain——Miao people record their identity and history in eco-museum

Instead of running away, she stood to attention with arms akimbo and gave a serious smile. The giant wooden basket on her back almost made her fall as she tried to straighten her body. When I raised the camera, Yang Jiaxiu was walking along a narrow, muddy mountain path in a virgin fir forest, carrying about 50 kilograms of water. She twisted her body to pour the water into a large tank when she finally arrived at her house. Then the Miao woman put down the     

My House My Home

FOR people like me in China, roughly 20 or 30 years ago, the modest apartments allotted to us by the state were our homes, and I took it for granted that mine "belonged" to me. At that time, all apartments allotted to people were state-owned, nevertheless we felt more assured and confi dent than I think people do today, having to pay as-tronomical prices to put a house in their name, as verifi ed by their property ownership certificates. The deed has a sunset