Development Report of Chinese Ethnic Culture（2008）published

As China has set up an institutional and policy system .to benefit the development of ethnic cultures in China,the government also offers strong financial support in this regard.     

Huolin Gol Grassland Wedding Festival ——Oue Hundred Couples Tie the Knot

The China-Japan Exhibition of Coins, Epigraphs, Calligraphy and Seal Engraving, jointly sponsored by the Chinese People＇s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Kitaeda Seal Cutting Association of Japan, was held in the Beijing Ancient Coins Museum on August 22, 2009, to promote cultural exchange between China and Japan. The exhibition mainly focused on coins and epigraphs, but also showed more than 200 works of calligraphy and seal engraving, rubbings from coins and coin moulds, and photographs, all of them by Chinese and Japanese numismatists, scholars and calligraphers.     

Painting with the Genuine Gene of Classical Culture

With acute insight, Xun Shi （荀士） is devoted to Chinese classical culture. The creative classical cultural elements in his paintings appear in the form of an idiom story, a Buddhist philosophy or a cultural theme. Exceptionally vibrant are the elders who emerge playing chess, taking a tour, talking in bed or over wine. Their postures and expressions are rendered with minimal brushstrokes.     

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.     

Family Reunion Feast

These photos were photographed in Buchou Town, Yamou Town, Paiwu Town, Huaheng County, Western Hunan. ＂Family Reunion Feast＂ is an ancient wedding custom of the Miao people, unchanged even today. The procedure goes roughly like this： First, the engagement： whether or not the union is arranged by a matchmaker, the couple will ask the Badai （the shaman of the Miao people） to select an auspicious date for the engagement.     

Zhou Jianhua——Faithful Recorder of Miao Customs

Zhou Jianhua is quite a celebrity in Huayuan County, Hunan Province. That fame comes mainly from his photography, a path he started out on very early. As tar back in the 1980s when he worked in the educational field. Zhou used to carry a film camera to different schools to photograph various activities, as well as graduating students together with their teachers. Zhou does not grudge what he spends on his passion, so, after retiring he bought a full kit of Nikon＇s top digital camera equipment. Every time he came home from a shoot, he would select several images, have them enlarged, and give them to his subjects for free. What was once a pleasurable pastime has made him something of a name. For the last few years, he has devoted himself to photographing Miao folkways in western Hunan. Having amassed a large portfolio of such material, one top-notch photograph has followed another, and national magazines have used his shots in features on ethnic customs, many of those pictures winning awards at photographic exhibitions. Zhou Jianhua is not only a faithful recorder of Miao customs in western Hunan, but a leading photographer in Huayuan County.     

Threading. Traditional Miao Beauty Treatment

The removal of facial hair by threading is a common practice among the Miao women of western Hunan. It is a coming-of-age ritual for Miao girls and a popular beauty treatment for Miao women. The practice started way back in history and employs a simple technique. An experienced practitioner can do it on her own face using just a hemp thread. She takes one end of a thread in her one hand holds the other between her teeth. The middle part of the thread is looped between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, and this is rolled over the face. By opening and closing her hand, she alternately loosens and tightens the loop, twisting away the fine hair from the face and neck. Next she focuses on the the eyebrows, using the thread to trim the eyebrows into the desired shape, perhaps crescent moon or willow leaf. After threading, the skin becomes clean and clear. Studies show that twisting the fine hair off helps to smooth the skin, because subsequent regrowth is finer. Constant depilation make the follicles shrink, producing an enduringly beautiful skin.     

Mani Stones：Tibetan Prayers from Deep within

As is widely known, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the highest place on Earth, .was once part of a vast ocean. Later geological movements resulted in that vast ocean becoming a high plateau bringing with it a huge and extraordinary variety of stones. Looking back on man＇s evolution process, almost all humans have chosen stones as tools for their evolution and carriers of culture, and the Tibetan ancestors were no exception.     

Tajik Girls

<正>The cover picture is the work of the young photographic talent Li Guang.Tajik Girls is just one of his creations featuring Tajik figures.According to Li,beca...