Home : China Guide : Guizhou : Lusheng Dance
By Susan Trimble

"I am just back from Guizhou...land of tribal people, rice fields, water buffalo. What contradictions I was faced with...it seems not possible to save a culture unless the people remain removed from the modern changing world. Hidden away in the mountains without the advantages of electricity, health care, new products that make life easier, education...yes the results are beautiful songs and dances; fascinating celebrations related to the circle of life, mating, birth, death, harvest, planting; incredible handcrafted items, weaving, embroidery; but also ignorance, untreated diseases, and inequality. It makes me cry."

As we watched the dance of the Miao performed for us in a three-storey Miao village house in Southeast Guizhou, my heart felt lighter than it had for the past four days. Sure I had been entranced by the colorful dress, the elegant hairstyles, the raven black hair and the delicate hands and feet of the Miao women that I had encountered. Wasted-looking, hard-drinking men have somehow produced exquisite carpentry. The houses are masterpieces of practical, comfortable and attractive architecture. The dark rich brown villages that spill out of the hillsides on to layers of rice paddies and garden plots welcomed me into their hearts as I roamed paths bordered with flowering bushes and shrubs. An orange tree here, a bamboo clump there. Yes I had been intrigued by the uniqueness of it all. But I went to bed with a slightly heavy heart each night. Perhaps it was the absolute grottiness of my hotel room...but it wasn't that, it was something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

The dance was the key...the woman, a highly skilled embroidery artist in her village, started the dance just for us...just for the possibility of a few extra renminbi I thought. Yesterday had been a pre-nuptial party of sorts, her face was stamped with red markings indicating several bowls of rice wine consumed...she was still in the party mood and as she danced for us, her duty dance changed to one of pure joy as her brother joined in with his Lusheng pipes. She took up her own lusheng and together they entered their world of dance and pipe. It was intoxicating to watch them slip into their own Miao world. And then startling to see her slip out again. I found myself charmed by their total obliviousness to the world around them. Even as the dance came to an abrupt end, the dancers radiated energy, the room radiated too, I felt electrified. As the elegant Miao woman changed her dress, put the room back in its bare order, told her husband to lock up and get ready to leave...I was mesmerized...so much so that, as she gestured to us to go out to the yard and wait for her, I did so...like a child would. I followed at a distance because somehow I knew I should. Along the village path we walked, collecting other villagers as we went. Up the hill to the county road as a parade we walked. She was waiting across the road like someone in charge, like someone who made decisions, like someone to listen to. She was on her way to the wedding of a niece. She had decided on the short walk that we should go as her guests. And of course we did.

We should buy a gift for the host of today's wedding celebration. Tiny shops were strung out along the road -- umbrellas, combs, metal ware, plastic bags and vegetables - we found some nicely packaged "MiJiu" rice wine beside the toothpaste! We passed by the school where the children seemed to be coming and going at will. Some young boys decided two foreign ladies too strange to ignore and so they followed us to the next village. A leisurely half hour walk later we arrived at a bend in the road. Now we were a crowd of about twenty, most in day-to-day dirty clothes, some dressed up in their party clothes, and two curious looking foreigners. Trucks shot by missing us by inches only. No one was in a hurry, no one seemed overly excited. Around the bend we heard the hum of life and suddenly down the muddy track between some nut-brown houses - the wedding party!

We climbed the stairs, stepped into the main room, and I was stunned by the sight before my eyes! Dozens of beautiful young girls from three to twenty, covered in exquisite embroidered dress, and headdresses and jewellery that I have never seen! Silver, silver, silver everywhere! Rows of delicious food, unending vats of rice wine. Decorations of corncobs and chili peppers. A sight so beautiful I could hardly breathe. Everyone and everything seemed somehow stuck in time.

Quick, quick, the bride is dressing and has invited us in to see her! She was so young, so beautiful, so shy, so excited, and so happy to have foreign visitors at her wedding. Finally dressed, she stepped into the main room and smiled to the silvery crowd who awaited her. And then... the air was filled with the ring of silver as the girls began to serve food to each other. I was awestruck and somewhat overcome by the sweet vapours of rice-wine, fortunately my camera came to life and clicked away at will.

Many bowls of rice wine later and carrying memories to last a lifetime we left the feast which would continue throughout the night with more wine, more food, more singing, more lusheng, more friends.

I will send the young Miao woman an album filled with photos of this wedding feast. Hopefully she will always remember her roots. Hopefully she will pass on the rich and colorful Miao history to her children. Hopefully she will cherish some parts of her culture as she enters the modern changing China. Hopefully my appearance at her special celebration did not destroy the purity of it. In one way I regret my intrusion; in one way I feel fortunate to have seen a slice of life that probably I never will again...I want to share it with you, and yet I want to keep her special life a secret.

And now I remember the woman who danced for me, the woman who slipped into her own Miao world in spite of me, the woman who made the decision to share this secret life with me, the woman who protects her culture with her own strong spirit. That woman is the young bride's aunt; she plays a senior role in her niece's future. She slips in and out of the modern changing world, proud to be Miao, proud of her culture, and proud to share it with us.

Grateful to her and to her niece, I am able to present a short photographic record of this day of their life...

Miao traditional weddings follow a courtship that is of varying lengths of time. Singing, dancing, lusheng playing are all necessary parts of that courtship. Once the young lovers have decided to pursue marriage, they exchange love tokens, and seek the approval of their parents. A series of events take place including feasts hosted by both families.

The feast that we attended was the groom's family feast. We found the bride in the special wedding night room where some of her good friends were dressing her in beautiful traditional jacket, apron, belts, and overjacket. Underneath she wore her normal everyday clothing. On her feet were white socks and modern leather boots with zips undone. Her trousseau included beautiful embroidered pieces and heavy silver ornaments that she and her family had spent many years preparing for this special occasion. She was attended by many female friends and relatives who also dressed in their finest clothing. Their ornate costumes were more or less similar in style and decoration.

The bride's parents did not attend this feast...they were preparing to host their own feast a few days later. The bride's attendants were in one room; the older female relatives of the bride and groom were secluded in an adjoining room; parents' friends, male and female were partying in other rooms, on the outside decks and balconies. The groom's entourage, made up of his close friends, male relatives and his ten attendants were drinking, eating, and making merry at a small outside area of the main house. During this feast of the groom's family, the groom and attendants were dressed in ordinary street clothes, their finery apparently being saved for the day that they would beg the bride's parents to let her return to her new husband's home.

The shy young bride told us that she would soon return to her family home. A few days later, the groom, along with his gang of ten, would follow, dressed in their finest costume, carrying gifts of livestock, vegetables, fruit, rice and wine. They would beg the family to let the bride return. Only after much teasing, giving of gifts and money, would the parents finally consent, and the bride would then return to her new husband's home. This "back and forth" often continues until the new bride is "with child". At that time the bride becomes a fully-fledged wife and begins to harvest the rice in the fields of her husband's family instead of her own. (Source: China Today)

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