Rongjiang County is a county in the southeastern Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province, located in the southeast of Guizhou Province. The approximate location is between Guiyang and Guilin.
Rongjiang location
At the end of March, I had the honor to follow my two sisters to Rongjiang County, Qiandongnan Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou, and spent a week to deeply experience the way of life of the local Dong and Miao ethnic minority areas. I was touched by the simplicity and hospitality of the local people; I admire the local people's adherence to and inheritance of their own culture; I was even more impressed by the local people's love for nature and life. So two weeks after returning to Beijing, I wanted to write something, record my feelings, and try to record what I saw, heard, ate, and thought; Post it on the Internet, share it with everyone, and want interested friends to have the opportunity to go to Qiandongnan and Rongjiang to see this rare treasure of traditional civilization under the impact of modern industrial civilization.
This time in Rongjiang, I mainly went to Sanbao Dong Village, Jiayi Miao Village, Guiliu Village, and Dali Dong Village. Although they are all ethnic minority villages, they have retained their own characteristics; However, these villages have embarked on different development paths, each with its own characteristics. This village, like a pearl of independence after the world, has stood silently in the mountains for thousands of years, waiting for the appreciation of the world.
First acquaintance with Guizhou
March 20, HU7180 Beijing Capital - Guiyang Longdong Fort; Turn to D1869 and arrive at Rongjiang Station from 2pm to 36pm. Longdongbao Station is the transfer hub station of the airport high-speed rail, and you can directly take the high-speed rail to reach the province when leaving the airport. The geological conditions of Longdongbao Airport are very complicated, with 11 mountains and 5 underground caves, which is also the best place you can find in Guiyang. So the airport is at the top of the mountain, and the high-speed rail station is in the underground cave. Originally, I just saw in the book that Guizhou is nine mountains, half water, half water, and half field, but now I really experienced it firsthand.
The high-speed train to Rongjiang has a total duration of 1 hour and 13 minutes, and the speed is between 200-250 kilometers per hour. Personally, more than 90% of the whole journey is tunnels, and almost all of them are walking through the mountains. The mountain flats surrounded by the mountains that occasionally pass by are also flashed, and then enter the tunnel.
In 18 years, I once took a train from Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan to Emei, taking the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, 70% of the tunnels, which made me feel the arduousness of the project. Today, although our road builders are no longer like our ancestors who built the Kunming Railway with flesh and blood, such a huge project is indeed amazing.
On April 11, when I was in Beijing, the focus interview column launched a special feature "China's Road" to talk about Guizhou. The program said: "As the only province in the mainland that is not supported by plains, traffic congestion once became a bottleneck that seriously restricted Guizhou's economic and social development. Over the past years, especially since the new era, more than 30,000 bridges have been erected on the karst plateau, allowing Guizhou, which is "no three feet flat". Nearly half of the top 100 Gaoqiao in the world are in Guizhou. At present, Guizhou is using 14,000 highway bridges to continuously pull down mountains and level canyons. ”
More than 500 years ago, Wang Yangming was degraded to Guiyang Longchang Yi, when he first entered Guizhou, he sighed: "Even the peaks and the sky are fierce, and the birds are not accessible", now if the old gentleman sees the bridges that now extend in all directions, leveling the mountains and valleys, reaching the high-speed rail of the province, and eating and transportation, I don't know what kind of emotion the old gentleman will make.
Guizhou Bridge (Image source: Xinhuanet)
The county seat of Rongjiang
In Qiandongnan Prefecture, Rongjiang County may be regarded as a special county, where the Duliu River connects the two Guangzhous, and the mountains of wood can be cut, so it has been the main road from southeast Qiandong to the Pearl River basin since ancient times, and has become the most important wharf and material distribution center in southeast Qiandong since the Qing Dynasty. In the county seat, 4 stone roads built in the Qianlong period are well preserved; The Two Lakes Hall preserves a magnificent atmosphere. The morning market is still bustling, the theater is still lively, and the culture that has been passed down for thousands of years is still alive and well today.
Two Lakes Hall
Rongjiang is a relatively heterogeneous county seat in the southeast of Qian. First of all, although it is surrounded by mountains, there is a large plain among the mountains, and the land is fertile and the water and soil are abundant. Glutinous rice, fragrant rice, fish and shrimp, rape, rich in products. The mountains of cedar and other precious trees, after planned thinning and replanting, have become an inexhaustible wealth of the Rongjiang River. Coupled with the convenient transportation of the capital Liujiang, the people here can have stable industries and are relatively wealthy. Therefore, there is no need to develop tourism like other counties in southeast Qian, which are forced to develop tourism. It is precisely because there is no need to develop tourism, the villages here are still alive, and the people here are still simple, warm, generous and hospitable. I had a barbecue with my two sisters, 148, and directly charged 140. I told the boss that your bad chili pepper is delicious, and directly filled two bottles with Wahaha pure water bottle, let me take it back to Beijing... (Of course, it may also be that I have fun talking to my boss.) ）
When you come here to travel, you feel that this is not an attraction, but a real life, a living human fireworks, and a cordial and warm warmth. In the morning market, a bean flower stall has been sold for more than 30 years, and how many people are brought by their parents to eat, and they eat until they bring their children to eat. When everyone meets, they don't need to say hello, they find a place to sit down, and the boss directly serves breakfast that meets the taste of the guests. This kind of long-term relationship is something that I rarely see when I live in a big city.
The county seat was built along the river and is now lined with high-rise buildings. Except for the wooden buildings on both sides of the four stone paths, which are still kept as they were, the eyes are full of modern atmosphere. People here pay attention to protecting the environment, the mountains on the other side of the river are still full of smoke, on the bank of the green mountains, egrets soar, as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, open the curtains, you can see such a beautiful scenery, it is really pleasant. This kind of beautiful scenery, not in the scenic area, is not artificially and deliberately created, but can really be seen in life, which is really rare.
Sanbao Dongzhai
Chejiang next to the Sanbao Dong Village
Sanbao Dong Village is on the edge of the county seat, 5 kilometers away from the county seat, only separated by a Chejiang River. The village is now not exactly the appearance of the original Dong village, but also has a small reinforced concrete building. In fact, under the impact of modern culture, the village's desire to improve its living conditions is also worthy of understanding and respect. After all, the traditional Dong wooden building, sound insulation, moisture-proof, thermal insulation effect is not as good as modern concrete building. But there are also villagers who are sticking to traditions and building traditional wooden buildings. Today, the Dong village still retains the traditional way of life, the family farms, the household spins, and the guests enter the village, offering sweet rice wine to welcome distinguished guests.
By the Che River, there are 10,000 acres of good land ripe three times a year; On the banks of the Che River is a row of berm banyan trees planted in the Qing Dynasty. Today, in the square at the head of the village, the Sanbao people have rebuilt the Sanbao Drum Tower built during the Daoguang year, building him higher and more magnificent. The 21-story drum tower does not have a single steel nail; On the inner wall of the Drum Tower, the costumes of the Dong ethnic group are painted, traditional stories, and legacy remains. In 2001, this drum tower was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for its height and size.
Che Jiang spring color
In March, the Sanbao Dong Village, the grass and trees are revived, and the young leaves spit green. The mirror-like Chejiang River reflects the verdant mountains, the flowers of the mountains, and the tourists in full costume in their own water shadows, quietly flowing into the distance, leaving people's love for life and nature.
Lai Lei
Another person in Sanbao Dongzhai who has to be mentioned is Teacher Lai Lei. This Dong woman was born to love cloth and love the indigo dyeing craft of the Dong people. Today, he devotes himself to the production and promotion of his Dong cloth. From weaving, to dyeing, to drying, every inch of cloth comes from nature. Chatting with Teacher Lai, you will feel that this woman is taking her hobbies as a career, although she has a hot temper, but as long as she talks about cloth, her face can be filled with an infectious smile and pride.
She said: "You see that we desperately compare with others, desperately want to do the kind of good life that others say, desperately we pursue it, but we can't catch up, and we waste time." It's better to stop, I chase the kind of life that others want, live your current life well, when you live your life well, the mood is good, people will naturally approach you. So she returned to Sanbao Dongzhai from Guangzhou, passed on and developed the dyeing skills of only seven people, and transformed the traditional blue into twenty-four styles. Since then, the twenty-four solar terms have had their own exclusive blue. Twice amazed Paris Fashion Week.
She said: "Non-genetic inheritors, aesthetics are solidified. The craft I want is alive, and without buying and selling, there is no inheritance. So, she cooperated with the designers, took orders from the designers, and then guided the Dong women to weave cloth according to the characteristics of the order, thin, thick, soft, hard, wear-resistant, skin-friendly, what the market needs, they will weave. It is hard to imagine that an ordinary Dong eldest sister, with more than a thousand Dong weavers, arranged the warp and weft like this, shuttle by shuttle, weaving an industry of more than 20 million. It can make Dong women earn money at home, and let Dong children have the love of their mothers. They are not a company, but they have made an industry that brings tradition closer to modern times and allows modern times to embrace tradition. This is more attractive and warmer than a company with annual sales revenue of more than 10 million.
She said: "Why are people's relationships becoming more and more cold? It is because the warmth of the palm connected directly to them is gone. A T-shirt can make hundreds of thousands of pieces a day, all cold iron, she is not warm, he has no palm connection. So everyone has no feelings for him. Then my dress, at least four or five hundred. Will you cherish a little? Why is it so expensive? Because it is morning and evening dew to bleach. Just like the white dew season now, making dew is the best. After this time, it always rains at night, and Lubu can't do it. "Dong women with palms connected to each other weave cloth with the harmony and beauty of love and love, sing songs with the joy of labor, and talk about love with the longing for a better life.
As long as you talk to her, you will definitely be attracted to her. At that moment, the tired heart of the city will be soothed by Teacher Lai's indifference and firmness, and the joy of success and sharpened wisdom will always be remembered in my heart. Just remember the Three Treasures Dong Village, there was a Lai Lei, Teacher Lai.
Gui Liu Village
Gui Liu Drum Tower and Yang House (Image source: One article)
Guiliu Village is 15 kilometers from the county seat and 5 kilometers from Zaima Town. Driving over, I felt like I had climbed over a high mountain and into a valley before entering this village. Guiliu Village is a village inhabited by the Dong and Miao ethnic groups. For more than a thousand years, whenever the Dong Sama Festival is held, all the people in the village participate, and the Dong asparagus plays and sings melodious songs. Every Miao festival, the Miao girls dressed up in silver jewelry and danced, and the Dong and Miao sang together, and the two ethnic groups lived in harmony for thousands of years.
Guiliu Village is a living village. Unlike the Sanbao Dong Village, although the drum tower here is not large, there is a fire inside, and the masters sit here during the day, watching TV and listening to Dong songs, playing chess, chatting and leisurely. This drum tower was built during the Qianlong period and is a dense-eave-style Tazhuang drum tower, which is exquisite. When I approached the drum tower, the uncle moved his body very kindly, gave me a place to sit, and let me sit down and bake the fire to resist the cold in the mountains. Uncle asked me where I came from, and I said Beijing. He continued, "Now the transportation is convenient, you can get to Guiyang by plane, you can get to the county seat by train, and we can come by car when the road on the mountain is built." Before we turned 50, the farthest place we walked was Rongjiang County, and Carey had never been there. "I said have you been to Carey now?" The uncle replied with a laugh, now Guiyang often goes.
Drum tower fireworks
In the fire pit, smoke from the burning firewood rose up and drifted towards the roof of the drum tower. Looking up, the smoky beams have traveled through a hundred years, witnessing the development of the times and the changes of the world.
Dong song
In the evening, it was still here, and the women who had worked all day sat around the drum tower and sang melodious Dong songs. No conductor, no cappella, natural harmonies. It's "music that flashes like a clear spring, skipping the melody on the edge of an ancient dream." "As night falls, bonfires are lit. Dozens of people sang in unison, and the melody was melodious and gentle. The mountains echo and the streams polish them. At this moment, the surrounding mountains are green, the eyes are full of stars, and the melodious song echoes in your ears, and you will have an indescribable touch:
This is the ancient song "Yue Ren Song" passed down from the Spring and Autumn Warring States, which is part of the life of the Dong people for generations. In such a small mountain village, people guard this small world, but with their infinite creativity, they have created a great art hall and a rich spiritual world. This tenacity, this inheritance, is touching and even more shocking. In 2009, the Dong Great Song was inscribed on the World Intangible Cultural Heritage List by the United Nations and became well-known all over the world. (Many villagers here have participated in the finals of the National Youth Competition.) ）
Like the Sanbao Dong Village, Guiliu Village also has a strange man, Teacher Yang. She is a substitute teacher at Guiliu Primary School, and an ordinary villager who has made up her mind to take out a loan of 600,000 yuan to transform her house into a three-story villa. Designer Chen Guodong, who returned from studying in Japan, rushed into the Dong Village and designed for free, achieving today's Gui Liu Yang House (the yellow villa in the picture). When I visited Teacher Yang, she was in class. She let us into the house to wait for her, make our own tea, cut our own fruit, and his house never locked the door.
Gui Liu Yang House (GIF source: one)
Climbing the steps and entering the Yang Mansion, the first thing you see is a spacious and transparent hall house. The walls are all glass windows, which not only have good lighting, but also let people enjoy the beauty of the classical architecture that changes scenery in the house. There are looms and tea houses in the house, and a dozen friends sit together, drinking tea and chatting, which is not too crowded. Down from the hall is Mr. Yang's bedroom, kitchen and living room. The third floor is a place where you can make a homestay, and it is also a favorite place for children. The tall beams, the leisurely autumns, and the bookshelves full of walls are the places where Teacher Yang usually takes the left-behind children to play and study.
A window with a strong sense of design
In order to solve the problem of sound insulation in traditional Dong architecture, the designer separated the room and floor with double-layer wooden boards. When you walk into the room, you don't feel the noise at all. That quiet, nature-appreciative state of mind is really comfortable and beautiful. In Yangzhai, you can't feel that this is a mountain village.
Jiayi Miao Village
Moon Mountain Residence
Jiayi Miao Village is located in the depths of Moon Mountain, Jiaxiang Township, 50 kilometers from the county seat. As the saying goes, the Miao live on the top of the mountain, and the Dong live by the water. Jiayi Miao Village, just above the top of Moon Mountain. There was no road here, until August 22, when the township road and the village cement road project were completed, and the beautiful scenery of Jiayi Miao Village was shown to the world. In the past, due to the remoteness, the Miao people deep in the mountains had a very hard time.
Teacher Lai from Sanbao Dongzhai said that in 92, she and the working group visited Jiayi Miao Village, and the people in the village at that time had never even seen 10 yuan and thought it was counterfeit. The common people lived a life of barter. The local living conditions are also very poor, all on the first floor raise pigs and cattle, the second floor lives people, and the third floor puts grain, this way of living has lasted for thousands of years. Until 2022, with the government's unremitting persuasion and help, more than 10,000 Miao residents in the mountains finally made up their minds and moved out of the mountains and moved to the county seat; At the same time, 1,800 residents stayed behind to develop tourism and plantation. It has completely changed the face of mixed human and animal living for thousands of years. (The reason for the need for perseverance is that the Miao masses there were initially reluctant to change the way they lived and produced for thousands of years.) ）
Jiayi Xinzhai
Now, the top of Moon Mountain is a beautiful homestay "Moon Mountain Residence". This is a modern building based on the traditional houses of the residents. The appearance of the building has not changed, but the internal facilities are more modern and neat. Push open the window and you will find the vibrant terraces; When you look up, you will see mountains surrounded by white clouds. Man and nature live in harmony, which is probably the most beautiful appearance of this world.
After coming down from Moon Mountain, we went to a hometown and ate a huge delicious "light meal". The local villagers grabbed three chickens from their own mountain, processed them, chopped them quickly, put them directly into a pot, put some ginger and salt, and boiled them. The chicken soup is delicious, the chicken is tender, and the paste peppers burned in the fire pond are truly a rare delicacy. After eating the chicken, go to the vegetable field to pick some greens you grow, wash them and put them in the chicken soup. The sweet leaves and the aroma of chicken are a mountain flavor that we rarely taste in our urban life.
A mountain meal
(The wooden boards that the fellow put for us bowls are all gold silk nan boards, more than 900 a piece...) ）
Dalidong Village
Dali Dongzhai is also in Zaima Township, but it is closer to the county seat than Guiliu, only 25 kilometers, and it can be reached by car in half an hour. This is a very well protected Dong village. Since 1992, the United Nations Development Fund for Women has earmarked funds for protection, and until now, all the buildings in the village are wooden structures, barns, wind and rain bridges, and dwellings with pole and railing structures, which are very well preserved.
Dalidong Village
This is a village hidden deep in the mountains. The houses in the village are arranged according to the mountain shape and water potential, although they are one after another, but they are all orderly. Come here, you can relax, you can be bored, you can experience the quiet of the mountains and forests.
The grandmothers in the village, sitting in front of their homes, tightened the colored thread with their legs, shuttled back and forth with their hands, and weaved streamers comparable to the design of the world's biggest brands at such a small knee. Everyone has their own suits, and I bought one of my grandmothers' streamers, and the other grandmothers knew who made it up. Grandmas worked hard to knit for 4-5 days to weave a ribbon, so thinking about 80 straps is also worth the money. The handmade fabric is soft and fresh, and you can feel the difference from the machine fabric by touching it by hand. This may also be the palm connection that Sam Po Lai said.
Woven streamers
There is a very popular text on the Internet: why do mountain people live in the mountains, just like feet in shoes, comfortable. In fact, facing these villages deep in the mountains of the Rongjiang River, I hope they come out, and I don't want them to come out; I want them to change, and I don't want them to change too quickly.
In the face of the impact of the times, the local area can no longer attract young people to stay, and the villages and villages are full of old people and children. The village is no longer what Teacher Lai and Teacher Yang remembered. But no matter what the times are, it still depends on the teacher, and people like Teacher Yang stand up, carry their own dreams, lean down, do it themselves, and use their own perseverance and sweat to strive to restore the village in their hearts and strive to describe the ideals in their hearts. This is what touched and shocked me the most.
People do not die, culture lives on. This is the ultimate reason why our Chinese is still alive after thousands of years of countless tribulations. I hope that when you have time, you can come to Guizhou, feel the villages here, feel the mountains and rivers of the motherland, and feel the warm and warm fireworks.