(Video Slideshow) 郎德苗村 Guizhou Province
Langde 郎德
Guizhou Province near Kaili
Langde Miao Village (Video Slideshow) 郎德苗村 Guizhou Province: We hope you enjoy this video slide-show. The photos were taken in the Miao Minority village, Langde near Kaili in 2007. The accompanying songs are traditional Miao folk songs with modern music (again the slide-show is a bit too long: I promise to get the videos down to about 3 minutes in the future). For more information about Langde and how to get there: Continue reading below the video.
Langde History
Langde was once the centre of an important Miao uprising against the Qing, which took place in the 19th Century. These days the village of Langde suffers a different kind of Han invasion; that of hundreds of Han tourists, coming to get a feel what has been marketed as exotic Miao culture. Nowadays, Chinese tourists take part in traditional singing and dancing events and marvel at the elaborate dresses and jewellery of the residents of Langde. How things have changed!
Visiting Langde
For the traveller Langde is still a great village to visit. Its setting is idyllic, built on a green hill overlooking an elegant slow bend in the river. Rice fields and wandering water buffalo add to the rural charm. The village itself is a classic collection of traditional Miao two or three-storey wooden buildings, draped in strings of drying chillies and corn.
We were visiting in the middle of August and spent almost the entire day in and around the village. In all that time only two small buses of Chinese tourists turned up. Actually, in a contradictory sense you need a tour group to turn up if you want to see the residents wearing their traditional clothing and jewellery. They don’t wear them when they are tending to the fields or their livestock, or when an individual backpacker turns up.
Continue reading “Langde Miao Village”