Lou Jia Zhuang village

(Lou Jia Zhuang village lies to the east within the city limits of Anshun city, Guizhou province, south-west China. The villagers are Miao who are sometimes nicknamed 'Flower Miao'. Lao Han also live in the area.)

Driving eastwards from the centre of Anshun city the Miao village of Lou Jia Zhuang may be reached. On 27 October, 2001 we visited the village, where there were 32-33 households totalling 104 people. The Miao are sometimes nicknamed 'Flower Miao' presumably because of the flowers which are drawn in their wax resist. We were warmly and graciously received by the villagers. We were greeted at the entrance to the village by two groups of musicians wearing festival costume - women playing lusheng pipes who offered us achohol and four older men playing various other instruments. In the village square the women gave us a dance performance accompanied by music from the men. This was followed by two women demonstrating waxing and girls working on embroidery. A man showed us the indigo dyeing process. It was not clear whether the indigo was chemical and purchased from Beijing or natural purchased from an indigo farm locally. (Indigo is planted in March and harvest and sold in August-September.) The demonstration was particularly for our benefit as these days the Miao in the village do not normally do any indigo dyeing themselves but take their waxed cloth into Anshun to be dyed. The girls are still trained at around 13 or 14 years of age to do the wax resist. It is now carried out on cotton where previously it had been on hemp. We were able to purchase textiles and they had laid out a good display for us. A Lao Han woman was walking past the village entrance with two little boys and stopped by our bus to watch.

all text & images © Pamela A Cross

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