🥦Mizuo´s Travel Blog🥦 No.6 - 2/3: Visiting a local village in Qingyuan, China, 2017

Our journey in Qingyuan continued

In total, I remember that we stayed more than one week in this region and we visited a couple of Yao villages and also a few Han villages. (Too bad that I cannot read the Chinese characters in the picture....something RED.....old village residential area. Please let me know if anyone can read the name of the village! I want to check the exact location.)

This village also has a wall which is surrounded the village like many other Han villages. But, the wall was not as noticeable as it was like the first Han village we visited. The part of the wall was removed or many collapsed for some reason, and they did not rebuild it. Well, when time goes by, the meaning of the wall was gradually lost its meaning. I believe that it lost the importance to protect the village since they do not have to do it any longer. 

Well, we found something!

To tell the truth, as I wrote from the beginning of my blog for this trip to Qingyuan, I was just a tourist from Japan joining this field trip my friends asked me to join. But, for my friends and their students, it was a part of field trip study to research something new in this region. And, luckily, they found something interesting just outside of this local restaurant. HAHA! It was very surprising how we found this piece of stone, which was used as a base of the restaurant, but it was actually written and carved some documents.

When my mother, aunt, and uncle were exploring in the village, my friends and their students asked many village people if they saw any old stone relics or old Chinese characters they cannot read, or something. And then, one of them explained that they found some old stones which they thought meaningless so that they used as a base of the restaurant. 

They took pictures and printed what was written on the stone, then they decided to take it back to the University of Macao where they research. Actually, they found out that it was a historical document about this region. It was not about their field of study which is about Yao's lifestyle and acculturation to Han Chinese, but I am glad that they found something interesting. 

Outside of the village

Some village people decide to build a modern style building in the village so that the village has already started losing some traditional lifestyle. It was a bit sad to see how the village is changing, and at the same time, I hope that the government will support them to preserve this beautiful village. 

It was such an amazing experience I had with them. I am so glad that my friends asked me to join their field trip study. I learned that there were many small old villages in China, especially inland China where most of the tourists will not visit. Without help from my friends, I could not have had such a wonderful experience like this. It is almost impossible (or, I would say that it is very challenging) to visit this village without anybody who speaks Han Chinese and some local languages. Also, I felt so lucky that they drove us around and showed us many beautiful places. Through this trip, I also learn that living in peace needs to have much understanding of each other and also many compromises in some points. Visiting both the beautiful villages of Yao and Han made me realize that there is no superior culture that is above one another. I hope that Yao and Han people will live peacefully like it was when we visited there in 2017. 😉🙏🙌

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