Dazhai Local Customs

The small bus running from Longsheng to/fro Dazhai, Jingkeng is a carrier for all stuff. You can even transport furnitures like this lady did - a new table bought from Longsheng town and taking it back to Dazhai...Most passengers will buy lots of stuff from town (groceries, baby chicks and ducks for rearing, anything you can think of..). Some more bulky items are usually stashed at the roof of the bus. The driver and conductor are very helpful when it comes to loading and unloading the stuff. The reason why they buy as much as they can is because the fare to and fro town is expensive. Longsheng to/fro Dazhai is 7yuan one way..

When you are hiking from/to Dazhai/PingAn, you will pass by a number of ancestral tablets - tombstones. They are along the rice terraces. The ones that we saw are all of Pan's ancestors. The Hong Yaos are not Taoists or Buddhists but they do worship and pray to their ancestors. During festive seasons, they will offer food and wine and pray at these tablets.

Once there is an oversupply of the corns, the excess will be dried for used as grains for planting in the next season or used as feedmeals to animals. Most corns are dried by hanging them upside down. Sometimes, the grains are removed from the cob and dried. You can see most houses have corns for drying on their rooftops or at the barns or even just outside their house.

In Longsheng and many parts of China, you can see lots of chillies being dried. Most farmers grow chillies in their farm. Most of the chillies are dried for sale. Visitors/tourists buy them back as they are cheaper here than bought in bigger towns. Some of the chillies are grounded to be sold as chilly powder.
For dishes which you need it to be spicy, chillies will be either pounded or chopped and added to flavour the dish.

All the minority tribes, Miao, Yao and Zhuang women, carry a rattan basket behind their backs. The basket is used to fill their buys or to fill the goods (usually handicrafts and embroideries) for sale. It is also used to carry the handicrafts they are working on.... The basket is made of strong rattan woven into a huge round container.