Happy Thanksgiving a few days late. We are now back home from our four day weekend in Guiyang. Maybe a few pounds heavier (of things inherited that is). Some of our friends are leaving for America in the coming weeks, so we have inherited some things left behind. It is sad to see some of our family here leave and go home to family, friends and the unknowns. We are still trying to figure out what our plans will be for next year (following our two planned years of teaching here). We really are not sure about continuing to teach here, teaching elsewhere or returning home to America. There are so many things we miss there, but we are not sure of His will for our lives at this moment.

This weekend, there were many adventures besides those made with a plate full of food. We did have about 35 people for Thanksgiving, with tons of children and families and amazing food. We did not have turkey though, which was a sad change, but there were so many other delicious favorites and new foods. We ate and played games (I learned how to play the famous Bean Game), had a long worship music time, lots of talking and eating, and then the resting period.

The next day, Patty went with some women to a local hot springs for a day of pampering (in the cold--60's). They had massages, Patty even had a foot massage and enjoyed time in the hot springs and relaxing. While they were relaxing, I went with our teammate to the Botanical Gardens hiking. In an ever difficult challenge to find new places to hike, we endeavored to climb to the top of one of the mountains in the park. Initially, there was a small path, one person had gone before us, but that soon disappeared and we were on our own. I would name this mountain, "thorn-bush peak" because of the innumerable thorn bushes that we had to climb through, around, and over, but it was a great adventure. Eventually, we made it to the clearing on top and the view was spectacular. There were mountains all around and a lake nearby and you could also see a little of the city. But now we had to go down the mountain. Jason was enjoying himself greatly, as this reminded him of college in Santa Barbara, so we headed out into the unknown. We ended up shimmying down trees, sliding down overhangs, and getting caught by the thorns again and again. After about an hour of traveling, we found another small path and followed it through streams, over trees, down to the lake. This was definitely an adventure that you cannot find in the travel books, but it was a blast--we were trail blazers. But we soon found out that not far behind us, there were others following our path to make a path through the mountain for other hikers. Maybe we will be true trail blazers!!

We got back to the beginning of the park after about 4.5 hours of hiking and exploring and super hungry as it was now 3 pm, so we called a friend, Keenan and we went out for hotpot and played some football (we taught him how to throw and catch an American football). He loved it and caught on quickly. After playing that for a few hours, we went and had some hot drinks and played card games until the women returned from their relaxing spa getaway.

The next day was a long one, as Patty and I got up early to go shopping, using only the tour book of Guiyang. It was a fun adventure and we found all of the places quickly and got what we needed and were back to have a birthday lunch for our friend, Kara. Her friend, Kevin, cooked 12 different dishes of Chinese food, so we ate and ate again. AT 3 pm, I was invited to go and help teach some PE teachers and students how to play baseball at Shida College. I never thought about playing real baseball in China. As it turns out, there are only 5 teams in all of China and this school wants to make the sixth. It all started from a foreign teacher seeing a baseball bat in a man's bag and wanting to play baseball with him and now every week a group of foreigners will go and teach different baseball skills to these teachers and students. They have about a dozen gloves and balls and one baseball bat, but the only glitch is that the equipment appear to be from the 20's or 30's. The gloves are really difficult to learn how to catch with and take lots of concentration (mine broke after about 20 minutes of playing catch). The balls are made of balled up rags covered by baseball material--it is just funny that they had all of this equipment sitting around and that it turned out to work. We taught them how to catch, throw the ball, snag grounders, how to hit and pitch the ball. We got to play a little baseball in between the football games, so it was a fun time. It was a special opportunity and fun to do again.

A great weekend of fun and fellowship and adventures in China. You never know what will happen--we even had a barbeque one night with lots of yummy shishkabobs. Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with many blessings and that your Christmas season is filled with reasons to be thankful.

Monday and Tuesday were equally full with activities, as they came to some of our classes on Monday and Tuesday. Of course the classes got changed up a little to allow time for the students to get to know them and take pictures with them and ask questions. We talked a lot about childhood and family and what those words mean and stories from America. The students really enjoyed their guest teachers and that it meant they got less homework. On Monday night, we invited many, many students to our house for a sampling of Guizhou, Chinese food made by ME. I was super excited to get a chance to cook for so many people, and to get to show Patty's parents some of the famous foods from our area. Usually I will just cook for Patty and Noah, but this time I had about 25 people. This means that I needed to make lots of different dishes. Joe and I took a walk in the countryside before supper and we got back late, so I needed to chop like a crazy man (piles of food everywhere in about 30 minutes). Then I started to cook, with lots of Chinese students also wanting to help--it was a team effort in the end, but I tried to keep the recipes mine. We ended up with 8 different dishes, including a soup. The cooking took about 2 hours and when I finished there was only 1.5 dishes left. I think that is a success then!! It was amazing to see how the students took to Joe and Sandra, as though they were their parents for the week--maybe because many of them miss their families very much and they loved to have motherly and fatherly people there who loved them. So they were celebrities with countless photo opportunities and new friends.

Tuesday brought more classes and more cooking, but this time for a much smaller group. We tried to invite students from each class to take part in different activities each day so that Joe and Sandra could get to know a large number of different students who are close to us. It was so fun to cook and to have lots of friends and family nearby. On Tuesday night, we went with a group of people from Anshun out for the famous Toasted Fish. It is an amazing eating experience!! You choose your fish out of a big tank and then they kill it and fry it over coals and heap a charcoal cooking contraption full of vegetables and lajiao (hot spicy peppers) and you eat until your heart is content. We ended up with 2 fish and in the end we finished off all of it. Sandra took a great picture of it before we chowed down. I will try to post that later. Thus Tuesday and Monday disappeared.

Tianxingchao waterfall and mountains.

Tianxingchao waterfall and mountains.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Guizhou is an amazingly beautiful place, with many mountains, waterfalls, caves, and lots of simple living. It is sad to know that it is the poorest of the provinces in China though, despite the natural beauty. This waterfall always leaves me breathless. The sheer power of the water and the mountains in the background and just leaving a special cave. This day was filled with lots of natural wonders, but after leaving, there was little time to rest. We got back to the college around 5 and went out for Lanzhou mian (our favorite noodles in China). We have gotten to know the staff their well as we bring them business 1-3 times a week (days off from cooking). At 6:00, we had students over for our weekly open house, with Patty's parents as the honored guests. Around 25-30 people came to meet them and loved talking and the heated apartment (their dorms are not heated and it is getting cold here--30's at night). Keep them in your thoughts!! This was the very active first day of coming to Anshun, sorry that the story goes in reverse order...will work on that with the coming days, and hope you enjoy having pictures too.

Noah and his new friend.

There's another dog in the water.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

At the second stop, they had a walkway where there are 365 stones, each with a day of the year on them and we took pictures on our birthdays. Joe and Neil have the same birthday, as well as our friend Lydia (there is something special about that day). Noah is standing on one of those steps and Patty is standing on her birthday. The walkway leads to a cave and our favorite part of the whole park, TianXingQiao, an amazing waterfall, or many connected together.

A family picture at the falls.

A family picture at the falls.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The first site we went to at the park was the "Monkey King" falls. There are peacocks as you enter the park and you walk out to the waterfall behind us (I think there are over 1000 in the park). This is a picture of Patty, her parents, and Noah. If you have not heard of the Monkey King, you probably have not lived in China (a joke) because it is played a thousand times a day and has hundreds of variations and is an incredibly famous story. It was fun to be able to get a family picture and to see them.

A family picture at the falls.

A family picture at the falls.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The first site we went to at the park was the "Monkey King" falls. There are peacocks as you enter the park and you walk out to the waterfall behind us (I think there are over 1000 in the park). This is a picture of Patty, her parents, and Noah. If you have not heard of the Monkey King, you probably have not lived in China (a joke) because it is played a thousand times a day and has hundreds of variations and is an incredibly famous story. It was fun to be able to get a family picture and to see them.

HuangGuoshu Waterfall in Anshun.

Rainbows 2,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

On their first day in Anshun, we took them to the most famous attraction, HuangGuoShu waterfall. It is actually a large park with many famous sites, and the Grand Waterfall is only one of them. We had wonderful weather as you can see. We were also able to see many rainbows there too. It was indeed lots of walking though over five hours with our puppy Noah and our good friend and student Neil. This is definitely a must see place and we are blessed that it is right in our back yard. The entrance ticket is 180 RMB for adult ($25+), but definitely worth it with all the places you visit.

HuangGuoshu Waterfall in Anshun.

Rainbows 2,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

On their first day in Anshun, we took them to the most famous attraction, HuangGuoShu waterfall. It is actually a large park with many famous sites, and the Grand Waterfall is only one of them. We had wonderful weather as you can see. We were also able to see many rainbows there too. It was indeed lots of walking though over five hours with our puppy Noah and our good friend and student Neil. This is definitely a must see place and we are blessed that it is right in our back yard. The entrance ticket is 180 RMB for adult ($25+), but definitely worth it with all the places you visit.

Yao minority.

Taking a rest from the rain.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The Yao minority are found in a variety of provinces in the south of China, from Guizhou to Yunnan and Guangxi. They are made up of many unrelated groups and are primarily farmers in higher elevation areas. They have an extensive amount of literature and folk tales including many folk songs to express their inner thoughts. They are primarily ancestor worshipers and Daoists and believe that each person has many souls--when one leaves they get sick and when they all leave the person dies, leaving them open to reincarnation. These women in the picture were incredibly friendly and may your thoughts be on this vast minority group in southern China.

Dai minority girls

Dai minority girls,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The Dai minority is primarily found in the southern part of the Yunnan province. Their name means the "free people" and may have originated in Thailand. They often live in the valley areas of the mountainous south with their animals and are often farmers growing rice or other profit plants in the lower areas. They tend to be religiously Buddhist, but keep them in your minds as they are open.

We have been anticipating Patty's parents coming to China and Anshun for months and months and it finally took place last weekend. We had many plans but knew everything was depending on the weather and other circumstances and the weather forecast was calling for a week of rain. We went to Guiyang on Friday knowing that their plane was going to get in late that night and planning on meeting them early the next morning at the airport. We received a call around 11 pm or so and we set up a time to call the next day. They made it safely to Guiyang from their visit to friends in Hong Kong.

The next morning, we changed plans and told them we would meet them at the college and that they would get a cab from the airport to meet us there. It turned out that the cab was much faster than the buses (get that one). They arrived early and ended up calling us on some students' cell phone and we met them at the track at Shida. Our plans for the day were to take them to Qianling Park in Guiyang, where there are monkeys and also a beautiful place to walk. The weather turned out nice and we had Noah along--it was very nice to see someone from home. We went to Guiyang by bus with our teammate, Jason and once they entered the park a crowd of people including an older man surrounded them and wanted to show them pictures of China and speak English. Welcome to China!! They were instant celebrities. We walked around for awhile, noah scared the monkeys and we saw a number of different baby monkeys riding on their parent's backs. It was good to be able to talk and hear from them in person. Afterwards, we got their bags and headed to the bus station to travel to Anshun--it would be a new world for them, but our home.

We arrived in Anshun and were met by a friend, Ike, who helped us with the hotel. His grandfather plays mahjong with the manager, so we got a better deal. We then took them to our college to see our apartment and to eat some basic Chinese food. It would be quite the adventure of food and a long week of cooking (I loved it) for me. We had many adventures ahead, but this was day one in Guizhou China, a real taste of rural living, living on the outskirts of a small city (300,000). I will continue this story throughout the week, running down their entire stay and the adventures we saw together.

As usual, I have fallen far behind in my blog entries. I have not finished one story, but have many, many more to add. I will try to finish my trip to Yunnan and catch up on the exciting things happening in our college these last two weeks. I will give you a free glimpe...some new foreigners for the week and outdoor activities and of course His activities.

Okay finally day three. The plan for the last day in Luchun was to wake up at 6 am, go to the bus station and get a ticket to Gejiu, a city 4 hours away and then get another bus to Kunming and make the 7:45 train to Anshun and end up in Anshun on Monday afternoon and able to go to class on Tuesday. As I have learned, many travel plans in China are futile to have--there are so often changes that you cannot control, so I was prepared, but nervous for what those changes could be. As always I was very surprised!!

In the morning, I was actually not too tired, after just a few hours of sleep. I was sad to leave after a short stay, but I already had way too many things to carry: my huge hiking backpack (20 pounds or so) and two bags of Christmas present for family and friends and then my friend started collecting fruit to send with me (I remembered last trips 20+ pounds of fruit and food). I ended up giving much of it to the homeless people sleeping on the streets in Kunming. I had to plead to leave with only a couple pounds of food and we were off on the tiny scooter for the balancing act of a 20 minute trip to the train station. Luckily, most people were asleep and I was able to balance well, because we made it there without any accidents, but every time I adjusted the motorbike would swerve. We found that there was an extra bus added at 7 am, so a great blessing. I was able to go and eat breakfast and chat with my friends for a little bit before leaving. It started to rain once again and Roy negotiated seats for me so I could see the famous Yuanyang rice terraces along the route and I was ready. Because it was very early Faye was able to come and say goodbye also, she had a meeting on the history of the Hani minority at 8. She said her mother was going to come and bring me some of their family tea which I tried to decline (I had too much to carry as it was). But of course she insisted and said her mother would bring a small bag of tea (Ziplock size or smaller). I knew better and was not surprised when she returned with a huge sack with over 2 kg of tea (4.4 pounds). That is more tea than I could drink in a year and another huge bag to carry...ahh!! Then Roy came and told me to expect to have to stop near Yuanyang for a day or two because there are often bad mudslides there (he has had to stop and wait for the road for up to 3 days). So my leaving left me with many strange thoughts.

The bus ride was going along smoothly until we got near the Yuanyang area and the bus came to a screeching stop and I saw miles of cars backed up and people out walking around and talking and I was certain we were going to be stopping here for a long, long time. I, like everyone else, got out and wanted to check it out (how bad was the mudslide??). It turned out to have been a false alarm as their was a bad mudslide, but they now have heavy equipment and can fix it in hours and they were just waiting for one side to go at a time. We got past that area and had a chance to see some amazing rice terraces!! I was so excited to see the famous spot in Yuanyang old town where the famous pictures are taken--the driver said he would stop so I could take some pictures. I was sleeping a little but the girl behind me woke me up and opened my window wide open so I could get some pictures, until we got to the old town and it got instantly foggy and you could see nothing. At the spot, I could faintly see a sad man waiting with his huge camera for the fog to break and the driver continued on. On the way to Gejiu, there were many different kinds of fruit (banana trees, orange trees, sugar cane, and maybe some others). It was beautiful!!
We even stopped at the top of a mountain to buy some oranges (they were some of the best I have ever eaten.

It seemed like the trip was going along well without any worries. I made it into Gejiu almost on time (the roads were a little muddy still), but someone came and bought a ticket for me to Kunming and helped me find the bus. It was going well. I even left some of the tea with the bus driver for being a kind person. Gejiu is a very Muslim town in the south of China which was a little surprising. It is very modern and was the capital of the area for a long time. I am sad to have only had 10 minutes in the city. But I got on the mini-bus and we were off on the fast highway straight to Kunming. What could get in our way of getting there in time now??

The bus driver was on a serious mission...he was speeding past everyone and past many small and scenic villages. I enjoyed the new view (I have never traveled this way before). All of a sudden, we came to another screeching halt. Cars were stopped in each direction for quite a distance. I thought maybe there was a serious car accident and that was sorta true. What it turned out to be was a vehicle hit a herd of sheep killing 10-15 of them, except for the little kid. The farmers and villages were really upset and stopped the traffic yelling at the men and the police trying to get payment or something. I cannot imagine losing your entire livelihood and income like that in one accident. It seemed to take ages to figure this out but once again we were on the road again, until the vehicle started to smell bad and sound bad and we stopped to wait for another bus. I still thought, no problem we are close to Kunming, but it turned out that Kunming is much bigger than I thought and roads were closed and we detoured around the city for over 1.5 hours and so when we arrived, I rushed to the ticket counter at the train station and when I asked to get a ticket to Anshun the lady asked me Jintian?? (today). Yes!! She kept saying meiyou, I thought no seat, no problem, I will get a sleeper (meiyou--do not have), I will stand then (meiyou). Finally someone explained, meiyou train...Sadly, I said Mingtain (tomorrow) and got a ticket for 7:20 am.

That meant I had to stay the night in Kunming. I was prepared to get a hotel, but not sure where to find one that is close enough to the train station. I tried a place that had rooms advertised for 60RMB ($9) and they said no foreigners. Again I tried one for 80RMB ($14), no foreigners. 100RMB (the usual price we have to pay) and again no foreigners. There are often many places that foreigners cannot stay because the government deems them too dangerous or they are houses where prostitution is rampant and they do not want that to be seen. So I was out of easy options and a lady came and said she has a place that has cheap rooms for foreigners, I was immediately suspicious of course and said I did not want it. She was persistent and I said it was worth a try being very tired. She took me to another place that could not have foreigners before taking me to a Super 8. Super 8's are very cheap hotels in America but expensive in China though not fancy by any regards. In the end, I ended up getting a deal for 180 RMB ($25) and I finally went to eat supper at 10pm. I went to bed, set my alarm for 6:30 am. I got up expecting to take a shower get some breakfast and walk to the train station, but when I looked again at the clock and my ticket, it was already 6:45 and you usually get to the train station 30 minutes early, so I dressed quickly, packed everything and needed to check out, walk 4 blocks, go through baggage checks up many stairs and get on the train in less than 30 minutes. I rushed and rushed with my 4 bags of things down the street, through the train station and when I got to the gate for my train I saw no one waiting...oh my goodness--I must be very late. So I ran all the way to the train and at the train I again saw no one waiting getting on the train, but everyone already aboard and waiting to leave.

Then I looked at my ticket, car 17 and the car next to me, eight and saw that I needed to travel to the end of the train to get on. I was running down the train with everyone staring at the crazy foreigner with way too much luggage (Chinese are good at only bringing the essentials). I got there out of breath but relieved, found my seat and put away my bags. Surely the train will leave in seconds. It didn't, so I went outside to escape the smoke and to check the time. When I looked at the time, it was only 7am and I still needed to wait 20 minutes for the train to leave. I felt like an idiot, but the rest of the train ride went well and I got to Anshun at a reasonable time and was happy to be back home.

One very exciting piece of news that I will write more about is Patty's parents coming to Anshun. They arrived on Friday night, around midnight after having a Chinese travel experience of many delays, a knife found in their bag (Joe the terriorist), but funny it made it through Minneapolis, Chicago, Hong Kong and wasn't until China that it was found. We have been enjoying showing them around and our students have enjoyed meeting them. Many stories to come soon!! Many blessings to you and your families!!

Day Two: I woke up early even though being very tired because there were many planned events, such as a parade of minority people at 7 am (no candy, only rain). We ended up missing it because it was very short because of the excessive amount of rain. It was streaming down the streets. But Roy made sure I got pictures with all of the different minorities--so I have numerous pictures with the Yi, Yao, Dai and Hani women and guys. They were often very friendly for the most part!! My friend Roy wanted me to meet the president of HongHe University in case we want to teach there someday. He was a very interesting person with great English. They were having a meeting of scholars from throughout the world to research Hani/Akha culture and history and he was the translator. I wished I could have gone but it was for many days and I could not get enough time off of school. Because it was raining, I went to Faye's mother's house to help them make sticky rice. It is a very interesting process. They will take the special rice and put it in a carved out log and take wooden bats and beat it for quite a while and then roll it in spices and eat it. Yummy!!

I think if I would have stayed long enough, I would have eaten my weight in the stuff. I got many chances to practice my Chinese, which is not very good by any account. Many of the visitors wanted to talk to me, so I tried to answer questions and understand their putonghua. It was very interesting!! They were often very kind and willing to deal with my lack of Chinese. I took some pictures with Faye's family--her dad smoking the water bong and her mother cooking food. The whole family was over cooking food for the festival. They had 9 tables to prepare food for, all kinds of different Hani food and some other family specialties.

Because of the rain, the events I wanted to see were cancelled. This did not mean I knew that in advance, so I made the mile walk down to the park to see it getting soaked along the way. When I got there, there were only the old men shooting the ancient flintlock guns and then sacrificing to the gods. The games I came to see were not meant to be. They were supposed to have cock fighting, wrestling, archery, traditional swinging, and lots of other sports. It was too bad. So I returned to help the family set up for the long table dinner. They have small wicker tables lined up for over one mile with over 3,500 tables filled with food and drinks that anyone can eat at. We had to carry the tables, chairs, food, and covering for the rain down to the area for their tables. It was fun to see everyone working together to get everything setup and also how people solved the problems like how to make a canopy over the tables and how to keep everyone dry.

My friends wanted me to take pictures of the whole long table from the beginning to the end, but that did not happen as it started to pour. There was a river of water coming down the street, so everyone mainly stayed under the makeshift tents. I went out and tried some food at a number of different tents including all of Faye's family tables. Most of the foods were things I had tried before, except for bees in eggs (not bad), dog meat, small smoked birds and sausage. The food was yummy!! After the food and drinking, they had a Hani dance. Some middle schoolers came and wanted to sing a Hani song for me and were super excited. Other people wanted me to get video taped dancing a Hani song. But after eating at the tables, the hosts all went home and had an actual meal, so I think I ate many pounds of food. We danced the rather simple Hani songs until around 10:30 pm and got some gifts for Patty and I (Hani clothing) before going to bed.

I was to leave in the morning. I thought day three would be a rather boring day, but it turned out to be more of a crazy day then the rest. I guess that is part of traveling in China.

This past weekend, I took a break from Anshun and took a trip to the south of Yunnan to visit our friends Roy and Faye for the Hani New Year. This was something I have wanted to do for a long time and so I shuffled my classes (no Friday class and I gave my Monday class a project to do) so I could go for a few days. The only bad part of this is that it takes forever to travel to LuChun from Anshun. The first leg of the trip is a 11 hour train ride--I got on at 8pm and arrived there at 7 am. The train ride was surprisingly good as I was able to sleep some and relax and when I arrived I went to the bus station to get a bus ticket, expecting to have to go to numerous cities to arrive in Luchun, but was again surprised to find they had added a new bus and I could leave at 7 pm. That meant I had all day to walk around with my big hiking bag. I thought I would adventure out to some new places and see if I could get lost. This time I was incredibly successful--I got myself out to the outskirts of Kunming and could not find my way back...I even ended up in the countryside and following the 3rd loop around the city. People I asked only got me further away, so it was about 10 hours and many, many miles of walking later and I made it back to about where I started. Then I had to find the market to buy our Christmas presents. Eventually I did find it and could relax...I found some of my friends from travels there and met with a number of unexpected people and got the presents we wanted for family and friends.

I was so tired when I walked back to the bus station (I could barely walk by now), that I was ready for the second part of the trip, the 11 hour sleeper bus ride through the mountains to LuChun in southernmost Yunnan. When I got there it started to pour and I could not find the correct bus, and asked the manager for help. He showed me the bus and followed me to "help" me. It turned out he followed me because this meant he could ask me for money/ a bribe. He said I had to pay a gas tax, but it was more of a foreigner tax. I was willing to give him some money just to be able to sit down and start the second part. His English was not good enough to try to fight with him and I did not have enough energy. We left around 8 after lots of delays and I slept on and off and arrived early around 6 am. I stood out in the rain as everyone stared at the foreigner in the village for 30 minutes waiting for my friend to come on his scooter. By this time I had quite a few bags and had to balance them to ride on the small scooter (funny experience).

It rained on and off throughout the day, but I was blessed that almost all of the time we were walking it was clear or even sunny. I got to get together with Roy and Faye and her son Li Chun Hui to go hiking and to meet with some important people who came for the holiday. The terraces were amazing in the mountains as the rice has been harvested and some of the tea fields are a brilliant green color. It turned out that it was Li Chun Hui's birthday, so I got invited to his birthday party before the big celebration. In the morning, I got to go shopping in the market right before the festival. This was a crazy affair as everyone was stocking up for the huge dinner they will have the next day. They had every kind of animal and everyone had on their minority clothing. The sad part was seeing them kill the dogs (quite inhumane), as my friend sent my down the hill to take some pictures. We got chicken, fish, duck, beef, and pork along with numerous kinds of vegetables for lunch. They always go all out for guests. The birthday party was very short as lunch took ages of eating. They had a cake and lots of fruit and they do not play games, so I decided to make a game. I brought some American coins and had the students put their names in a hat and draw out 3 winners of quarters and the rest got pennies. They were overjoyed to get American money!!

At night, I was given a guest pass to sit in the front row of the welcoming celebration with dancing and singing. It turned out that I was allowed to be one of the photographers in the way front, so it was really fun. I took numerous pictures of the different dancers and the acting. This was the best show I have seen in China--usually the music is too loud and the sound people are awful, but this was different. They had dancers from all of the minorities in the area, Yao, Yi, Dai, and Hani. They even had a group that carries tables in their mouths as they dance. The show ended at 11 pm and that was day one in Luchun.

There was so much more to come in day two...but I should leave that for later. I will also show some pictures of the different minorities and a brief summary of them. Many blessings to you!!