This is one of those stories.
On my second day in Yangshuo, my group went to visit the Longji Terraced fields. One of the stops on our tour was to visit a Yao village famous for the women's long hair. As we were reading the brochure about the village, it mentioned that the women do most of the work in the village while the men just drink and eat.
And to Ellery, this was a great life. He joked about how he was going to marry one of these villagers and live the easy life. And Kay and I rolled our eyes. Men...
We got to the village and got to look into what a Yao house looks like. We also got surrounded by little old Yao ladies selling purses and bracelets.
We went to a cultural show (that we bargained to 60 rmb from 80 rmb). And we were in the front row!! The show was um...interesting. The MC said something about chopsticks and staying the night in the village, which made us all a little nervous. The show involved the village women singing and showing the daily chores of Yao life like spinning yarn, fishing, and gathering food. Meanwhile, the audience was fed a strange soup and some tea.
Everything was alright, it was a little boring, but I was getting some use out of my camera. But then the MC pointed to Ellery and called him to the stage. In bewilderment, Ellery got up on the stage while the rest of us were cracking up. Ellery's in trouble, we all thought. But we were wrong. After a few more guys joined the stage, they were paired with a village maiden. We were going to witness a wedding!!!
The boys were rushed off stage and the girls' wedding dance began. My group was dying in the front row. Ellery would be chosen to marry a Yao girl!! Irony!! Tears of laughter were streaming from my eyes.
At last the grooms were brought out.
First, they had to find their bride. Then, they had to prove their manliness by kneading some dough with sticks.
Then the couples danced, while the onlookers would pinch the grooms butts. Yes, there was SOOO much butt-pinching going on. After the dance, the bride pinched the groom's butt herself while the groom stepped on her foot.
To show his love for his wife, the groom then performed a song. Ellery's choice? "Happy Birthday" in Mandarin. Precious.
The ceremony was finalized with the drinking of tea.
Then the groom had to carry his new bride back to his "house", aka backstage.
When we saw Ellery again, he was a sort of married man. For the rest of the trip, he would reminisce about his "first wife".
But no post about the Yao people would be complete without some pictures of their long hair!!
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