The Flower Hat Miao and the Miao village

Mother and child at the Miao village

Old women hanging out

Selling their wares

Beautiful elaborate costumes

The village is authentic although I suspect reconstructed for the benefit of the tourists

Keren on a high perch so that he can take his pictures

These pictures are from a Miaio village we visited today near the town of Kaili where we are staying.  These are called Flower Hat Miao among other Anglicized names.  There is a big city here where the hotel is but it is small by Chinese standards, maybe only a half a million.  It is not an attractive city like the last one, Guiyang (four to six million), but it is here because of the minority villages.  The government cut right through the mountains to build the city. The village in these pictures was "chosen" by the government because of its appeal and now this is where the tourists come.  There is industry here as well as tourism and the people come from the farms in the countryside to the city and then it grows by leaps and bounds.  Keren says Beijing and Shanghi were once like this.  

These people in the pictures are the real thing, although they too have learned where the money is and their sales approach is aggressive to say the least.  I showed slight interest in a piece of fabric and immediately I was surrounded by these women, all sticking their wares in my face.  Not the ones you see in these pictures of course.  As usual the children are the best part.  We took some Dollar Store trinkets with us and the kids were thrilled and quickly the word spread and kids came out of the woodwork!  

Running out of time--we are on a "break" after lunch but we're meeting Keren in twenty minutes to go to the Miaio Museum near our hotel.