Interpreting Ancient Chinese Fashion (Day 6)

Today we're in the Bui village of Hua Shi Shao located in the Anshan region of Guizhou province. It's a little more touristy here than in the other villages we visited but what it lacks in authenticity it definitely makes up for in these incredible postcard views. I entered into their beautiful village. It was wonderful because I was greeted with music and songs and wine. It's a little less dusty here and a little more tropical than the other villages so there's wild bamboo, banyan trees, even banana trees growing all over the village and of course it's a stone village and as you can see the mountains are all this beautiful limestone that the town is made up out of. Down the path I entered into another area. It was just breathtaking. I saw this grand view of rice farms and the rice farms really reminded me of pleats like pleats on my fabric of my skirt. It had a wonderful texture to it. Today we took a look at a native dance demonstration which was actually pretty fantastic. We went out into the fields and the locals performed some spring dances for us. Before the lunar new year they have this wonderful ceremony dance. As they're pounding the bamboo sticks on the ground they're singing about scaring the rats to the landlords. It's a cleansing. It's a way of blessing their home. The second dance that I saw was a very romantic dance but it had to do more with the women. The young men were standing there right behind them singing, singing a beautiful song to the women. The six women were in two rows and they were dancing with their hands. There's a sense of elegance to them and that was the whole purpose of this dance is to show their femininity and also to show their beauty. After that we saw a third dance which was a victory celebration. It was very noisy, lots of music and some clanking of bamboos. So this one featured both men and women and it was pretty exciting. It was what you would expect for a victory dance. In the past a lot of the minority villages in Guizhou province had been attacked by various peoples invading for land or territory various reasons and in the victory dance they sort of celebrate victory over invading peoples forcing them back out of the village. The final dance that we saw was not really a dance but more like a spring ritual or a mating ritual. Sounds kind of clinical but really it was more like a or a debutante ball coming out party and it's something that every villager girl waits to do. They're allowed to participate when they're 18 and they go out into the fields and hide and they make up these really beautiful love calls or love songs to try and attract a guy or the attention of a guy that they're really interested in the village. So they make these calls the men come and they respond to the women with clever made-up songs. If they're successful in attracting the attention of a girl or meeting a mate then the girl gives the boy her tassel. It was like a long little yarn rope with a little flower on the bottom. If the boy's not successful it's a little unfair the girl gets to come back as many times as she wants to the celebration but if a boy's not successful he has to work for the girl's family for three years which I thought was a little unfair at first but then I thought what a great way to keep an eye on the girl and get to know your in-laws ahead of time. I had a chance to dance with the buoy girls. It was so much fun because I love dance. The first movement the girl showed me was the symbol of the sunlight and as I'm doing this now I'm really feeling the sunlight but it has such beauty to it and I would rotate around slowly showing this expression. The second piece were the clouds and it was like soft little clouds and gentle movement and my hands had to be a certain position too so I really had to take note on this. The third movement that I saw I think it was like the sweeping and it was sweeping of the bush or the weeds but it was a romantic movement as well and I know is for enticement too. The last one was beautiful too. I was washing clothes. It looks so beautiful and elegant. After the dance I had the opportunity to learn how to which is a traditional instrument and it's a lot like western style oboe. It's actually a double reed instrument with eight holes in it and you play it like you would a recorder or even a traditional oboe. It's a really difficult technique to master but once you get the hang of it it really comes quite easy so I wish I had more time to learn the notes. It really had an interesting sound, very exotic. I was able to see and meet two Buyi women and I was able to observe the beauty of their costume especially their head pieces were so unusual. The fascinating part is that it's like wanded fabric just wrapped around so many times I mean like maybe about two dozen times but it gives this wonderful structural feeling it's so architectural. There was this protruding cardboard piece that gave the silhouette and then she would put her beautiful embroidery piece on top of it to drape it down so it looked like this really avant-garde piece. Also as I looked and viewed her piece I saw her belt and for the elderly woman she has this twisted and looped and that is a signature of her either being elderly or married. As I viewed the young girl's costume she also had a belt too but her belt was very simple it was very clean and that meant that she was single. Another signature that proclaimed that she was single was her headpiece. She had this wonderful yarn braid on top with her embroidery piece on the back so it gave a little scarf effect but also she had this yarn extension coming from only on the right side and that signified as well that she was single. It's really intriguing to me how similar this is to Mexican Serape even the colors in the bands that run across the fabric are similar so you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish this from like a region like Oaxaca or one of the other regions. The best part about the demonstration we saw today was an old gentleman villager showed us how to wrap the turban so it was really exciting the technique and it was something I'd wanted to learn for a long time so we sort of started the demonstration he unwound it and it was really huge it was like 18 inches wide and six yards in length and that's something that I probably can make an evening gown. So rather than just wrapping it around and around his head there was actually a technique in which when he would come around he would grab it and twist it and it made a really beautiful draped shape. This is very important that I'm wearing this design today and this is a traditional buoy costume because I'm entering into their beautiful village I want to be able to pay respect I want to be able to feel their culture and as a fashion designer it's very important that we understand their culture their costume their tradition in order for us to be inspired or also just for us to understand them better.