Where is the Moon mountain? The area on the southeast of Guizhou, the juncture of four county: Rongjiang, Congjiang, Libo, Sandu, is called The Moon mountain region.It links the Miao and dong ethnic's county-Rongjiang and Congjiang, also links the Shui nationality region in Sandu and the Yao ethnic region in Libo. The most part of the Moon mountain is in Congjiang county, which is an outlying district of Guizhou province, named 'the tail of Guizhou'.
To the south of Congjiang county is the Guangxi Zhuang Atonomous Region, and the Moon mountain is the extending of the many mountains of Guangxi in Guizhou. Even in detailed map of county , the moon mountain region is more blank and less villages and town than the other region.
If we use redline to stand for road, there is only one here, which is a branch of 321 national road that is forgotten and little traffic on although 'national road'. It extends to the deep area of the Moon mountain alonely, through Zaibian,and ends in Jiajiu, and strings the towns with strange name.
After reading some meterial on the Moon mountain, I get a impression of it: it is a area covered by ridges and peaks, deep valley and dense forests(although they were cut serious). There are also many exotic plant, even the trace of savages. And this make the Moon mountain more mystic than the Shennongjia area. But the most attractive spect is the miaopeople in there. The isolated and unknown life of them can arousre your great imagination.
The Moon mountain is one of a few place I have not been to; and in Guizhou province which is called the corner of China, I have almost been to any village there. Maybe travelling is just a mental process-from the expectation to imagination,then to personal experience and to the impressoin of fleeting glance. We get a pile of perceptual knowledge. The first travelling may be beautiful, but the repeated travelling to there make me insensitive to it.
And this just because of my career of tourist guide. The process from the first travelling perceptual knowledge to the rational knowledge after many times travelling seem to be a deep-going process, a process to the essence. But we just go faraway from the nature of the area.
Leaving off Duliu river, we go up along the Pinliu river, a branch of Duliu. Among the insulated mountain area, the distribution of the minoritise follows one principle: Dong and Zhuang people live in the river valley, and miao ethnic live in the half way up of mountain. The road along the river is a flat and comfortable , and through three Zhuang ethnic villages.
Two of these village is more bigger, with a dark mass of house. The dress of the women and maids looks like the Dong ethnic and are also made of deep brown and shining cloth which dyed by egg thick liquid. The people also use the purplish red or black cloth, or little flowers flannel to make clothes. And this bright clothes completely deffers from Dong ethnic dark and plain clothes.The villager are amazed and shy to see us especail to the french couple, So they aviod our camras.
The gigantic banyan on the bank shows us the local weather and nature condition. Under the banyan, there are several boats, wood storied houses, cobble pathes and articles made of bamboo, and all of these make a antique picture. In Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the culture and custom of Zhuang disappear mostly. Ony in the senic spots or on the stage you can see the Zhuang dressed girl, with the so-called ethnic clothes copy the Zhuang traditional dress and made of chemical fibre, show the culture and custom of the minorities. But in this place , we can find the complete zhuang custom. How can we help surprising! What happen in the village across the river? The sound of reed pipe wind instrument spread far. It must be big and long reed pipe wind instrument.
Leaving off the river valley, our car climb up and go down the mountain boringly again and again. The car run fast alonely in the mountain, isolated mountain area. All things are bright and beautiful excessively in shining of the winter sun. The mountain and the villages in the peaceful and quiet atmosphere is beautiful surprisingly. The mountain is too steep, full of ridges and peaks. The river valley is too deep, like cut by some one. There are only steep mountain and deep valley, and you seldom can relax your eye. The steep cliff and unfathomable valley make you nervous and soul stirring in a quiet way.
It is less inhabited than other place, but we still find several perfect villages, which build on half way up of the mountain. The terraced fields spread around the village from the bottom almost to the top of the mountain. It seem very stereoscopic and like a sculpture. The terraced fields are very narrow and the local inhabitant call them 'waistband field'.
In the afternoon we arrive at a little town called Zaibian, a peaceful and quiet town lies in a river valley. The population of the little town is Zhuang ethnic. It is a town forgotten by history. And we have our lunch in a little restaurant beside the street.
As to belong different countries, the Guizhou is far from the southeast Asia; but in geograhical and anthropological veiw, they connect tightly in the past. And over time, this connection fade gradually because of the developing of history and the obstructingo of the nature enviroment.
I told the guest that Zhuang people reside in Guangxi, to the south of Guizhou, if we go toward south straight, we will pass the Guangxi and then arrive in Vietnam; whether the old man just now make dish for us looks like Vietnamese.
The guest suddenly realize and say: 'yeah! No wander I always feel something familiar to me on the old man's face. it is really so.'
In Guizhou, this 'country', any occasion and any face seem to be a symbol. It show you a period of history and information of some southeast Asian countries and nations. Or we say it is a little part of the huge iceburg of the culture and histiory of southeast Asian. And it seem to want to tell us somethings on Guizhou, the south of China, even the southeast of Asia, but it is too faint to master. This exotic atmosphere, I call it exotic atmosphere at least, attracts me deeply.
The road to Jiajiu is more out of use, in the forest of pines and firs and even paved with leaves of pine and fir. The mountain oppsite of us is covered by the original forest. And there are several sunken crevices on the mountain, it may be made by the flood in the mountain for long period. The crevices is covered by the forest, so you can not see how deep it is. And I think if we fall into the crevices, we must never be out.
In this occasion, human can not help to admire the mountain and feel mystery of the mountain. When we climb a redge after cross a river valley, we just find several villages on the half way up of the mountain. As the village is on a steep slop, it seem that the houses are built tier upon tier. Seeing this you may think how difficltly do the villagers climb to their village in rainy and muddy condition and why do they build their home on the hard and danger place? The village is too beautiful and inconceivable to untruely, and it looks like in our dream. The scenery seem to want to show and tell us something. The winter sun has sloped to west, we look up to a mountain show its faint outline against the sunlight and we can see the contour of village houses' roof and the terraced field.
'Heaven and earth' I suddenly realized. The world of Miao people is peak unattainable to me, and this is like a gold snow-capped peak under setting sun to mountaineer, before his face but have not be conquered and so unattainable, and only in dream I can reach. The Miao ethnic live in the corner of the world, although it is isolated by mountain and river, while with unlimited beautiful scenery.
We mee several local peoples in the road, and this lighten our trip's desolateness. The women here wear in brown, with many silver ornaments. It is said they come back for going to market. And then in last several kilometer to Jiajiu we all see the people like them. I can recogized that they belong to different branch of Mian ethnic by their dress. This is the kind of dress I have not seen before. Distinct dress is the measurement form of the minorities culture and custom. Comparing with cherishing the minorities dress too much to wear seldom in other market, there is another completely different scence.
We spend the night in YouYi inn in Jiajiu, a village at the top of mountain. The YouYi(means friendship) inn is a big wood storied house, and has three floors, and the pillar of it is very wide, and so we can know there is aboudant wood resource. The innkeeper is youngman. He arrange us on the third floor and say we can see good scenery from there. The room is very large and quite tidy. From wide passage we can really overlook the valley and the road we have passed. After checking in, we drink coffee in shining of the setting sun and feel the calm and quite in the mountian.
The first floor of the inn is divide into two big rooms-one is the kitchen and dining hall, the other is used for karaoke and with a couple of loudspeaker boxes and hanging with colorful paper strips.
The night in the Moon mountain is very quiet, except the noise from in next room where the gusest play cards. It turn to cold, and even to chill.
I wake in music,because the diligent innkeeper Yang get up the early morning and play the Hifi. It is the song of CatKing. It make me remember a lot of thing in past life about the songs of Catking. And the same time, white fog arise from the bottom of the valley.
In the way back, we just meet the fair in Zaibian, and take a lot of photo in the fair. A dress with a white feather on head for girl is very distinctive and the unfolding short skirt is more beautiful than the colourful butterfly wings. We also see one kind of little black pig and it is the pig that is famous and called Congjiang fragrant pig, which never become a big one. And the pig eat the weeds in the mountain mainly, so its flesh is fragrance naturally.
When we arrive at valley of Pingzheng river in the afternoon, we are hearing the sound of cracker and finding many people gather in the field beside the rivers, and I just realize today is the New Years Day of Zhuang people. The peole in the near village are assemble there. With deep brown and shining clothes and gleaming silver neckband on their neck, the girls go through the narrow field ridge in line and mirror their beautiful figures in the water surface of the field. Each villlage send off their group of reed pipe wind instrument to compete in the field which is drained. Every reed pipe group is dance and hundreds of reed pipes wind instruments are played if only the signal of starting is send out.
Besides the reval, the people affect the pose of war-when another village's reed pipe group coming, the leader of the group with a saber in his hand, following by two person who carry a artifical lion on their heads and the military group, lead the group rush to the field and the groups in the field also receive them by the same way.
Going out to the Moon mountain, I am reviewing the morning in the inn of Jiajiu, the deep and serene mountain and river valley, the village on the half way up of the mountain and also the people in the fair and ceremony. And I think all of the things in the mountain will exist forever and press in my soul.
For me these things seem to tell something further out in generally, although I can not express it out.
