Final Picture Post (For the Time Being): Lanping

After this comes some real live text/narrative! I've finally caught the pictures up to where I left off, in Liuku! Hallelujah! So, last step: the first week and a half of my ISP (Independent Study Project), in Lanping, China:

Some lovely countryside where I was stranded for an hour and a half while waiting for an accident to be cleared off the tiny road on the way to Lanping


A dragon gate at a temple near Lanping


View from the top of the temple


Lanping isn't so much in a valley as it is plunked down between two mountains


Dancing in the square


Some of my Lanping friends


Young Bai child on a Lanping street


Children playing on a waterfall in Lanping park


Pumi women in Lanping park


Bai woman working in the Lanping marketplace


A bowl of chicken feet at the market place


Tania with the little mountain of junk food we took on our picnic


View from mid-stream in the little river I fell into on our picnic


Playing "bu shi" at the teahouse


Lanping at night

Picture Post 7: My Sideng Homestay and the Friday Market

We spent 4 days in Sideng, Shaxi valley several hours outside of Dali:
(Also, a note about current blogging practices: as I will be leaving to head back to Nujiang within the next few days, I'm currently trying to get as many pictures up as possible. If people would prefer I return to an at least partly narrative approach before I'm back in Nujiang, I'm perfectly willing. Just leave me a comment by clicking on the postcard link below, or drop me an email)

Really not doing the view of the Shaxi valley justice on the hike down Shibaoshan


The inn where I stayed in my "rural" homestay in Sideng




My Bai host parents


The traditional compound Mike and John stayed in in Sideng


"I you'sed a ho this morning!"-- working in the fields with John's host dad


The Sideng Friday market, against a dramatic backdrop


Faces at the market








Mmmm, fresh snake


My photographic obsession with Yi minority people








Beautiful children of undetermined minority descent at the market

Picture Post 5: The Field Trip Begins, Weishan and Weibaoshan

Part 1 of the two-week trip around Yunnan Province we undertook in our little rusty van: the ancient city of Weishan and the Taoist mountain Weibaoshan

Adorable Weishan children (and John)




A Weishan street


Giving a Taiji demonstration at the Taoist Monastery on Weibaoshan


The view from the top of Weibaoshan


Sunset on Weibaoshan


Picking tea at a plantation


The tie dye factory outside Dali

Picture Post 1: Back to the beginning

So, I'm going to try this, but I don't know how it will work. Blogger is very difficult about picture posting in my opinion, and I actually can't see the outcome because while writing in one's blog is not blocked, seeing Blogger blogs is blocked (try saying that three times fast) by those that control Chinese internet. If you have any feedback about whether to continue this attempt at picture posting while I can't see how it comes out with labels and all, drop me an e-mail or leave me a comment postcard with the little button below. So, without further ado: Tonghai, 400 km south of Kunming, where we had our Orientation.

A performance by some of the last bound feet women alive



The bound feet women dancing. You can see here how out of proportion and misshapen their feet are


Adorable Chinese children, picture one of many, outside Tonghai


A very enthusiastic (and drunk) Tonghai official greeting Lu Laoshi


Altogether too many empty bottles of bai jiu for one night


Temple gardens in Xiushan park


The old man teaching me er hu


An altar on Xiushan


Some of the temples


Looking out over Tonghai from the top of Xiushan


The guys of our program, in various states of sobriety, after another disastrous night having alcohol merrily forced on us by Tonghai officials. From left: Mike, Monty, Chris, Jonathan, Lee, Justin, and on the ground, John.



Women in traditional Mongolian dress watch the festivities at the Mongolian village outside of Tonghai