Dr. Mark Nan Tu

LongJi (or Dragon Backbone in Chinese) is famous for its large scale terrace field. The field dated back 600 years. The legend goes like this. An evil emperor wanted to extinct the Yao minority. The emperor ordered the Yao people to move into the reservation which is located deep in the mountains. He thought that they could not survive. However, Yao people build the rice field using the limited space offered by the mountainous terrace. Year after year, generation after generation, the Yao people expanded the field and it becomes the terrace farm as we see today. They lived happily surrounded by the beautiful mountains and the green terrace field.

LongJi terrace is located in the LongShen County, some 87km out of Guilin in GuangXi province. My tour bus took over two hours to negotiate the twist and turns and finally arrived as the foot of the LongJi mountain. From there, we changed to a smaller bus which took us to the middle of the mountain. We hiked the last mile by foot.

Besides the spectacular fields and impressive local village buildings, I had a rare opportunity to photograph the local Yao women combing their hair. This is not ordinary hair. The village down the mountain was certified by the Guinness World Records as the longest hair village in the world.

When I was climbing the stairs, I was followed by the five local Yao women. I later realized that they had no reason to climb to the top. Their sole objective is to offer me the opportunity to photograph them. They wanted 50 Yuan and allow me to photograph the entire process of combing their hair. I negotiated down to 30 Yuan and told them that I can not photograph all 5 of them, but can offer 30 Yuan to photograph 3 out of 5. However, they told me that they would do it for 30 Yuan.

5 of them put the basket down which they carried at the back. They let their impressive long and thick hair down. Then I noticed that they actually had two bunches of hair. The local Yao people only cut their hair once in their life time when they reach puberty at age of 16-18. They saved their cut hair and put them up together with the new hair.

I continuously pushed my shutter and recorded the whole process. I noticed that one of the women had a dark blue cloth over her hair while the others do not. She is unmarried. I told myself. One of the women told me that she was already 50. I looked at her long and thick hair and joked with her that she looked like only in her 30s. I must admit that their healthy hair make all of them look at least 10 year younger than their age.

After the show, I asked for permission to take a picture of me with the group. I gave them 100 Yuan and asked for 50 Yuan back. I wanted them to have an easy calculation. I thanked them and wished them luck. I scontinued my hike towards the top of the mountain. All but one of the women went down the mountain whom I later met in the market selling local made silver decorations.