Welcome to the Zhaisha Dong Village, located in Guizhou Province (寨沙桐寨). The Dong ethnic minority is one of many thriving, culturally diverse communities found in China. The greatest concentration of Dong people live here in Guizhou province, in the southeast of China.
Zhaisha Dong Village is not one of the more popular Dong villages to visit in Guizhou (usually people visit the Zhaoxing Dong Village). It may be small, but it didn’t lack spirit! I had a wonderful experience here after hiking Fanjingshan Mountain.
I’ll continue my story from part 1 at Fanjingshan Mountain! (Read part 1 here: The Magic and Mystery of Fanjingshan: My Experience Hiking The Buddhist Mountain of Guizhou)
In the center of Zhaisha Dong Village you can see immediately a giant tower: this wooden structure is a drum tower for the Dong people, where they have performances and gatherings. It’s a well known structure for every Dong village to have one of these.
There was a Dong traditional performance set for Friday evening, and there were people eating dinner around this village waiting for the show to start. If you plan to come here, I would try to research in advance which days and times they have performances here.
Before the show started, I met some of the performers. They encourage participation during the show, and asked me if I wanted to dress in traditional clothing. They gave me a Miao ethnic costume to wear, compete with a skirt, top, a neck ornament, and a giant headdress to wear.
I’ve worn many Chinese ethnic clothes. I used to worry that it would be a bad sign, as appropriating their culture. But my Chinese friends, and people in these ethnic groups have all been enthusiastically encouraging me to wear it. Most places in China want to share their culture through this way. I usually check first still, making sure it’s coming from them and they are in support of it. But honestly, in my experience, they’ve all loved it. They love to see a foreigner embracing and sharing their traditions.
So I wore this Miao costume while waiting for the show to start.
The show kicked off with some traditional Dong songs and dances, in a very vibrant vocal style. The women and men would rally back and forth in their dance moves. The energy was palpable.
It started raining, and the audience moved to the sides under giant roofers and umbrellas to avoid the rain.
Then they asked for a volunteer for an activity. I thought it would be a dance, so I raised my hand. One of the girls came over and pulled me up to the stage and sat me down next to another guy who volunteered.
Then the girls came out, each holding a bowl, and formed a line. They connected their bowls in an overlapping way at a slant, with the girl farthest away from me holding hers the highest, and the girl right next to me hold her bowl next to my mouth. It essentially was a waterfall, but instead of water it’s was a kind of rice wine.
And suddenly I found myself in a giant drinking game where I was the only competitor. The rice wine wasn’t baijiu thankfully but a sweeter kind of rice wine that wasn’t strong. They sang while they poured the creamy alcohol into my mouth.
I’ve actually had this experience happen to me before in Zunyi, Guizhou, but it was quite hilarious to experience again.
The audience was clapping and cheering. The energy was amazing. They finally tipped the bowls away and then did the same to the guy next to me. He and I high fived and shared a laugh. They all clapped and thanked us, and then they moved to the next part of the show.
Apparently every show ends with a giant bonfire and dancing. I thought the rain would discourage people from joining, but many people got up to make a circle in the center. So of course I too had to join. I walked into the center of the circle.
Then one of the guys handed me the giant stick with fire. He doused the sticks in the center with oil. And they counted down.
Oh, I’m the fire girl! I gleefully thought.
Everyone counted down together: “San, er, yi, (three two one)!”
WHOOSH!
I lowered the stick onto the oil sticks and a giant fire swelled up, even in the rain.
We all cheered, then fanned out to make a circle. We grabbed hands with each other and started moving around the fire, circling counterclockwise as the music played behind us in the rain. I was swaying along, my giant Miao headdress’s wobbling precariously as I moved trying to dance and balance it .
I couldn’t stop giggling, but it wasn’t because I was drunk on rice wine. Maybe I was just drunk on the music and the fire and the dancing. There was something about the energy, all of us moving together while the rain poured and the fire roared. It was something magical to me. Sure, they do this performance a lot for visitors. I’m not the first to participate. And I’m sure I certainly experienced some special privileges being the only foreigner walking into the village that night. But there was something so authentic and fun and freeing in that moment, especially after a day hiking Fanjingshan that didn’t quite go to plan. I was just so delightfully surprised to be dancing and feeling this lively spirit.
We moved around the area, making a kind of cha cha line and high fiving people around the circle. The audience was cheering loudly and so excited for high fives. In Chinese as they say, hi-qi-lai! It was very high energy.
We moved back to a circle, and then I decided to take a break. But I wasn’t done yet.
The guy who participated in the drinking game with me came over, and pulled me back to the bonfire. We held hands and and skipped around. Puddles had begun forming from all the rain, and the dancers were sliding their feet and kicking up to spray each other while dancing, and we did the same. I caught the energy again.
My partner and I gleefully laughed at each other, kicking at the people around us and going round and round and round. I was giddy. My shoes and socks were soaked. The Miao headdress was lopsided on my head. I was so happy. It felt like such a release after the day.
After awhile the dancing began winding down with a goodbye song. We all took photos at the end, then said goodbye.
It was a magical ending to a mysterious day. Fanjingshan still holds an air of mystery for me, and one day maybe I’ll be back to see it more clearly. But this evening at the Dong village was such a wild and wonderful night. It’s why I love living and traveling in China. Even after 8 years, there are many moments that will surprise and astound me.
