Tag: tradition
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Day 26~ December 26th~ Guilin
No one is allowed to see her hair until she marries, each Yao woman can carry around her head up 1.9 meters of hair wrapped around like a crown. If a young man happens to catch sight of a girl’s hair, then he must invite her to live with his parents as a bride for…
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Day11~ December 11th~ Guilin
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It is so endearing in Asia to see how grandparents create a living womb for their grandchildren and how they care for them tirelessly, carrying them on their old backs, feeding them, singing hymns to them, and carrying them into adulthood on a fluffy cloud of love. How strengthening it must be for the children…
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Day 5~ October 5th~ Yunnan
On the way to Dayangjie, the central home of the Yiche people, a branch of the Hani ethnic minority that settled in Yunnan about 1000 years ago, we met this child and grandparent. The Yiche people wear conical hats in black and in white and are known to have some of the stranger customs among…
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Day 12~ September 12th~ Tuscany
So much of the charm of old Europe comes from its layers upon layers of history and the value they place on preserving tradition. Walking into the exquisitely charming rooms of this beautiful pharmacy in Florence, my heart skipped a beat. Knowing that it was first built by the Dominican friars of the 16th century…
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Day 21~ June 21st~ Xinjiang
More than two thirds of the old city of Kashgar has been demolished and the rest doomed to follow shortly… I met this girl in one of the narrow alleys of what is left of the old city as she stood framed by her old family door. Old decorated wooden doors are considered a family…
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Day 19~ June 19th~ Xinjiang
A dew drop on a fresh flower petal at dawn radiates a beauty beyond anything we humans can create… The concept of beauty is a funny one. What is considered beautiful in one culture can be completely unattractive in another. In China where we live, big noses are considered attractive, while tan skin is not,…
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Day 16~ June 16th~Xinjiang
One of the wildest things to witness in Kashgar is the livestock market. Animals are brought in early in the morning by local salesmen on trucks, horseback carriages, and other vehicles and are lined up together for merchants from all over China to bargain for and buy. The condition of the animals and the handling…
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Day 6~ June 6th~ Xinjiang
In the old city of Kashgar is a charming teahouse. When you enter into it you feel as though you activated a time travel machine. The tea is prepared in a most traditional way with water boiled in large pots over burning fires, the spices used in the tea and the amount of sugar mixed…