A visit to the biggest Miao village in China

（People's Daily Online）  08:29, March 29, 2013  

Edited and translated by Ye Xin, People's Daily Online

Known as the "one-thousand-household Miao village" and a historical cultural ancient town, Xijiang Miao Village is a place where the Miao Xi family was inhabited. It is about 37 kilometers from Leishan county and about 80 kilometers away from Kaili in southwest China's Guizhou province.

There are 12 natural villages, 1,200 families and 6,000 people, making it the biggest Miao village in China.

The village is located by a valley and surrounded by overlapping mountains, with terraced fields rising along the slopes to the clouds and the Baishui (White Water) River flowing through and cutting the village into two. Miao hillside pile-dwellings stand tier upon tier along the two banks to the mountain. Thick bamboo groves are dotting in front of and behind the houses. Beautiful maple leaves cover the villages on the top and at the bottom of the mountain.

Xijiang Miao people have a long history, which dates back to the Chiyou Tribe. It is said that Chiyou's third son's descendants had formed the Miao cultural system before moving to Xijiang, and lived in a self-management state for quite a long period; therefore, the Miao culture can be well preserved and developed, becoming a place where the Miao culture of "primitive state" is comparatively completely conserved, thus called " a national open-air museum".

The village is also a center for grand Miao festivals and celebrations. Miao people from the nearby villages gather at Xijiang for festival celebrations. Xijiang Miao people are brave and hard-working, good at singing and dancing. The village is called "a sea of songs and dances", and the villagers sing songs to express their feelings and perform dances to celebrate their bumper harvests and to greet good luck.