E is for Embroidery (again)

Decorating textile by hand with needle and thread may be a dying handicraft. Machines can do most of that embellishing work today faster and cheaper.

But in the Chinese southwestern mountain province of Guizhou I still saw a lot of amazing hand embroidery - often on attractive traditional ethnic Miao costumes that I must one day show you.

Today I share with you this intricate silk embroidered bell tower wall hanging that was being prepared for display at a local trade show in the provincial capital Guiyang. [Better seen enlarged, of course.]

Guizhou, 2006

If you are partial to exquisite embroidery, you can see my earlier posts about embroideries I found in Mongolia here and here.

The letter is E at Alphabe-Thursday, so hop on over and see what E topics others have found to post.

Dong Bridge

Guizhou, 2006

This is a Wind and Water Bridge built by the Dong ethnic minority people in Guizhou province of China. I find it interesting that the first one I posted (here) ranks as one of the top ten viewed pages on my blog.

Linking with Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

Did You Hear About...?

Guizhou, China, 2006
[better viewed enlarged; click image]

Linking with Ruby Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday.

X is for Xintan Drum Tower

This pretty drum tower is in Xintan Village, an ethnic minority Dong village in the mountain province of Guizhou in China. 

 Guizhou, 2006

This is linked with Denise's ABC Wednesday, where the letter of the week is X.

Hardworking Hands

Guizhou, 2006

This silversmith, creating exquisite silver accessories to be worn by Miao minority women in Guizhou, has his own clever way to "mass produce" his handiwork.

Posting at Mary's Sepia Scenes, where you will find links to other interesting sepia images.

Organic Indigo

Today we take blue jeans for granted. But before the time synthetic dyes could be made to color cotton yarn, blue fabric was not always so easy to get.

Here in the poor mountain province of Guizhou featured earlier, minority women still extract natural indigo from the plant Indigofera like it was done before the turn of the 20th century. The indigo is used to color their beautiful ethnic costumes and other household textiles.

This ethnic Miao woman is in the process of extracting the indigo blue from the leaves... And I couldn't help wonder how long it would take for her hands to turn back to their natural skin color.

Guizhou, 2006

These images are posted for Alphabe Thursday hosted by Jenny where the prompt was the color INDIGO. Click on the link to see how others posted for the theme.

Wind and Rain Bridge

Mong Village, Guizhou, 2006

The backwater province of Guizhou in China's south-west is not a top tourist destination and therefore offers the intrepid explorer an authentic peek into traditional lifestyles of a rich variety of minority people living in serene mountain landscape. 

I took the photo above as our small group of four was approaching a Mong people's village. On the right you see what is called a Wind & Rain Bridge. Traditionally these elaborate bridges, long covered corridors made of wood, were built by the Dong people, but the concept was adopted by others over time.

Here is a close up of the covered bridge:

Wind & Rain Bridge, Guizhou, 2006

This bridge is posted for the Sunday Bridges meme. Click on the link to join the fun or see more beautiful bridges.