Bronze drums are the most noteworthy instrument of the Bouyei. They are used as a symbol of power to gather the crowds. Moreover, they are played in rituals and events, such as weddings and funerals, for special purposes.
Bouyei houses are easily recognized because of the unique structure. They are usually made of solid stone with an empty ground floor for livestock keeping; while humans live on the upper floor. The Bouyei men all have excellent stonemasonry skills and good at creating elaborate patterned roofs on stone buildings.
Young Bouyei people advocate for a free relationship, unlike the ancient matchmaking tradition in many other areas in China. The weekly market and festivals are the occasions to meet people. A young man asks his loved one out and sings love songs to her. If the girl is attracted to him, she will throw him a ball made of silk strips which she has embroidered herself. If the man is agreeable, they then make a date at which they will sing love songs to each other. It takes very short time to go from dating to engagement. The man will ask a third person (usually the girl’s relative) to propose on behalf of him and give meat and fine wine to her family. Once his future parents-in-law agree, the two families would start preparing the wedding.
One of their famous craft is batik. The Bouyei in Guizhou practice this craft mostly. They make batik garments and fabrics to sell in markets or as an exchange to other goods. They are also good at weaving and embroidering.
Costumes and Ornaments
Bouyei clothing is dark colored and edged with bright colored lace. The Bouyei women wear blue shirts covered by blue half-sleeve jackets with big cuffs embroidered with floral patterns, and skewed collar studded with bronz...
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...s the descendants of the Qiang people who resided on the Tibetan plateau in the first centuries of the Common Era. They migrated to Yunnan during the third to fifth centuries C.E. and in 1730s they took another southern move to the Honghe River in the east and Lancang River in the west and settled in the areas where they live today.
Language
The Lahu language belongs to the Yi language of the Han-Tibetan language family. It is dived into the Lahu Na and Lahu Xi dialects.
Religion
Traditional Lahu religion includes the recognition of a wide variety of natural and ancestral spirits. The Lahu worship an all-powerful creator God named Gui Sha, who dominates the other minor spirits. Gui Sha requires animal sacrifices, as well as of other foods at the important moments in the agricultural calendar, such as planting and the harvest, and whenever a person or animal is sick.
Gender hierarchies have been a central pillar of social orders almost since its inception. However, the balance has not been remotely even throughout history, with patriarchies far outnumbering matriarchies. Despite the large dominance held by men, it was not all black and white in East Asian societies. Even though Tang and Song China were all patriarchal, they were very different in their application and influences of gender hierarchies.
Doc 2-Source: Zhi Dun, Chinese scholar, author, and confidant of Chinese aristocrats and high officials during the period when northern China was invaded by central Asian steppe nomads, circa 350 C.E.
A man’s shirt and pants are European, usually worn with a traditional vest and sandals. Traditional hats are worn as well (Falconer, Kieran, and Quek 61-62). A woman’s outfit consists of a traditional hat and sandals. Their hair is usually tied up in long, thick braids. A colorful shawl is usually worn over a skirt and short jacket (Falconer, Kieran, and Quek 63).
... A final prayer ends the ceremony. The women then rush to the kitchen to serve dinner while the men set up the tables. After dinner the afternoon is spent visiting, playing games and matchmaking. Sometimes the bride will match unmarried boys and girls who are over 16 years old to sit together at the evening meal which ustarts at 5:00 P.M. The day usually ends around 10:30 P.M.
Before the US entered World War II, the west coast of America was riddled with racism and prejudice against Asian-Americans; especially in laws like the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 and the California Alien Land Law of 1913 which mainly targeted Japanese immigrants. Then with Imperial Japans seemingly unprovoked and unjustified attack of pearl harbor, it was easy for Americans to justify hysteria and their pre-existing prejudices against American citizens of Japanese descent. It was to the point that even being 1/16 Japanese could brand you as a possible treat to the nation. Then on the incredibly baseless, possibility of an internal Japanese threat Executive Order 9066 was enacted; declaring most of the west coast a war zone and declaring the region under martial law. The Order made it legal to send Japanese Americans to
The Chinese immigrant experience has traveled through times of hardships, under the English man. They have struggled to keep themselves alive through racism, work, and acceptance. Although many have come to Canada for their lives’ and their children’s to be successful, and safe. It could not be just given until adversity gave them the life they hoped to one day life for. In the starting time of 1858, the Chinese community had started coming to different parts of Canada considering the push and pull factors that had led them here. Because of the lack of workers in the British Columbia region, the Chinese were able to receive jobs in gold mining. Most Chinese were told to build roads, clear areas, and construct highways, but were paid little because of racism. The Chinese today are considered one of the most successful races in Canada because of the push and pull factors that they had come across, the racism that declined them and the community of the Chinese at the present time.
After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing population, and the downfall of the Qing dynasty. By 1894, over one million Chinese lived and worked abroad with about 90,000 of those Chinese people in America. Originally, the United States had significant plans for Chinese immigration to California. These plans would better its trade relationship with Asia and further develop the still new land of the Pacific coast. The demand for jobs increased as a result. The Chinese Opium Wars with Britain, the Red Turban Rebellion, and a harsh economy all served as motivation to exit China and find a new life in Gam Saan, the Gold Mountain. For many immigrants, the Gam Saan led to possibilities of employment, higher pay, larger houses, stable food, fine clothing, and no war. These hopeful immigrants first arrived voluntarily and as free laborers.
When Trobriand couples are interested in getting married, they spend time, live together and also have intercourse together. The parents of the girl accept her future husband once she starts to accept gifts from the
“The Chinese are upon us, How can we get rid of them? The Chinese are coming. How can we stop them?” (Lee 23). America was not the most welcoming nation to the Chinese immigrants who centered mainly around California, Oregon and Washington. Those who decided to immigrate to America, during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, went through many difficulties such as legal discrimination, physical intimidation and violence, trying to live the supposed “American Dream”.
The arrival of immigrants to the United States is often associated with fear. Immigrants are vulnerable to attacks if they are cast as threats to the way of American life. A deeper look into immigration policies reveals that immigrant restrictions are seated in racialized notions. Immigrants before the founding of the nation came for the opportunities of a better life. The immigrants who would continue to come thereafter came for much the same reasons. But government policies demonstrate repeated attempts to block the immigration of undesirable immigrant communities.
Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants, with the first and most important law passed being the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, the discrimination the Chinese immigrants so harshly received was not rightly justified or deserved. With all of their contributions and accomplishments in opening up the West, they were not so much harming our country but rather helping it.
Often the bride's bouquet is thrown (by the bride turning away from that direction) into a crowd of female (unmarried) ladies and the one that gets it will be wedded next, according to the tale).
The great Chinese civilization of that period, the Ydan dynasty, formed by Kublai Khan in 1271 is credited with sending many of China's innovations to the Western world via Marco Polo. Its cuisine, silk, spices, gun powder, rockets and other weapons of war are among the most famous.
Most of the houses in the Mohenjo-Daro had baths, wells and covered drains with are in connected with street drains. Ordinary buildings had ventilation. Doors of the entrance fixed on the side wall not in the front wall, so one could enter the house by the door facing the side lanes of the house. Doors are made of wood and large buildings had spacious doors.
China has the world's oldest living civilization. It's written history goes back almost 3,500 years, and the history told by it's artifacts and artwork goes back much farther. The oldest known works of Chinese art include pottery and jade carvings from the time of 5000 BC. Jade is a general term used to describe either jadeite or nephrite, known as true jade. It's composed of several minerals. It's smooth and rich in texture, but it's also extremely tough. It can be off-white, or dark green, and sometimes has a reddish tint. Authentic jade is cool and never translucent. The philosopher Confucius described jade perfectly when he said: "It is soft, smooth and shining- like intelligence. It's edges seem sharp but do not cut- like justice. It hangs down to the ground- like humility. When struckm, it gives clear, ringing sounds- like music. The strains in it are not hidden and add to it's beauty- like truthfulness. It has brightness- like heaven. It's firm substance is born of the mountains and the waters- like the earth." The material has been used since the Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1766-1022 B.C. They see it as a sign of wealth and authority and also as an object of beauty. The chinese word for jade is yu. During the Ming dynasty, the Chinese people thought that only green or white stones were true jade, and the other colors were called fu yu, or false jade. It was classified into nine different colors during the Tsin dynasty, and has more recently been classified into many different categories.