Valley Filled with Fog
China’s Yunnan Province 2005
Fall is supposed to have the fairest weather in Yunnan Province, but we had day after day of rain. I had prepared by buying about five of those one-time-use plastic raincoats. They cost 99 cents each and don’t take up much room in your suitcase. They don’t provide much protection either. I envied the two men from Seattle who wore state of the art rain gear.
The rain and fog provided dramatic elements to our photos such as the photo I show today. The dense fog filling the valley with just enough of the rainbow colors showing up on the terraces. The yellow color is corn, dry and ready to be harvested for feed or food…do Chinese eat cornmeal? The red is the color of plowed earth. These terraces are centuries old, irrigated with pipes of hollow bamboo. The farmers lived in small villages and had to walk to their small plots each day. The road up the mountain was asphalt and in good repair. Very few vehicles. People walked with basket loads hung from their shoulders. Now and then a horse cart and maybe one of those motorcycle truck things.
Smiling Faces
We had almost no interaction with the Chinese people, although they did seem friendly like these guys. It didn’t matter. If I did get a chance to talk and said “Hello”, Nee How! they would answer. But if I said “Good Bye.”, which is jai jin, I’d get a blank look. Chinese has tones that influence the meaning of each word. You’ve got to get the tones right to be understood and I couldn’t get the tones right. It was frustrating.