{"id":145,"date":"2011-03-18T14:35:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T14:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/?p=145"},"modified":"2020-01-18T11:50:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-18T11:50:35","slug":"bush-people-in-tianfang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Bush people in Tianfang"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Jinping \u2013 the main town of the most ethnically diverse district \nin Yunnan, itself known as the most ethnically diverse province in China\n \u2013, from Jinping the bus goes to Mengla first, taking the bumpy dirt \nroad from Sanjia these days because the main road is being upgraded. It \nthen passes through rubber plantations before it starts a long climb \nalong a narrow brick-paved road with steep deep drops. No, no protective\n concrete or iron barriers, no. Higher up there is a confusion of \nseveral small roads that are not on my map \u2013 I\u2019m not sure anymore where I\n am. We then get to a village made up of wooden Hmong houses: Tianfang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from the Hmong, tribal people from the area visit the small \nmarket. Locally they are known as \u2018mang ren\u2019, which best translates as \n\u2018bush people\u2019. Word has it that until five years ago, some even say two,\n they wore no clothes. It is hard to believe in chilly January. But it \nis a persistent story all over the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In autumn 2009 the bush people were officially classified as members \nof the Bulang ethnic group. That is surprising from a geographical \nperspective as all the other Bulang live at least 400 kilometres away at\n the opposite end of Yunnan province: southwest instead of southeast. It\n is also surprising given the rather ornate dress of the Bulang further \nwest: quite a contrast with the rumored \u2018dress\u2019 of these tribal people \nin Tianfang. But if the classification was done on a linguistic basis it\n may yet be correct. I can\u2019t judge that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the official recognition came a model village of neatly lined up white washed houses that the government built for them. It is half an hour beyond Tianfang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of the \u2018bush kids\u2019 walk there with me. The boys run ahead, stay \nbehind, follow the steep hill side higher up, every now and then come to\n see what\u2019s up. The girls stay closer, find it fun to see themselves on \nthe display of the digital camera. Close to the village they all dash \nhome, turn around for a last wave and disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at their pictures again \u2013 their features are quite different \nfrom the local Hmong\u2019s. And by the way, different too from the Bulang \npeople I saw in Yunnan\u2019s southwest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Jinping \u2013 the main town of the most ethnically diverse district in Yunnan, itself known as the most ethnically diverse province in China \u2013, from Jinping the bus goes to Mengla first, taking the bumpy dirt road from Sanjia these days because the main road is being upgraded. It then passes through rubber plantations … Continue reading “Bush people in Tianfang”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chin-eng"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}