Matt + Janae

The life status of a girl can be seen by how she wears her hair. As the hair is sacred, others are not allowed to see it until the girl is married where the groom will view it for the first time. These girls have their hair covered. The day after the marriage, the girl will then show her hair and wear it flat across her forehead. After she has children, she will wear it with a knot in the front. With their long hair, it's interesting they don't wear it down, but always wrap it a couple times around their head. Without them letting down their hair, you would never know how long it was.

From left to right - single, married, married with children

When the Hongyao people greet each other, they don't shake hands, they grabbing each other's butts. It's polite! As we left the show, they would grab all our butts on the way out. I needed to explain this first so you won't think I'm a complete perv in the picture of me grabbing the girl's butt!!! By the way, the girl is not just any girl, she's my new wife! As part of the show they put on, they showed us their marriage ceremony for which they asked for groom volunteers. Janae was kind enough to volunteer me. I feel kind-a bad abandoning my new wife half an hour after we got married, but hey, she should have already known my heart is with my first wife.

The Hongyao live among the Longji (dragon's back) rice terraces. These terraces were built in the 1200's and not completed until the 1600's. Over 16000 acres of the mountainous region was terraced for farming. We hiked to a Zhuang, another minority race, village nested high in the mountains where we enjoyed lunch before continuing to the top of the mountain for our beautiful view of the most famous rice terraces in China. Our view was cumbered with fog and we were only able to see a couple feet in front of us. Fortunately, the fog broke on our way back and we were able to see a little of the scenery.