Chinese Opera

My friend invited me to go see Chinese Opera! The performers were some of her former students, so I got to meet them and go backstage into the makeup and dressing rooms! It was such an amazing experience.

Layers of makeup

The ayi's (translates as 'older aunt') helping out

Costumes

Was talking to her minutes before going on stage

Scenes from The Journey to the West (a very famous story here)


A lot of the acts were famous scenes from The Journey to the West. Thankfully my friend was there to help me to explain some of the cultural/historical meanings behind the stories.

The Monkey

In Chinese Opera its very common and traditional for a guy to play the woman role... in this performance the guy played an older 'mocking' grandma who was pretending to not like the new daughter in law.

Some of the best acting I've ever seen.

This scene was a story about a monk

The ending of the performance included lots of performers, stunts, fire, props, and singing!

Tiger Leaping Gorge

While down south we hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge!

This lady and her family built the trail we hiked

The story goes... that there was a man hunting a tiger and ended up chasing it to the edge of this cliff... Then the legend goes that the tiger made this jump!

Apart of the hike back was having to climb up this bridge... I'll admit it was a little old and a little scary to climb up

This was the bathroom

On the farm!

The Li Su Farm!!

There are 56 different minorities in this country and one of them are the Li Su People. They live in Burma, China, Thailand, and India. Our friends spoke Mandarin and then also had their own dialect in Li Su.

They are doing some amazing work down in the south. They goal is to make their farm organic (without all the chemicals), its the most low cost and effective way of farming for them in the villages. They are also in the process of teaching other farmers this method and seems to be successful.

When we got there, their biggest need was 'weeding the corn.' We got right to work!!

Our schedule:
6:30 Wake up
6:45 Eat Breakfast
7:00 Be in the fields and start weeding corn
12:00 Lunch Break
1:00-1:45 Nap time -dream about corn (this is a national thing-happens all over the country- a majority of businesses will stop from 12-2 for lunch and nap time)
2:00 Be in the fields weeding
2-6:00 Weed corn
6-7:00 Eat dinner
7- rush back before sun goes down to shower (need the light from the sun to shine into the bathroom to shower, there was no electricity)
8:00 Read and watch sunset
9:00 Sleep and dream of weeding corn again

Corn!

Lots of corn!! It was taller than me!

Because the farming method was organic... they used goat manure and mixed it in the dirt. We were crawling through the red soil, manure, and lots of spiders! Lets just say some of those clothes were left behind.

We worked alongside of the Li Su guys in the fields and with them and we just had so much fun.

Even more corn!!

The three of hanging out on the roof of our little house

Just had to show you a picture of this crazy cat!!

In the evening after work.... the sun going down!! Absolutely beautiful!

After work I would sit on the edge of the roof watching the sunset and read!! It was awesome!

The outhouse

The guys' house

Getting to see the clear skies here were so beautiful and such a huge change from city life! It was absolutely beautiful in this part of the country.

This is Harvey. He was the spider that lived at the top of our shower

Hanging out with some of our new Lisu friends

Rach and I (about to be covered in the red dirt-that stained everything)

Fresh goat milk being boiled!!

Cooking lunch

Fried Goat Cheese!! Possibly one of the best things I've ever eaten!! So good!!

Rach at work!

Me at work!

We milked goats, petted the goats, wedded grass for the goats, drank goat milk, ate goat cheese.... thats a lot of goat!! We even ended up buying a goat for the farm! It was a lot of fun!

The guys were working on building a new outhouse

Grass to feed the goats

This was such an awesome truck!! We had to ride in the truck bed of this down the mountain to catch the bus at the bottom (just wish we could have got that on video... however we were all busy holding on and trying to avoid literally falling out the back)... such an awesome adventure!

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