Back to Beijing

On Wednesday we said good-bye to our friends in Kunming, and returned to Beijing where it has turned really cold. Here is someone I saw in the airport.

In a shop

This shop specializes in art created by the minority peoples. The shop is called Good Folks Meet. Below is Mari with a Miao woman who does the most amazing cross-stitch work.

Wow

A gateway in the area of the Bai people, one of four aboriginal groups in Yunnan.

Another view

Here is another view of the Thai shrine from across an amazingly still lake.

The Thai people

Here is a spectacular Thai structure. It is evidently a working shrine, as people on the other side were burning incense in front of it.

The Miao people

    The lovely young woman lives in the Miao village. There is a church located there, for the Miaos are primarily Christian. Visiting this church was a very moving experience.

    The Miaos were evangelized by a British missionary named Samuel Pollard (1864-1915), whose story is highly interesting. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pollard

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The Minority Villages

Tuesday, we visited the Minority Villages, a sort of "six flags over China" without the rides. There are 24 minority groups represented in Yunnan, where Kunming is located. The 36 minority groups in China provide 300 million of its 1.2 billion people, so they are very significant.