Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs


hair dance
Huang Luo's women show off their long hair in a show they put on in their village.
the neighboring village
The village of Pingan, one of the most photogenic of the Longsheng rice terraces.
Matriarch
One of Huang Luo's women, with her long hair curled into a turban.
rice in abundance
Section of the vast rice terraces of Longsheng, in the Chinese province of Guangxi.
China, China, China
Chinese flag flies above the roof of a lookout over Longsheng.
Bell-Spice
Chillies cut into very small pieces, to later be used in traditional dishes of the region.
in the middle of the show
Another moment in Huang Luo's women with long hair spectacle.
hairy trio
Trio of women in traditional costumes with their long hair arranged on their heads.
Baby but little crybaby
A child crying at the window of a traditional Ping'an wooden house.
terraces
Corner of the vast rice terraces of Longsheng, Guang xi province.
Choreography
Women sing from high windows in the room where they exhibit their show.
In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.

We spent almost five hours on the small bus we had boarded at Yangshuo station. Despite being one of the unavoidable crossing points of the Chinese backpacker circuit, only two other foreigners were on board, heading for Longsheng, Huang Luo and the longest hair in the world.

Most of the time, they dozed in the back seats occupied by them alone.

We followed the twists and turns of the route: the limestone cliffs for some time after the departure. The surroundings of the typical urban chaos of Guilin, a small city in the center-south, on a Chinese scale, with its almost 5 million inhabitants.

A highway that takes us away from it towards the mountains, and then a much more winding secondary road that climbs to the north of a first slope and runs along it to the east.

The Unusual Arrival in Longsheng

More than three hundred kilometers later, the driver beckons us and the other pair of outsiders. All around, we could only see more and more slopes, converted into verdant rice terraces. Not a single town worthy of record. The driver sketched a point out of the bus and down.

We didn't understand if he simply ran with us to dispatch the freight or if he pointed us to some hidden place on the slope below the asphalt. Anyway, we went down. We crossed the road and took a look.

The village of Pingan in Longsheng, China

The village of Pingan, one of the most photogenic of the Longsheng rice terraces.

To the left, dispersed in a sunken area of ​​the slope, between terraces and cedars, was a traditional house with brown roofs, between gray and brown, the structures below, with two or three floors and balconies, all built in dark wood and bamboo. Chinese lanterns lend them some festive red and promise residents happy lives and prosperous businesses.

Ping'an, a village over six hundred years old, sits on the main ridge of the Longsheng rice terraces, a name that translates as "Dragon's Spine Column." It is, therefore, not only in the vicinity of the access road, but on the back of the great saurian.

Longsheng Rice Terraces, Guangxi, China

Section of the vast rice terraces of Longsheng, in the Chinese province of Guangxi.

And, as in the main western tourist cities, residents of several villages in Longsheng but above all in Ping'an rushed to adapt their homes or build additional ones to profit from the visitors. Small inns and rooms for rent now abound in Ping'an, for the most part listed in the usual online intermediaries.

The Terraced View of the Spine of the Dragon

We didn't head there right away. A Chinese flag, as scarlet and auspicious as lanterns, flies over an old earthen roof.

Chinese flag in Longsheng, China

Chinese flag flies above the roof of a lookout over Longsheng.

Intrigued as to what was there, light because we had brought only the essentials from Yangshuo for a day or two, we set out on a steep trail that soon widens.

After ten minutes, the trail opens up a terrace. And the terrace, an incredible view of the greenish-yellow and striped vastness all around.

Only Ping'an, Huang Luo, and the occasional village broke the homogeneity of this tortuous agricultural pattern. As only tourism had corrupted the ancestral way of life of the Chinese of Dong, Zhuang, Yao and Miao ethnicities and cultures of these places. And these are just the primordial groups.

In official terms, the authorities identify thirteen distinct indigenous groups in the region. One in particular interested us much more than the others.

If it is true that outsiders began to flock there for the beauty of the rice terraces and the pleasure of long walks, at one point a cultural eccentricity of the Yao women, in particular, began to attract as many or more visitors.

Women from Huang Luo, China

Trio of women in traditional dress with their long hair arranged on their heads

According to various sources in the Chinese press, even though the Longsheng rice terraces are just over half a millennium old, the Yao tribe will be around two thousand years old.

Now, sometime around this time, Yao women consolidated a communal belief that hair was their most sacred and valued possession, a kind of keratin amulet that supposedly guarantees them longevity, wealth, and good fortune.

The Sacred Hair of Yao Women

According to the same belief, a Yao woman's hair is cut twice in her lifetime: at one hundred days, and at eighteen, on the last of occasions, as a ritual of maturity. The cut hair is curled and kept neat. Later, it is offered to the future husband as a gift.

After marriage and childbirth, this hair is used as a curled extension of the current one. It marks the status and differentiation between a married and a single woman.

Until some time ago, with the exception of her husband and children, no one could see a woman's hair down. We are told in the village that if a man saw the hair of an unmarried woman, he would have to spend three years in that woman's family as a son-in-law. Inconvenient to say the least, this rule was abandoned in the late 80s. It won't have been the only tradition sacrificed.

The Yao tribe was already formed by around six hundred people grouped by the nearly eighty families of today. In Longsheng, they form only a small clan of the 2.6 million Yao scattered across various Chinese provinces.

Other descendants of Yao also exist in Laos, in Thailand, Vietnam and, in small numbers, post-emigrated to Canada, France and the USA

The Yao of the Longsheng region became, there, sedentary and rural. For a long time, they were considered poor by the standards of these relatively fertile parts of China.

The Biggest Hair in the World

When tourists arrived to admire the beauty of the rice terraces, they found that the Yao women had, huddled on their heads, hair much longer than that of the other tribes, the longest hair in the world.

Stretched, most of the tribe's hair measures between 170 and 200 cm. Well, this makes, overall, Huang Luo is the village with the longest hair on the face of the Earth.

Women in a show by Huang Luo, Guangxi, China

Another moment in Huang Luo's women with long hair spectacle.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xie_Qiuping

In individual terms, the longest ever recorded among the Yao measured just over two meters, even so, incomparable with the personal record of another Chinese woman. In 2004, xie qiuping, had a hair of 5.6 meters.

Yao women began asking for money for tourists to photograph them. First, just for the photos. Later, they started to sell them handicrafts, postcards and other goods.

Over the years and the influx of outsiders, secrets, her hair became a spectacle. Even aware of its heavy commercial load, we took advantage and assisted.

A well-attended Capillary Show

During the exhibition, women dressed in black and red make their hair swirl. They drop us and comb us.

Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China

Huang Luo's women show off their long hair in a show they put on in their village.

They bring them together and form choreographies with graceful movements in which they still manipulate each other's hair. Finally, they wrap them in the hair turban with which, by habit, we see them on a daily basis.

But men also participate in the exhibition. At first, only locals, therefore, tourists are invited. To both, women apply another of their peculiar Yao rites.

During a certain dance, to prove their simplicity and interest in the other, they pinch their tails. Not all foreigners would be warned. None complained.

After the show, although the visitors do not speak Chinese dialects and the natives know little or nothing of English or other languages, there is a moment of conviviality.

With tickets already paid, spectators are entitled to free photographs but only with the ladies' hair tied up.

In exchange, soon after, the Yao women inflict on them traditional embroidered costumes, suitcases, backpacks, blankets and many other of their wares.

Another theme particularly fascinates foreign visitors to Huang Luo: what do Yao women do to keep their long hair healthy and lustrous, and without white specimens until such an advanced age, in some cases, up to 80 years old?

The secret is in the extraordinary scenery around, in what has been feeding them for millennia and which for millennia they have used to nourish their hair: rice.

Neither shampoos nor conditioners. rice only

For an eternity, fermented water after washing rice has been used in the East by both country women and empresses to achieve exemplary hair. With so much rice around, for the Yao women, maintaining this belief and custom was not a whim, it was practically a lack of alternatives.

Matriarch of Huang Luo, Guangxi, China

One of Huang Luo's women, with her long hair curled into a turban.

Isolated from cities by mountains and valleys and by mere distance, the penetration of shampoos and even modern soaps would have been a phenomenon very late in the XNUMXth century. At the same time, if rice water guaranteed immaculate hair with the added vigor of a tradition, why not use rice?

These days, the women gather in the river that runs through the village and often wash their hair communally. Mix glutinous rice with water and gently rinse the hair until it feels gelatinous. From time to time, they supplement this wash with special “treatments” with fermented rice water.

A study carried out in the 80s in Japan – where women's hair will be similar – concluded that “rice water decreases friction on the capillary surface and improves elasticity”.

Even Hair Experts Praise Huang Luo

Margaret Trey, a health, beauty and wellness expert at the newspaper “The Epoch Times” emphasizes that “slightly bitter, rice water is rich in antioxidants, minerals, vitamin E and another substance that only rice fermentation produces.

This combination does more than bring shine to hair. Makes them smoother, stronger and overall healthier.

Believe it or not, Huang Luo has been appearing for some time on several pages and blogs specializing in beauty advice with images of the village, the women and, of course, their prodigious hair.

If they are better informed about the world of advertising, the hair of Yao women could earn them much more than the entrances of tourists to daily shows, sales of their handicrafts and postcards.

The issue is that the big beauty brands want to continue to sell their shampoos, conditioners and silicones, not risk that Western women start substituting them for some homemade rice water.

Dali, China

The Surrealist China of Dali

Embedded in a magical lakeside setting, the ancient capital of the Bai people has remained, until some time ago, a refuge for the backpacker community of travelers. The social and economic changes of China they fomented the invasion of Chinese to discover the southwest corner of the nation.
Bingling Yes, China

The Canyon of a Thousand Buddhas

For more than a millennium and at least seven dynasties, Chinese devotees have extolled their religious belief with the legacy of sculpture in a remote strait of the Yellow River. If you disembark in the Canyon of Thousand Buddhas, you may not find all the sculptures, but you will find a stunning Buddhist shrine.
Dunhuang, China

An Oasis in the China of the Sands

Thousands of kilometers west of Beijing, the Great Wall has its western end and the China and other. An unexpected splash of vegetable green breaks up the arid expanse all around. Announces Dunhuang, formerly crucial outpost on the Silk Road, today an intriguing city at the base of Asia's largest sand dunes.
Lijiang, China

A Gray City but Little

Seen from afar, its vast houses are dreary, but Lijiang's centuries-old sidewalks and canals are more folkloric than ever. This city once shone as the grandiose capital of the Naxi people. Today, floods of Chinese visitors who fight for the quasi-theme park it have become take it by storm.
Lijiang e Yangshuo, China

An Impressive China

One of the most respected Asian filmmakers, Zhang Yimou dedicated himself to large outdoor productions and co-authored the media ceremonies of the Beijing OG. But Yimou is also responsible for “Impressions”, a series of no less controversial stagings with stages in emblematic places.
Lhasa, Tibet

The Sino-Demolition of the Roof of the World

Any debate about sovereignty is incidental and a waste of time. Anyone who wants to be dazzled by the purity, affability and exoticism of Tibetan culture should visit the territory as soon as possible. The Han civilizational greed that moves China will soon bury millenary Tibet.
Dali, China

Chinese Style Flash Mob

The time is set and the place is known. When the music starts playing, a crowd follows the choreography harmoniously until time runs out and everyone returns to their lives.
Viti levu, Fiji

Cannibalism and Hair, Fiji Islands' Old Pastimes

For 2500 years, anthropophagy has been part of everyday life in Fiji. In more recent centuries, the practice has been adorned by a fascinating hair cult. Luckily, only vestiges of the latest fashion remain.
Huang Shan, China

Huang Shan: The Yellow Mountains of the Floating Peaks

The granitic peaks of the floating yellow mountains of Huang Shan, from which acrobat pines sprout, appear in artistic illustrations from China without count. The real scenery, in addition to being remote, remains hidden above the clouds for over 200 days.
Beijing, China

The Heart of the Great Dragon

It is the incoherent historic center of Maoist-Communist ideology and almost all Chinese aspire to visit it, but Tianamen Square will always be remembered as a macabre epitaph of the nation's aspirations.
Badaling, China

The Sino Invasion of the Great Wall of China

With the arrival of the hot days, hordes of Han visitors take over the Great Wall of China, the largest man-made structure. They go back to the era of imperial dynasties and celebrate the nation's newfound prominence.
Tokyo, Japan

Japanese Style Passaport-Type Photography

In the late 80s, two Japanese multinationals already saw conventional photo booths as museum pieces. They turned them into revolutionary machines and Japan surrendered to the Purikura phenomenon.
Esteros del Iberá, Pantanal Argentina, Alligator
Safari
Iberá Wetlands, Argentina

The Pantanal of the Pampas

On the world map, south of the famous brazilian wetland, a little-known flooded region appears, but almost as vast and rich in biodiversity. the Guarani expression Y bera defines it as “shining waters”. The adjective fits more than its strong luminance.
Young people walk the main street in Chame, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 1th - Pokhara a ChameNepal

Finally, on the way

After several days of preparation in Pokhara, we left towards the Himalayas. The walking route only starts in Chame, at 2670 meters of altitude, with the snowy peaks of the Annapurna mountain range already in sight. Until then, we complete a painful but necessary road preamble to its subtropical base.
Traditional houses, Bergen, Norway.
Architecture & Design
Bergen, Norway

The Great Hanseatic Port of Norway

Already populated in the early 1830th century, Bergen became the capital, monopolized northern Norwegian commerce and, until XNUMX, remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia. Today, Oslo leads the nation. Bergen continues to stand out for its architectural, urban and historical exuberance.
Tibetan heights, altitude sickness, mountain prevent to treat, travel
Adventure

Altitude Sickness: the Grievances of Getting Mountain Sick

When traveling, it happens that we find ourselves confronted with the lack of time to explore a place as unmissable as it is high. Medicine and previous experiences with Altitude Evil dictate that we should not risk ascending in a hurry.
Australia Day, Perth, Australian Flag
Ceremonies and Festivities
Perth, Australia

Australia Day: In Honor of the Foundation, Mourning for Invasion

26/1 is a controversial date in Australia. While British settlers celebrate it with barbecues and lots of beer, Aborigines celebrate the fact that they haven't been completely wiped out.
Ribeira Grande, Santo Antao
Cities
Ribeira Grande, Santo AntãoCape Verde

Santo Antão, Up the Ribeira Grande

Originally a tiny village, Ribeira Grande followed the course of its history. It became the village, later the city. It has become an eccentric and unavoidable junction on the island of Santo Antão.
Meal
World Food

Gastronomy Without Borders or Prejudice

Each people, their recipes and delicacies. In certain cases, the same ones that delight entire nations repel many others. For those who travel the world, the most important ingredient is a very open mind.
Obese resident of Tupola Tapaau, a small island in Western Samoa.
Culture
Tonga, Western Samoa, Polynesia

XXL Pacific

For centuries, the natives of the Polynesian islands subsisted on land and sea. Until the intrusion of colonial powers and the subsequent introduction of fatty pieces of meat, fast food and sugary drinks have spawned a plague of diabetes and obesity. Today, while much of Tonga's national GDP, Western Samoa and neighbors is wasted on these “western poisons”, fishermen barely manage to sell their fish.
Sport
Competitions

Man: an Ever Tested Species

It's in our genes. For the pleasure of participating, for titles, honor or money, competitions give meaning to the world. Some are more eccentric than others.
Christmas in Australia, Platipus = Platypus
Traveling
Atherton Tableland, Australia

Miles Away from Christmas (part XNUMX)

On December 25th, we explored the high, bucolic yet tropical interior of North Queensland. We ignore the whereabouts of most of the inhabitants and find the absolute absence of the Christmas season strange.
Jingkieng Wahsurah, Nongblai Village Roots Bridge, Meghalaya, India
Ethnic
Meghalaya, India

The Bridges of the Peoples that Create Roots

The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
View of Fa Island, Tonga, Last Polynesian Monarchy
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Exotic Signs of Life

USS Arizona, Pearl Harbour, Hawaii
History
pearl harbor, Hawaii

The Day Japan Went Too Far

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor military base. Today, parts of Hawaii look like Japanese colonies but the US will never forget the outrage.
Savai'i, Samoa, Polynesian island. South Pacific, Safotu Church
Islands
Savai’i, Samoa

The Great Samoa

Upolu is home to the capital and much of the tourist attention. On the other side of the Apolima strait, the also volcanic Savai'i is the largest and highest island in the archipelago of Samoa and the sixth in the immense Polynesia. Samoans praise her authenticity so much that they consider her the soul of the nation.
Era Susi towed by dog, Oulanka, Finland
Winter White
PN Oulanka, Finland

A Slightly Lonesome Wolf

Jukka “Era-Susi” Nordman has created one of the largest packs of sled dogs in the world. He became one of Finland's most iconic characters but remains faithful to his nickname: Wilderness Wolf.
Visitors to Ernest Hemingway's Home, Key West, Florida, United States
Literature
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
São Miguel Island, Dazzling Colors by Nature
Nature
São Miguel (Azores), Azores

São Miguel Island: Stunning Azores, By Nature

An immaculate biosphere that the Earth's entrails mold and soften is displayed, in São Miguel, in a panoramic format. São Miguel is the largest of the Portuguese islands. And it is a work of art of Nature and Man in the middle of the North Atlantic planted.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Grand Canyon, Arizona, Travel North America, Abysmal, Hot Shadows
Natural Parks
Grand Canyon, USA

Journey through the Abysmal North America

The Colorado River and tributaries began flowing into the plateau of the same name 17 million years ago and exposed half of Earth's geological past. They also carved one of its most stunning entrails.
Semeru (far) and Bromo volcanoes in Java, Indonesia
UNESCO World Heritage
Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Indonesia

The Volcanic Sea of ​​Java

The gigantic Tengger caldera rises 2000m in the heart of a sandy expanse of east Java. From it project the highest mountain of this Indonesian island, the Semeru, and several other volcanoes. From the fertility and clemency of this sublime as well as Dantesque setting, one of the few Hindu communities that resisted the Muslim predominance around, thrives.
Correspondence verification
Characters
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
Beaches
Gizo, Solomon Islands

A Saeraghi Young Singers Gala

In Gizo, the damage caused by the tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands is still very visible. On the coast of Saeraghi, children's bathing happiness contrasts with their heritage of desolation.
Composition on Nine Arches Bridge, Ella, Sri Lanka
Religion
Yala NPElla-Kandy, Sri Lanka

Journey Through Sri Lanka's Tea Core

We leave the seafront of PN Yala towards Ella. On the way to Nanu Oya, we wind on rails through the jungle, among plantations in the famous Ceylon. Three hours later, again by car, we enter Kandy, the Buddhist capital that the Portuguese never managed to dominate.
Flam Railway composition below a waterfall, Norway.
On Rails
Nesbyen to Flam, Norway

Flam Railway: Sublime Norway from the First to the Last Station

By road and aboard the Flam Railway, on one of the steepest railway routes in the world, we reach Flam and the entrance to the Sognefjord, the largest, deepest and most revered of the Scandinavian fjords. From the starting point to the last station, this monumental Norway that we have unveiled is confirmed.
Creel, Chihuahua, Carlos Venzor, collector, museum
Society
Chihuahua a Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico

On Creel's Way

With Chihuahua behind, we point to the southwest and to even higher lands in the north of Mexico. Next to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, we visited a Mennonite elder. Around Creel, we lived for the first time with the Rarámuri indigenous community of the Serra de Tarahumara.
Daily life
Arduous Professions

the bread the devil kneaded

Work is essential to most lives. But, certain jobs impose a degree of effort, monotony or danger that only a few chosen ones can measure up to.
Crocodiles, Queensland Tropical Australia Wild
Wildlife
Cairns to Cape Tribulation, Australia

Tropical Queensland: An Australia Too Wild

Cyclones and floods are just the meteorological expression of Queensland's tropical harshness. When it's not the weather, it's the deadly fauna of the region that keeps its inhabitants on their toes.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.