China's minorities challenge

By Louisa Lim BBC, Guizhou

Far from the glitz and glamour of China's booming cities, Guizhou province is home to many of the country's ethnic minorities.

Inside a dirty wooden shack deep in the green hills of Guizhou, a young man puffs into his bamboo pipes. His baby daughter sleeps beside him, naked and filthy.

Yang Cangkun is trying to save his culture

For 25-year-old Yang Cangkun, this is the music of his people, the Miao, whose culture is different from that of the Han Chinese who make up 92% of China's population.

He wishes he could earn money by teaching local children about their culture. But like most people here, he has to leave the village to make a living.

At the root of the villagers' problems is a massive hydro-electric project, which saw their land flooded beneath a reservoir.

The fact the government built the dam without paying any compensation is still the root of great bitterness here.

"The government did this to us," said Yang Cangkun.

At this year's courtship festival, the girls are alone

"We're quite backward here. No one from here has ever gone to work in the government at the provincial level. When our land got flooded, no relief funds were given to us. So we are extremely sad about it," he said.

Politically and geographically the Miao feel marginalised, living in these beautiful but isolated mountain areas.

But government officials do not agree.

Yang Kairao, from the education department, who made the one-hour boat trip across the reservoir then hiked up the hillside to the village, said relations between the Miao and the government could not be closer.

"Ethnic minority groups like the Miao work under the leadership of the Communist Party and the government. And the relationship is extremely close. It's like the relationship between fish and water," he said.

Everyone in this village is Miao - part of the same ethnic group as the Hmong in Thailand. They are called the side comb Miao because women coil their hair around the head, fixing it with a comb at a rakish angle.

Their traditional clothes burst with rainbows of colour - stiff black skirts with pleated ribbons and jackets aflame with reds and pinks.

But young people do not wear them much any more - it just does not make economic sense, teacher Yang Mei said.

"We don't wear the old Miao clothes because we have to work and it takes too much effort and wastes too much money. A regular set of Miao clothes costs 200 Yuan ($25). We can use that money to buy two or three sets of Han clothes," she said.

Yang Mei met her husband at a match-making festival, known as Huapo Jie. It is a chance for young people to meet their partners, as they dance together.

"I noticed my husband," she said, "because he looked gorgeous with a long floating belt around his waist."

Village exodus

This year the villagers dressed up in their traditional clothes for the festival as usual, but there was no dancing or festivities.

With all the young men away working, village life has ground to a halt.

Most of the people who attended were young girls, and they were not happy.

"There are too few people here," one said. "I'm really disappointed. I just wanted to have fun but there's no dancing because everyone's gone."

For those who have stayed behind, life is cruel.

Yang Dingmen sobbed as she showed us how little food there was in her storeroom.

She has had to send her 18-year-old daughter out to make money. Her 80-year-old father-in-law is dying because the family cannot buy him medicine.

Her husband, Yang Chuanxin, still mouths the right slogans - but he knows reality does not measure up.

"It was good in the time of Chairman Mao and it's good now. After our fields were flooded, we didn't have any land any more, so we can't make a living," he said.

Yang Dingmei's father-in-law is dying

The fate of this small village speaks volumes about how minority groups are treated in China.

They are marginalised in a system dependent on political patronage, and their interests are often overlooked in the name of the greater good.

In today's cut-throat world, just surviving is the main battle. And to do that, many adults have to leave their villages.

In the process, they are being assimilated into the majority Han population, while the traditions that mark them out are withering away.

Back in the bare house, even the family's one comfort - the traditional pipes - are broken.

Mr Yang tries to play anyway.

"I don't know how to fix it," he said, "and there's no one left here who understands these things".

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This is the last in a series of reports from central China by Louisa Lim. The other articles can be read here:

China's Muslims forge isolated path

China's rural poor left behind