Zhaoxing is a traditional village, all made of wood and home to the Dong ethnic minority group. It used to just be a special place where a few western tourists came to see a real Chinese village but with the high speed railway being built it’s brought with it the domestic tourists. Luckily the village still has plenty of charm and a good balance between tourism and village life. Our hostel was positioned just on the edge of the village with a wooden water mill outside along with paddies where locals worked with bent backs, tending to their crops. The hostel, like every building in the village was made of wood and the fire precautions were pretty crazy with extinguishers everywhere, a sort of gas mask in the room and even a rope to throw out the window and scale the 4 stories down!

The main road through the village was filled with eateries and shops selling the usual stuff along with a couple of village specialities like crispy pigs faces or clothes tie dyed with indigo. The village had a £10 entry fee which lasts 3 days and includes a five minute performance from the young Dong villagers who dress up in traditional wear and do a sing-song for the tourists. It’s not really our cup of tea as it is exactly that, a performance, we’d rather see the locals living normally. It was a lovely place to stroll around, wondering through the alleyways, past the rapeseed fields and along the picturesque streams.

The village also had quite a few pagoda style drum towers where villagers gather, especially in the evening when they light a fire and elders chat around it. Some of these towers were opposite an open-sided building which was used as a sort of theatre. There was a market area where ladies with 2 meter long hair wrapped around their heads were chopping pigs trotters with meat-cleavers and we noticed some old ladies selling little bundles of lettuce in a basket. No matter how much they sold or how old the people looked, they all had a piece of paper with a QR code on it so customers could pay via their phone apps, it’s so interesting seeing old traditions mixing with new ones in China.

Our hostel had a really helpful staff member who spoke incredible English and she told us there was a film crew coming to record an advert or something and they were calling all the surrounding ethnic villagers to come along. Before the filming started we caught the morning bus up to the Dong village of Tang’an but as soon as we hopped on the bus about 20 Dong ladies got off, clearly heading down to the filming location. They were all in matching red velvet jackets with their jet black hair wrapped neatly atop their heads. Because the ladies had left the village Tang’an turned out to be rather anticlimactic. There was a lot of construction going on and the terraced fields that spread out around the village lacked any punch as we visited in rather cloudy weather. We did meet an adorable old man who was so smiley and giggly and let us take a photo of him. We decided to not waste anymore time and head straight back down to our village to catch the start of the filming.

It was set just around the corner from our hostel in some beautiful fields with rapeseed flowers. There was a huge mix of ethnic groups and fabulous outfits so we felt very lucky to be able to witness this. Everyone stood in the farmers tracks in neat lines that climbed up the hill and a loud speaker was blasting music at which point they’d all sing and dance in unison. They had to do so many takes so we had plenty of opportunities to take photos – it’s not everyday 300 Dong members from different clans gather together so we were throughly enjoying it.

The outfits all varied in colour and pattern, there were bold pink tunics, royal blue dresses with multicoloured tassels and intricate embroidery, white coats with fancy pink detailing and big feather headpieces. Many ladies had elaborate silver head pieces and matching necklaces, embroidered aprons and ribbons around their calves.

It was a very addictive song they were playing so we spent quite a few hours watching them. When they were told to take a break we headed back to the village where we saw them all heading out for some street food and a chat.

Our host recommended a village to visit on a day trip, describing it as what Zhaoxing was like 20 years ago. It sounded amazing so we made the effort to head there and weren’t disappointed. It was a very traditional Dong village which wasn’t set up for tourism so there was no entry fee and no sing-song. Locals wore traditional dress because that was their everyday wear, not because tourists had paid to visit.

The village was all made up of wooden houses, all built in the same crazy manner where chunky wooden beams made the basic structure of the house and they weren’t cemented to the ground or embedded in a deep hole, they literally rested on stones!! Some beams were on one solid stone while others seemed to magically balance on three or four! To us it looked so unsteady but it must be doing a good job because most of the houses seemed to be standing for many years – although there was the occasional one that lost its structure and began tilting sideways, taking down all the houses along the street like dominoes.

The villagers seemed to be making their own natural thread, I’m not sure what from but cream fibres were all hanging up around the village and we saw many ladies weaving which looked extremely frustrating as it kept snapping or getting knots.

The locals wore slightly different outfits, some were wearing rather funky metallic tunics in orange, purple or red. It was a strange material, a little plastic looking. Other ladies had black tunics with beautiful embroidered edges. Their headwear varied too, some had colourful embroidered hats which were a little pointy and wrapped around their heads with ribbon while others had brightly woven scarves just sort of wrapped or plopped atop their heads.

Our host told us to expect to just see elders and kids and she was absolutely right. Apparently the rest of the locals go to the city to work in factories and save money for the family. The grandparents are basically the baby-sitters and they were doing a sterling job, many doing chores while carrying a baby on their back.

It was fascinating seeing what a traditional Dong village was actually like, an old man was beating wheat while ladies were washing their long hair in bowls outside their houses. We spotted one lady who must’ve been almost 100, she was tiny and had a completely hunched back, yet she waddled across the road with a handful of clothes, ready to wash them in a bowl. It’s crazy in China how the elders just don’t seem to stop working.

We did a big walk around the whole village, past the many drum towers which have ten functions: gathering people for discussion, resolving disputes, beating the drum for news, singing, telling old stories, playing the sheng and stepping on the hall (whatever that means) storing the lusheng , hanging the horns of oxen, lost and found and giving away straw sandals.

We passed some adorable elders who were so smiley and giggly when they saw us. One had a red string in her hand and we were expecting an animal to come around the corner on the end of the string but it was in fact her grandson. There were four ladies chatting on some benches who were happy for me to take their photos. If it wasn’t a rude question I’d of loved to ask how old they were. I showed each of them the photos I took and got big grins and thumbs up which was very cute.

I was a little sad to leave the village, it felt like such a special, authentic place and I just don’t know how long it will remain like that. I hope it doesn’t turn into a tourist destination where the locals begin performing to make a living, it’s so rare to find a hidden gem like this place.