China actually has dozens of ethnic minorities, all with different languages and cultures. But these days many of them are fading away, faster than ever. Pad Wooder tells the story of one man’s mission to document the vanishing cultures of the 56 nations of China.
At the far edge of China , beyond the great rivers , across mountains, shrouded in mystery , there is a China that has long remained undiscovered, unknown, even unimagined.
In China’s most remote provinces, there are people who have maintained a way of life that has changed little over the centuries. They are known as the 56 nations of China. They're actually 56 different culture tribes.
In appearance and language, they are distinct from mainstream China. For thousands of years isolation has preserved the traditions of China’s ethnic and cultural minorities. But now even the most rural areas are joining the global village.
I mean they see the outside world that they've never seen before, and they like what they see.
For a year and a half, filmmaker Bryan S. has been traveling across China , racing to complete a video archive of its minority cultures.
10 to 15 years from now, you are not going to see what I am seeing, people themselves still exist, but their ideas , their culture, their way of life will not. It will be gone.
On Lukuhu Lake in Yunnan province, an old woman sings in the language of the Mosu people, a matriarchal society which has no word for marriage. Less than a decade ago, this part of China was rarely visited.
City dwellers like Meizi say coming here gives urban Chinese a chance to enjoy nature. But she also says many people view minority cultures as colourful curiosities.
As a result, this 67-year-old grandmother makes her living rowing tourists across the lake, though she jokes that her heavy smoking makes the job tougher than it should be.
The Nashi people have lived in this mountain village for at least 15 00 years. Most of that time they've kept to themselves mainly because no road came anywhere near the village.
One of the village leaders says children now have to walk only 2 hours to get to a new road to catch a bus to school. But he is worried that after they get an education, young people may see no reason to come back.
People throughout rural China are flooding into cities like Chongqing, searching for things they know exist but can’t get out in the country.
Modern conveniences, I mean, nice housing, they like this, they want to go this way, so in a sense, they are getting a better life, but they are forgetting where they came from.
For Tibetan monks, devotion is one way to keep a culture alive. After taking three steps toward a mountain top temple, they prostrate themselves on the ground, pray, and begin another three steps. This goes on for 8 miles.
About 100,000 Tibetans live in Yunnan province, because they are such a large group with millions more living in Tibet itself, this culture remains strong.
Increasingly the face of China is a face of change. To think minority cultures can be immune is unrealistic. Still as they discard ancient traditions for a new way of life, the people of China’s 56 nations are giving up part of who they are or at least part of who they once were .
