subject: How The World's Best Silver Jewelry Makers Celebrate New Year [print this page] China is a country famous for its colorful and unique festivals. And some of those festivals are of the ethnic minority group of Miao.
In recent years, the New Year Festival of the Miaos are making a big hit. The people makes the world's best handmade silver jewelry, although the land they live seems to be forgotten by modern civilization.
One of the earliest ethnic tribe to live China, the Miaos is famous for its unique forms of new year celebration.
The New Year Festival of the Miaos comes at November each year. That's about 3 months earlier than the Chinese New Year.
A thorough house cleaning generally signals the start of a Miao family to prepare for the new year celebration. The Miaos believe that by sweeping off the dusts and unhappy things of an old year, you make a good start for the new one.
Life starts to get busy as the new year comes, and a thorough house cleaning is the signal. The Miaos believe that by sweeping away dusts of an old year, a new year gets off to a good start.
If life is busy at this time, the Miao women are the busiest. Traditional food is indispensable in celebrating the new year. And they have a long list of food items to prepare: pork sausages to offer to ancestors, rice wines to give deities, bean curd to host guests, glutinous rice paste to reward hard-working cattle.
Even more important than preparing the food for the Miao women is to make new costumes for the family. A series of celebration is to be hold shortly after the New Year Festival, and the family members need to look good.
Finally, when the New Year's Eve comes, family members stay up late. As the new year bell rings, they shoot the firecrackers, and make offerings to ancestors and gods for protection.
Early next day, as the day breaks, the head of the village summons everyone to "Bai Jia Yan" that is unique to the Miaos.
"Bai Jia Yan", or "All-Family Banquet", is unique to Miao. A whole village dine together at tables lined one next to the other on the main road of the village. Each families come to the banquet with a couple of dishes they made and invite others for a taste. The set can be spectacle!
After the banquet, villagers visit relatives and neighbors, and wish each other a very happy new year.
