Thursday 24 March 2011

Yunnan - the embroidered shoes handmade by the Miao

In 1993 I visited China for the time (I can t believe almost 20 yrs have passed...and yes, I was very young at that time! :))
In 1993 China was definitely a different country from the one we see today...very few cars, thousands of bikes in the streets, people dressed in a nice but modest way, few skycrapers.
I spent 4 long weeks travelling around in China. I remember beautiful places like Xian, Shangai, the ouskirts of Beijing...I remember waking up at 5.00 am to see people exercise and dance in the street of Hangzhou, I remember the uncomprehensible drama I saw at the Chinese Theatre in Kumming.
But above all I remeber Guillin, a beautiful city in a region called Yunnan. 

Guillin surroundings look like this:

The area around Guilin is populated by an ethinic minority, the Miao. Traditionally the Miao live in mountainous regions and build simple, single-story houses out of wood or thatch with forestry and agriculture as their main source of income.
The Miao are well known for their intricate embroidery.
When I was in Guillin I bought some pairs of beautiful hand made shoes....
Have a look at these pics and tell me if these shoes are not  simply fantastic!



From: ww.etsy.com

The Miao produce colorful textile like the ones you see below.


From: photos.com
Traditionally women wear beautiful hats and work all day long to produce hand made works of art!


I have recently spotted beautiful embroidered "Yunnan Style" shoes at
asian-culture-shop.com ...but prices seem unfortunately to be quite high!

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