Soil, Toil & Landscape, Yongshuo, Guilin, Chin

My original Blip for this day was blocked. I seem to recall using a perfectly legitimate English language word for an illegitimate person, but apparently that is not allowed. Bxxxxr!

Can't recover the full report but remember we went on a bike ride, with guide, for about 3 hours, ending up with sore bottoms but a greater understanding of the Chinese countryside. There is no land ownership by individuals - it all belongs to the State. Land is granted to individuals or groups on an ad hoc basis. There is no rent for the particular parcel, but there is no security of tenure. If the State needs the land for it's own purposes, the farmer is ousted but given similar provision elsewhere. Strangely, land granted in this manner may be properly rented on to others.

Much of the working of the soil is done by the women although this shot shows a couple working their plot. We saw only 2 men working during this ride, and about 30 women engaged in many different tasks, some light but mainly heavy labour & carrying.

The remainder of the day was consumed trying to sort out cash flow, and onward travel. Couldn't get sleepers for the next major move so have had to resort to flying. Not ideal as we miss seeing the countryside and town but it can't be helped.

G&S
PS: As this is a retro-blip I feel I can also stick in a bit that I forgot in Friday 13th's effort. The reason for the shutters in the back wall of the village hall was to allow the fair (dark actually) maidens to demonstrate the incredible length of their hair. During the performance they appeared to be wearing shiny black fore & aft cocked hats, which were in fact fashioned from their hair, which grows up to 2.5 mtrs long. They showed it off by dangling it down the back wall, then intricately gathering it into one of several styles. These styles indicate to the local guys the marital / breeding status of the wearer. One other indicator of their availability is that is they fancy a man they pinch their bum. There was a lot of jocular bum pinching as we left the auditorium, running the gauntlet of sellers and bum pinchers was something to remember!
G.