For a thousand years the lives of the Dong people have resounded with song. Their distinctive culture endures—but for how long?
Five-year-old Wu Lianlian visits her family's hillside rice field with her hair ablaze in store-bought frills—a sign that the outside world has reached the once isolated farming community of Dimen.
Amid the lush hills of southern China, students splash in the puddles outside their school after a downpour. When record-breaking storms flooded the village this past summer, the children happily paddled around on boards as if they were canoes.
A classic hat and a makeshift coat keep the rain off a za, or elder woman, as she chats with neighbors on the way to weed her rice field outside the village. Women must often hike several miles up steep paths to begin their daily farming chores.
Toughened by a lifetime of fieldwork, the hands of a za provide loving care for her grandson, who wears a traditional hat adorned in silver. Many young adults now live elsewhere for their jobs, leaving their children in Dimen to be raised by grandparents.
Known as a flower bridge for its pleasing design, a typical span offers shelter from the wind and rain, and seats for contemplating the scenery. Five such structures with unique details—this one named Facing the Sun—convey villagers across Dimen's river.
In a village downriver from Dimen, a woman practices the ancient art of making paper by hand. The raw fiber comes from paper mulberry trees that grow in the neighboring hills. Dong women turn this into pulp, which they then dry in wooden frames to produce cloth-like sheets for wrapping all manner of things and for covering bodies before burial.
Still spry at 78, Wu Meizhi balances two loads: her grandchild and a frame for making paper—a craft that keeps older women contributing to the community for as long as they're physically able.
Cherished customs persist in the village. On Saturday mornings, learning old songs from the za in the cultural eco-museum (right) takes priority.
Wu Lianlian shares a laugh with her mother beside her coffin tree, chosen for her at birth. If she follows tradition, she will have the tree cut down and carved to order when she reaches old age.
In a sign of the times, one carpentry shop now sells ready-made coffins.
An all-female crew carries logs to the village, where the men are beginning to frame new buildings that will replace those lost in a devastating fire. In a typical day the women make several round-trips, climbing rough paths to reach a hillside forest about three miles from Dimen. There they work together to cut down sturdy trees and strip the trunks bare.
While carpenters rebuild a house lost in the catastrophic fire, the owners roast a pig for lunch. The county government subsidized traditional wood construction, though most villagers would rather have used brick. 【大清注：NG网站上该图也缺失】
A divination ritual revived after almost three decades aims to restore harmony in Dimen after the fire and other unfortunate events. Amid sprays of water the blindfolded men, in a trance, ride ghost horses to search for the cause.
As a token of appreciation for the role he played in a divining ritual, an exhausted "rider" receives a memento in the shape of a horseman cut from traditional handmade paper.
After a summer day's swim, a boy returns to his new bike. Modern amusements get increasing attention in the village.
On a trip home to celebrate the new year, television star Wu Qinglan screens a recent performance for her grandmother. The shows she saw as a child on her family's TV, the first in town, inspired her to "fly out of the big mountain"—leave Dimen—to find fame.
During the New Year's holiday, a game of mah-jongg occupies Wu Yuxin (left), a teacher, and Wu Liangqian, a cosmetologist, for hours. Villagers celebrate the season by taking off work for a week or more to visit family and go to parties, where the festivities often include eating and drinking to excess.
In a place where there are few pets, dogs destined for the dinner table get a wash in the river before being cooked.
Bending to the constant rhythm of farming, a woman gathers rice shoots from a plot near home to sow in terraced fields. Come what may, fire or flood, this is the work that still feeds her family and stands at the heart of her ancient culture.
Cultivating rice in flooded fields has sustained the Dong for a thousand years. What will become of their culture now that this generation is leaving village farms to work in urban factories?
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