Lijiang

4. As I continue up the river, I pass by another village where a few people are sitting at the shore of the river. They are carving amazing objects, and creating beautiful dresses. Some are making straw woven items and bamboo items, such as bowls and other pottery. With bamboo! They are making pottery with bamboo! I find the dresses the coolest though. They are made with such beautiful embroidery, and the people making them are so focused, so sucked into the idea of it. I see one get, up and walk into their home, and where they used to be sitting, is a humongous marking of her body. She must have been sitting there for hours! One of the woman drops her bowl, so I go pick it up. Before I could touch it, she yelled “Bú!!”. Which means NO! in Pinyin. After that, she apologized, but said that these bowls are very special to her, so she wants to make sure that they have a good “life”, and that nothing happened to them. She only trusts herself with them. She doesn’t even trust her own friend. I was a little shocked of how crazy she got, but it shows how much these people take pride in their work, and how important it is to them. A few days later, I start my journey back home. It was an amazing journey, and I really learned a lot. The tides and mountains were getting pretty hard for me anyways. I hope that all of the people that I visited will continue their lifestyle, and in one thousand years, their great x150 grand-children can have the same beauty of the river as these people did.