Progress, but at what cost?

My interest in traditional culture means I am always looking for places with well-preserved traditions and unaffected rural people.

To my mind, Fanpai village, Guizhou province, is definitely such a place. Row after row of houses on the mountain slope create a maze I would like to enter and lose myself in. The houses display the traditional characteristics of the Miao people - some are newly built, while others have stood for decades topped by moss-covered roof tiles made from tree bark.

In the "maze", dogs and hens, followed by chicks, searched busily for food, while water washed the stones in the stream that runs across the village. Occasionally, a rooster crowed and a few dogs barked.