GuiZhou

GuiZhou is China at its most raw and culturally vivid. This mountainous province is home to over a dozen ethnic minority groups — Miao, Dong, Buyi, and others — each with their own language, silverwork, embroidery, and festival calendar. The Dong villages around Zhaoxing are anchored by wooden drum towers that reach five or six stories without a single nail. During festivals, Miao women wear headdresses of silver that can weigh 15 kilos and have been passed down through generations. The rice terraces of Jiabang and Tang'an transform with the seasons — flooded mirrors in spring, green carpets in summer, gold in autumn.