Portrait of an LBX

In our evening in Xuelin (雪林鄉), we were treated to dinner by a group of teachers from the local elementary school. Two were ethnic Wa (佤族) while the other was Dai (傣族). As part of their local Wa drinking customs, one person toasts another by standing up and singing a rhythmic song while the others clap and sing along if they know the words. Then the "toaster" downs his glass, fills it up again and passes it on to the "toastee" (me), who then chooses another person to serenade and toast. Rinse, repeat. For our part, we sang whatever songs to which we could remember the lyrics, including "I Would Walk 500 Miles," "It's a Small World," "I Will Survive" and the Portrait of an LBX classic, "Sixteen Tons."

An ethnic Hani woman carries a duck toward the morning market in Old Yuanyang (老元陽, now Xinjie 新街鎮). Old Yuanyang, previously the county seat of Yuanyang County, sits nearly on top of a punishing mountain (if you're on bikes), surrounded by the Hani terraced rice paddies for which the area is famous.

Old Nong (center), brother (right) and cousin (left) pay their respects at Old Nong's father's grave amid fireworks and the smoke from incense sticks.

An elderly villager of Danong (大農村) wipes off the tombstone of an ancestor's grave on the Zhuang Tomb Sweeping day on the third day of March on the lunar calendar (農歷三月初三). For most in the countryside there is no such thing as a "graveyard." The tombs are scattered throughout the fields in any un-planted spot available, and many are marked only by a pile of stones.

The third day of March on the lunar calendar (農歷三月初三) is the Zhuang (壯族) equivalent of the more widely-celebrated Tomb Sweeping Day (清明節). While passing through the village of Danong (大農村), we were invited to join the Nong (農) family in the festivities surrounding the sweeping of their ancestors' tombs. Here, a grandmother and granddaughter pour baijiu (白酒) into cups at a tomb, alongside sticky rice, chickens and other gifts to be sent onto the afterlife.

After descending from one of the highest mountains we've ridden over so far, we passed through a small village where a funeral celebration (欢送, literally a 'farewell party') was taking place. The family invited us in to "add to the noise" (加热闹), of which there was already plenty due to a brass band. The women in the mourning family wore what looked like burlap coverings. Here the onlookers watch the band, which the family hired for the day for 1,000 yuan ($146) -- a hefty price for the Chinese countryside.

We've been passing a lot of these tombs over the past couple days in Jiangxi. The grasses in the front appear white because they are covered with ice from the ice storm the night before. From what I understand, burying the dead is illegal in China; but like many things, that can be solved by paying a fine. The reason for the ban is that China is short on arable land. After the famine of the Great Leap Forward, the government has emphasized a need to be self-supporting in food production, estimating that approximately 120 million hectares need to be kept under till. A preference for burials over cremations is probably not the biggest problem, however. Despite national mandates, many local governments rely on illegal land appropriations and sales to developers for fiscal revenue. This, combined with the desertification we've talked about before, means China is barely above its self-supporting line. The Ministry of Land estimates that at the end of 2008, China had 121.7 million hectares of arable land remaining.