A rifle shot tears the air of a mountain hamlet — met not with terror, but cries of delight in China’s only remaining village where authorities encourage gun ownership.
“We start carrying guns from about 15 years old,” said Jia Xinshan, fingering a wooden rifle’s trigger as tourists snapped pictures of him in a shiny black coat. “We’re the last gun tribe in China.”
The armaments in Biasha, a village tucked amid the wooded peaks of Guizhou Province, are a reminder of an era of conflict between Beijing and the mountain tribes who still inhabit swathes of China’s southwest.
Photo: AFP
Villagers are allowed to own rifles, but are restricted to firing them during displays for tourists — illustrating how once-restive minority groups have integrated with the state.
China, wary of social unrest and crime, bars most civilians from owning firearms, giving the village’s gunpowdery atmosphere an illicit feel.
“We used to use our guns to protect the village,” said Jia, 30, who performs daily in a dance routine where he thrusts his gun into the air before firing it.
Photo: AFP
“Now we carry them to give tourists an impression,” he said.
Biasha’s wooden shacks that cling to hillsides are home to members of the Miao minority, an ethnic group of about 12 million people who are more at home in their own languages than Mandarin Chinese.
The name “Miao” was first applied to hill tribes who fought bloody rebellions against the Chinese state, which pushed south in the 1600s, forcing locals into high mountain territory.
Miao fighters had “considerable experience with firearms,” as early as 1681, according to historian Robert Jenks, whose account of the rebellion was published by the University of Hawaii.
However, the deadliest clashes occurred in the 19th century, where by some estimates several million died.
Chinese forces lost 30 to 40 men a day from Miao snipers who fired into government camps under cover of darkness, a British mercenary commented in 1870, according to Jenks.
The rebellions were finally put down and Miao leaders executed in 1872 by Chinese army regiments.
Mountain groups “went through a process of adaption to the new nation-state system,” said Cheung Siu-woo (張兆和), a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The Miao achieved their first official recognition as an ethnic group by the republic that followed the collapse of China’s last dynasty in 1912, granting them limited autonomy, a status that continued when the Communist Party took power three decades later.
The Miao’s accommodation with the government contrasts with other groups such as Tibetans and Uighurs, who continue to clash with authorities over what they claim is cultural repression.
Villagers in Biasha said just one gunmaker remains — in a hillside shack where vegetables hang from the roof and metal weapon scraps fill a wicker basket.
“It takes two or three days to make a gun,” said Gun Laosheng, the craftsman. “My father taught me, because he loved guns and was great at hunting wild birds.”
However, these days locals prefer to profit from tour groups, he said.
“Now you spend a day hunting and you don’t even know if you’ll shoot anything, so it makes more sense to work and buy some meat,” he said.
Many villagers have taken the surname Gun, whose similarity with the English word is just coincidence.
Hunting has been virtually banned to protect wildlife, locals said. Villagers are also prohibited from firing guns outside of performances.
“We’re not even allowed to buy gunpowder on the market, so we have to secretly buy it,” said one young villager who asked not to be named.
Ning Jingwu (寧敬武), a film director who spent more than a year in the village, said: “The government allows them to keep guns, but is very scared about gun production.”
However, an illicit trade survives — in Guiyang City just 300km from Biasha; police this month seized 15,000 guns from an “illegal ring.”
“People come from outside the village to sell guns, but the locals won’t admit it,” Ning said.
“Now the gun has turned into a tool for performances, which we think is kind of sad,” he said.
In Biasha’s stone-paved village square, opposite a tourist hotel labeled “The Gunner Inn,” five-year-olds pose with plastic replica rifles, while visitors pay to fire shots into the air.
Wearing a brand-new backpack, 27-year-old Tan Ying, a Han Chinese, came to Biasha with a sightseeing group.
“They used to have guns to fight us Han, but now I feel they are more or less the same as us,” she said.
Sitting on a grassy knoll, 37-year-old gunner Guan Nila said: “Our country is peaceful now so we don’t need to use guns.”
“If I wanted to fight, I would just hit you, and not use any weapons,” he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last