Ninety percent of the population in the region where I resided could be classified under one heading: down-and-out poor. In other words, there were plenty of paupers, especially among the minority groups, who lived entirely distinct from the mainstream of Chinese “Hans.”The minorities in our province were cut off from the outside world and subsisted on the petty provisions of third-world conditions and tribal superstitions. In their eyes, I was an alien from another galaxy; but just the same, I tried to reach out to them by providing medicine, clothing, and other basic commodities.
One cold day, I stopped by a cinder block hut of stone masons, who existed on cabbage and hot peppers. I proposed that we have dinner together. A progressive adolescent in the bunch cackled his excitement with “Oh, boy, coffee!” At sundown, I lugged three pounds of pork over to their hut. We gathered the wood, lit a bonfire, roasted the hot peppers, and had a decent meal and conversed about our different cultures.
Although in the next articles we will see the beautiful traditional dress of China’s minorities, in the 1980’s most men could not afford to wear anything other than the military blue or green version of the Mao suit.
Photos & slideshow Copyright Men's Fashion by Francesco.
