We couldn't remember the details of the "Sisters' Festival", the subject of the picture to the right. So, we wrote to Frank Chen (Chen Fang), one of our local guides in Guizhou Province and here is the explanation from his reply:

Well, in your email, you mentioned a custom of Miao ethnic group, on the Sisters' Festival. The festival takes place in the spring, is easy and interesting to visit for the girls' spectacular costumes. Before the festival, girls collect wild flowers and berries to dye the glutinous rice (we call that sisters' rice). Each girl prepares her rice with a symbol inside and then wraps it in a handkerchief. Young people from several villages gather together, the girls beautifully dressed in embroidered costumes. Everyone chats and the search for marriage partners commences. Towards evening the newly formed couples break away and singing together. The girls give their "sisters' rice" to the boys, who get an indication of the girls true feelings from the symbols within. A pair of red chopsticks means she has accepted his hand in marriage; one chopstick, his love may not be returned; a garlic or red chilli, the boy must look elsewhere; pine needles indicate that the boy should present silks and colorful threads and that she will wait for him. Well, the custom is complicated but interesting, isn't it?