Life Style

The Qiangs dress themselves simply but beautifully. Men and women alike wear gowns made of gunny cloth, cotton and silk with sleeveless sheep's wool jackets. They like to bind their hair and legs. Women's clothing is laced and the collars are decorated with plum-shaped silver ornaments. They wear sharp-pointed and embroidered shoes, embroidered girdles and earrings, neck rings, hairpins and silver badges.

Millet, highland barley, potatoes, winter wheat and buckwheat make up their main staple foods. The Qiangs drink a great deal of wine and smoke orchid leaves.

They live in blockhouses made of piled up stones of different sizes. Unique in style, solid and practical, these houses are two or three stories high. The first floor is for livestock and poultry, the second retained as bedrooms and the third for grain storage. The Qiang people are skilled in opening up roads on rocky cliffs and erecting bamboo bridges over swift rivers. The bamboo chain bridges they built, laid with boards, stretch up to 100 meters with no nails and piers being used. Some of the Qiangs are excellent masons and are good at digging wells. During slack farming seasons they go to neighboring places to do chiseling and digging. Their skills are highly acclaimed.

Marriages, mainly monogamous, were arranged by parents in the past. Usually, the wives were several years older than their husbands. It was common for cousins to marry and for bridegrooms to live with their wives' families. And it still is not unusual for brides to live in their parents' houses within a year or so after marriage. In Qiang society, younger brothers could make their widowed sister-in-laws their wives and elder brothers could marry the widows of their younger brothers. Such habits have been gradually discarded since liberation.

Most Qiangs were believers of Animism, except for those who lived near Tibetan communities and were followers of Lamaism. The Qiangs worshipped white stones placed on roofs as the "Heavenly God."

The Qiang people have created a unique culture and arts and crafts. The clever and deft Qiang women can do embroidery and drawnwork extemporaneously without designs. The Qiangs are good singers and dancers. "Wine song," "plate song," "mountain song" and "leather drum" dances with accompaniment of gongs, tambourines, sonas and bamboo flutes are popular.

Welcome to China2Go, the talking Chinese phrase book for Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Palm OS. Featuring crystal clear voice recorded by a real person, this product is a great travel companion and an ideal tool to learn Chinese! With our cutting edge voice compression technology, this product includes more than 1000 phrases, their Chinese translation, and the voice in only a few megabytes. Supports all Windows Mobile Pocket PCs. H&H China2Go Talking Phrase Book for Windows Mobile