Ethnic Custom: The Village of Longest Hair-Huangluo Yao Village in Guangxi Province

In the deep mountain of Guangxi Province, there live a group of women, they wear traditional costume with beautiful ornaments; they are gifted to be outgoing and optimistic; and when they laugh people seem to hear silver bell ring. These women are called “Hongyao”, who gave the Huangluoyao Village the reputation of “the village of longest hair”. The place they live is called Huangluoyao Village, belonged to the of Longsheng Gezu Autonomous County in Guangxi Northern Mountain Area.

Huangluoyao Village is located inside the Longji Scenic Area, about 100km away from Guilin. It is reachable by coach buses running between Guilin and Longsheng or coaches departing from Guilin railway station to Jinkeng Terrace. The village lies in the foot of Pingan Terrace; it is the only Yao ethnic dwelling among the Longji thirty villages.

In Huangluoyao Village, there live about 60 Hongyao families. About more than 80 Hongyao women out of 120 keep their hair longer than 1.4 meters, with the longest hair as long as 1.8 meter. The group has been listed by Guinness World Record as the “longest hair group”. Each Hongyao woman has three tufts of hair, except for the first tuft grown on the head, they keep the second tuft cut at their eighteenth and the third tuft collected daily when they do up their hair. The three tuft of hair must be bound in the head every day.

Hongyaos are blessed to have bushy and luxuriant hair, as long as the beautiful face is covered by wrinkles, the black and flowing hair never change. For Hongyaos, hair is as important as their life. Normally Hongyao women’s hairstyle could only be seen by their husband, so unmarried girls always cover their hair using a piece of black cloth until they get married. After giving birth to a baby, they would add a small topknot on the head representing having a child, so by seeing their hair, people could know whether this woman is married and how many child she has.

● Huangluo Yao Village Long Hair Custom

In red Yao woman’s mind, long hair has very important significance. Long hair, has a meaning of "long and prosper", a symbol of long life and wealth and a symbol of prosperity and good fortune. Red Yao women extremely value to the their hair, and they have custom of keeping hairs, dressing up hairs and have secret method of hair care which has passed from generation to generation.

From the age of 12 they began to keep hair, and when it grows to a certain length they will cut their hair and collect it. Red Yao women not only have long hair and their hair is pitch-black and beautiful and it is hard to see white hair. This is owing to their secret method that they use wooden comb to comb hair carefully, and their shampoo is made from rice washing water and mountain herbs.


● Hair style and Hair cut

Red Yao women have a fixed hairstyle. No matter young or old, all need to tie their hair upon the head. For them, the hair is like their body that can't be easily cut, so the unmarried woman only can cut their hair at the age of 18 which represent that she becomes an adult.

It is said that each Yao Woman has three bunches of hairs on head all her life. It means that two bunches of hairs are tied up with the growing hairs on her head. One bunch is dropped hairs which are collected from every day. Another is the hair cut at her age of 18. From the fact, you can see that the Yao females look hairs as important as their life. When the long hairs are waving and flying with Yao dancing, that is such a kind of charming beauty!

Red Yao women regard their hair as life, so they only cut their hair two times:
The first is during their one hundred days in infancy.
The second time is in 18th birthday, they need to cut off the hair growing since when they are children. And the cut hair is not discarded, they will use these to dress up the hair which is like wearing a hat on her head.


● Huangluo Yao Village Song & Dance Performance

The show is the best highlight of Huangluo Yao Village. As most of the time, Red Yao women wear their hairs up, so you cannot see the long hairs down when you just hanging in the village. However, during this performance, you can see the local women let their long hairs down to touch the ground. Besides, during the several parts, you can enjoy their featured ethnic songs, dances and folk customs really express their traditional beauty. On the part of Red Clothes Drying, local girls would take out their red clothes to dry which is the typical characteristic scenes on Red Clothes Festival. 

Furthermore, the real experience to see the women combing and wearing their long hairs into different hairstyles side by the river and waterwheel will show on there, so you will see their very simple and primitive life scene. More highlight is that you will see the traditional wedding customs of Red Yao girls from the token to the entering the bridal chamber on the wedding date.