the Miao of China​​​​​

​Life has allowed me to live two years in the heart of Asia where I met the ''Colors of China'' association'' at the Singapore French highschool. I was immediately seduced by them. Founded over 20 years ago by a French woman, Françoise Grenot-Wang who managed through sponsorship, to ​school young girls of the Miao, Dong and Yao minorities. We thus became sponsors of three of these girls.

 

Being able to meet these authentic remote Chinese minorities, living far away from economic life was an incredible opportunity and, in autumn 2011, we quickly planned our trip to Miao country.

 

The time was ripe to take photos: the light was beautiful, smiles were welcoming and we witnessed the last days of the glutinous rice harvest which constitutes their main diet. I felt great pleasure in immortalizing those wonderful moments.

 

For several days we walked the beautiful mountains, flanked by rice terraces and became aware of how difficult ​the minorities' life was. Indeed, many villages are only accessible on foot along muddy dirt roads. We were welcomed into one of our godchildren's home and were particularly affected by her grandmother generosity as she rushed over to offer our child a hard boiled egg ... animal proteins, usually reserved for celebration days. The old woman was in charge of several small children and the house, since the parents had left to go  work in the city.

 

Back in the "civilized" world, our son, then aged 11, was strongly affected and stayed silent all day ... why all this abundant food on our plates while the Miao children must be content with a vague spicy rice noodles soup, morning, noon and night ... what good are all my video games?

 

A sudden emotional awareness from a young boy who suddenly felt out of place with other children his age ...