“A family in trouble will get help from one hundred families.”

The Yao Nationality attaches importance to rituals. Yao people are pure and honest. In the custom of the Yao Nationality, a family in trouble will get help from one hundred families. No one picks up and pockets anything lost on the road, and in the evening, doors keep unlocked.

A family in trouble will get help from one hundred families. This not only reflects the collective concept and awareness of Yao people, but also reveals their spirit of union and mutual help.

In Guibei Yao Nationality region in Guangxi, during spring ploughing time, you often can witness the happy scene of Yao people in rows and lines singing and sowing collectively. This mode of production is called Gong Drum Field. (Luo Gu Di) Following the accompanying drum beats, the laborers sing together, creating a lively atmosphere. In Jinxiu Yao Mountain, the yearly seedling planting goes on collectively. Young men and women from different villages get together, talking, singing, planting, and walking from one village to another. In the daytime, they labor in the field, at nights they sing and are passionately in love. This mode of production not only helps to eliminate fatigue, accelerate production speed, but also promotes friendship and union.

In Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Guizhou or Yunnan, where there live the Yao Nationality, there is the good custom, just like a family in trouble will get help from one hundred families. Weddings, funerals, house building, whenever a family encounters some accident and need help, say, lacking wine or meat, food or money, all people in the village will give their hands. To take care of the orphan, widow, old, weak, sick, or poor is every one’s duty. If one person feels miserable and degrades into a beggar, this means an enormous shame to the whole tribe and the entire village.
Some phenomena still exist in some Yao Nationality regions, such as no one picks up or pockets the things on the road, and in the evening doors keep unlocked. In Yao villages, from land to haystack, as long as there is a straw knot indicating the existence of the owner, no one will attempt to touch it, let alone possess it. When you go to labor on the mountains or visit the relatives, you can casually leave the unnecessary luggage on the roadsides or hang them on the trees. They will always be there. Doors are often unlocked. Even if they are locked, the keys can be easily found on the doorframes. However, besides good friends and close relatives, strangers will never enter the house without permission.

This is the Yao Mountain! And this is the diligent and pure Yao people.