Dazu Town Pavement As Extended Living Room: Meeting Of Children By Closed Market Stall

Dazu People Watch Television Through Open Doors

The Dazu town streets at night were full of interesting sights, at least for the tourists. Dazu town during the day was a hive of activity but after the work had finished, the Dazu town people relaxed and enjoyed the cooler nights in their different ways. The main Dazu street became an extended living room to their homes, whose doors were always open; such was the community spirit of the town. On the Dazu pavement, by the doors of some of the houses, small tables acted as the family's market stall, displaying packets of cigarettes, bottled drinks, postcards, or whatever could be sold at a profit, although I suspect that the turnover was quite low.

Dazu Mother With Twin Babies Has Photograph Taken

Further down the street the uncovered framework of a larger market stall, was the meeting place of some Dazu children, acting as children do wherever they are. Two of them were engaged in a spirited conversation, but I don't know whether it was an argument or the exchange of some exciting gossip, whilst the youngest child seemed to be more interested in what he had found by his feet. Earlier on in the evening, while there was still sufficient light to do so, Joyce, a New Zealand member of our group had been using a video camera to record some of the Dazu street scenes, and occasionally would invite some of the curious onlookers to view a replay so that they could see themselves "on film". Later, when it had become too dark to do any recording, a young mother carrying her twin babies, wanted to be filmed and Joyce had some difficulty in explaining why that was not possible. To make up for the mother's obvious disappointment, I took a photograph of her as she proudly held her precious babies, even though it would be unlikely that she would ever see the photograph herself, but she seemed to be satisfied with that.

Dazu Women Winnow Grain While Men Play Cards

If there was any work being done in the cooler evening air, it was usually being done by the women, and one of them was putting rice through some machine to separate the grain from the chaff. During the day, the rice harvest had probably been laid out on the road to be "threshed" by passing traffic, a practice we had seen many times during our travels. Something else we had seen many times, was a game of cards being played, and of course there was a game or two in progress on the streets in Dazu !

A Selection from Robert's Wild Cards