Hiding Away

In the county side sometimes civilization's long hand cannot reach. Over hundreds of years several small towns on the outskirts of western china have kept out of the grasp of progression, keeping to a way of life time tested for generations.

In this particular town of Lo Hau Zai, people live up in the mountains and by what most people would call primative. No showers, no running water, no telephones, not much of anything we would call technology at all.

When I walked around the well worn stone and dirt through the town many people ran away and shut their doors, I dont know if they are not fond of forigners or just strangers in general, but it was an interesting sight. Eventualy we came up with the nickname of "closed door town" although it really looses something in the translation.

Here we have one of the inhabitants of this charming place, hiding from the strange looking guy coming down the path holding a camera. If you take a look to her left, you will see a hole in the wall, in that hole is a block of wood that you slide out to open the door, or if you want to leave something for someone, you stick it in the hole like a mail box.

I took this photo on fuji 100 film with the Canon 30V and a Canon 28-135mm IS lens.