The Bouyei are an ethnic group living in southern mainland China. Numbering 2.5 million, Some Bouyei also live in Vietnam. In China, the Buyi people are mainly distributed in Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces. Among them, the Buyi people in Guizhou Province have the largest population, accounting for 97% of the total Buyi population.
Clothes
Most of the Buyi costumes are green, blue and white. With regard to men, costumes are simple which include headscarves, specific-style short jacket, or long shirts and trousers. Women's clothing style is quite a lot and they still retain the traditional costumes of the Buyi people. They normally decorate their jacket with brocade and batik geometric patterns and sew the skirt with blue batik cloth. Homemade brocade and batik are the main features of the Buyi costumes.
Buyi Brocade
Buyi Batik
Otherwise, they used to use varieties silver jewelries to decorate themselves but less then Miao ethnic.
The headwear of Buyi women is also different with other ethnic groups.Before the marriage, they used to wear an embroidered headscarf; after the marriage, the bamboo shoot shells should be used as the "skeleton" special decoration to indicate that this woman has been married.
Language
The Buyi people have their own language, which belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch of the Zhuang-Dong Austronesian of the Chinese-Tibetan Phylum. And it is very close to Standard Zhuang language. There is a dialect continuum between these two. The Bouyei language has its own written form which was created by linguists in the 1950s based on the Latin alphabet.
Food culture (Gastronomy)
The Buyi people mainly eat rice, and also eat corn, wheat, red peony, buckwheat and so on. Glutinous rice is one of their favorite food. They can cook it in many ways. Such as: glutinous rice balls, round candy rice cake, pillow Zongzi and triangular Zongzi. In the festival, they also would like to eat various kind of glutinous rice which is dyed with flower juice and leaf juice.
Buyi Five Colors Glutinous Rice
Buyi Pillow Zongzi
Buyi Glutinous Rice Balls
Non-staple foods are available in a variety of vegetables, beans and meat. Vegetable processed products include the famous “Dushan pickle” and “Sour Chili”.Meat processed products include smoked bacon and sausage. Bean processed products mainly include Douchi, Tofu, and Blood Tofu. The Blood Tofu is a food made by directly heating and solidifying animal blood with Tofu. The common Blood Tofu is made from duck blood, chicken blood or pig blood. Blood Tofu can be eaten directly or with other ingredients for secondary cooking.
Dushan Pickle
Buyi Blood Tofu
In addition to, every household in Buyi can make glutinous rice wine and corn shochu, which are quite special. Some rice wines are made from wild locust fruit, are rich in nutrients. This technology has a history of hundreds of years. Buyi people usually use the rice wines to entertain their guests.
Buyi girls entertain their guests
Festival
Except for the New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Buyi people have many other traditional festivals. Liu Yue Liu-June 6th, San Yue San-March 3rd, and Si Yue Ba-April 8th are all festivals with ethnic characteristics.
Architecture
Due to the abundance of stone in the central part of Guizhou, the house is made of stone from the foundation to the wall, and the roof is also covered with slate,this specific kind of building is called the Buyi Slate House.
