So what the heck is Laru?

The history of LaRu is vague at best.  However, in general terms, LaRu is a “harvest festival” that takes place in five small villages in Tongren county in QingHai province China over the course of 5 days.  It’s, at it’s core, a shamanistic festival with some Buddhist ties that is intended to offer appeasement to the local mountain gods, who they believe to be the reincarnations of old Mongolian army generals.  The five villages all have shamans channel the spirits of the mountain gods and then do all sorts of crazy stuff such as animal sacrifice, personal blood letting, throwing themselves on open fires, and prophesying about the upcoming harvest.  This also coincides with a local ‘coming of age’ ritual where young village men are usually pierced through the cheek to test purity (if they bleed, they aren’t pure).

The festival is unique in that it takes place in and around Tibetan Buddhist monasteries but truly isn’t a Tibetan festival at it’s core.  In fact, Younger Buddhist monks are strongly encouraged to not attend the ceremonies (though you could see a few around trying to sneak a peek).  The festival outdates the introduction of Buddhism into the area and the local inhabitants, the Tu Zu (Tu Minority), are generally a mix between historically invading Mongolians and area locals.  The Tu don’t even natively speak the surrounding Amdo Tibetan and Chinese languages.  Interestingly enough, the village I stayed in is the only place in the world where their specific local language is spoken – even 2 miles up the road the language changes.  The simple irony here is that Tibetan religious pilgrims from far and wide come to see this festival that doesn’t even have it’s roots in Tibetan Buddhism.  This should give you some idea of the cultural, genetic, historical, and religious diversity of this area.

The festival is treated like a big party with food and drink vendors everywhere.  The villagers come out in their best clothes and little kids run around seemingly oblivious to the fact that a shaman carry the spirit of a mongolian general is running around bleeding everywhere.  Most of the older village men just sit around drinking beer and chatting.  You would have thought it was the 4th of July.

When the shaman isn’t parading around, the local village men perform ritualistic dances that go on for hours.  The locals are also required to bring food offerings of tsampa, bread, fruits, grains, oil, and powdered milk to be burnt on a central altar as appeasement.  The villagers also bring alcohol which is then poured out or immediately consumed by the shaman.

It was undoubtedly a crazy weekend.

WARNING: Beyond this point, there is some blood.  It’s not that bad.

LaRu Festival – Images by Brian Hirschy

First, we did have a great photo walk at Kum Bum/Ta Er Monastery.  It had been about three years since I had been out to this particular monastery – needless to say I didn’t get the memo that it had changed from a relatively quite and important monastery into Disneyland.  It was insane.  I got there and there were Chinese tourists literally as far as the eye could see.

In avoidance of tourists, I ended up spending 2 hours with a bunch of Tibetans who were renovating several of the buildings at the monastery – where no one was supposed to be allowed in.  But here’s the thing, I could speak some of the local dialect (read: 6 sentences – very little).  I’m not talking about Tibetan or Chinese – I’m talking about what they speak. I asked in the local dialect about what they were doing and if I could come in and take a look.  They were so blown away that they let me just wander around — my own private personal tour of the innards of one of the most important temples at the monastery.  As a 6′5″ American photographer, the local language breaks the ice even if I can’t carry on a conversation in it.

Not speaking the local language is not a death sentence in this type of situation, but it continues to open opportunities for me and have seen it do the same for other photographers – I’m not breaking any new ground here.  People like to speak their mother tongue, right?  They are usually extremely proud of it – significant pieces of the culture live in the language and if you can manage to utter ANYTHING , the doors start flying open.  We are now free to interact however we can – it doesn’t just break the ice, it takes 100 pounds of C4 to it.

So what are the benefits?  The main benefits that continue to show themselves to me are as follows:

• I get access to places I’m not generally allowed to go.
• People literally and instantaniously brighten up and are incredibly surprised and happy to hear a foreigner speaking their language
• The subjects are usually more excited to get their picture taken.

Heck, I could write an entire blog about the benefits.

With that, I leave this to you –  What are your struggles, experiences, and perceived benefits of language in photography?

(all the following shots are from this years WWPW)

Some of these shots were with a shoot through umbrella while others were using a standard diffuser and bounce – I even broke out the Fong Dong.

It was fun to work with a local photographer as well and to see what shots the locals are actually requesting (see the silhouette against the window).  It’s always a learning experience to shoot w/ a photographer from another culture that sees the wedding as an insider.

Take a look.

So after my meetings and shoot(s) in Hong Kong, I headed down to Penang for a bit of business and pleasure w/ our good ol’ Digital Trekker.  I have to admit, I went to Penang not knowing much about it other than it’s really really hot there and what I read on Wikipedia.  One of the beautiful things about living in Asia, is that airfare is silly cheap here.  I’m really glad I got to pay Penang a visit.

The morning of my first full day in Penang, I was told about a kind of clothing design they do in this part of the world known as Batik.  The friend that I was with told me about how it was made, and I was absolutely blown away.  Batik is made by applying wax to cloth, dying it, and then boiling off the wax – negative space design at it’s best.  Certan types of Batik are made usings copper stamps w/ wax rather than applying it by hand.  Nonetheless, I was impressed enough to spend about 3 hours at local Batik shop marveling at how cool this stuff is.  Check out some of the designs below – hand made!

That afternoon we spent the afternoon in downtown Penang.  Downtown Penang is truly a melting pot of South East Asian culture.  I visited Chinese clan houses, two mosques, and ate lunch at the best Indian restaurant in Penang.  I couldn’t have asked for much more.

Coming tomorrow – Shots from my first Malaysian Wedding.

Last Tuesday I had a meeting in Hong Kong to research possibilities for a future lighting/fashion/city-based workshop there with some awesome instructor(s).  Was an amazing trip filled with good food, some new friends, and just a whole lot of doing what I love – spending time behind a camera.  That being said I had 5 meetings in 7 days discussing some exciting things going photographically in Asia as well as the opportunity to do a quick scouting shoot in Hong Kong for this future workshop that we will help run later this year (stay tuned!)

Some shots from my 3 days in HK last week with Penang Clan Houses and Mosques coming tomorrow!