China: Miao men playing the lusheng, a traditonal Miao instrument, in the village of Langde Shang, southeast of Kaili, Guizhou Province

The lusheng (also spelled lu sheng; spelled qeej and pronounced gaeng in the Hmong language) is a Chinese musical instrument with multiple bamboo pipes, each fitted with a free reed, which are fitted into a long blowing tube made of hardwood. It most often has five or six pipes of different pitches, and is thus a polyphonic instrument. It comes in sizes ranging from very small to several meters in length. The Miao are a linguistically and culturally related group of people recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China as one of the 55 official minority groups. Miao is a Chinese term and does not reflect the self-designations of the component sub-groups, which include (with some variant spellings) Hmong, Hmu, A Hmao, and Kho (Qho) Xiong. The Miao live primarily in southern China, in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, and Hubei. Some members of the Miao sub-groups, most notably Hmong people, have migrated out of China into Southeast Asia (northern Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand). Following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975, a large group of Hmong refugees resettled in several Western nations (United States, France, Australia, and elsewhere.)

ID

AKG3813807

ProductionDate

2008-05-20

Credit line

akg-images / Pictures From History

Collection

Category

Topic

Location

High