The scenery along the road was beautiful.
The closer we drove towards the city, the more beautiful it became.
Because the buildings here were newer, sturdier, the disaster hadn't been as severe as in the epicenter; there weren't many collapses.
It wasn't that there had been no disaster here, just that compared to the places they had been, it was really so much better.
The waterwheels and tall towers of the Qiang ethnic group's villages were very characteristic. Ye Jiahong, a local from Mianyang, introduced them to everyone along the way.
"These wooden hanging foot buildings, weren't originally part of the custom. The Qiang people lived in stone houses. That tower, it's a watchtower, used for command and signaling during battles.
In the past, the Qiang nation was genuinely a warring nation, especially the western Qiang, who were often at war. Boys would receive a knife at the age of eighteen as a rite of passage; they were incredibly fierce, hence the battle-style architecture!"
