The Dong Ethnic Group has a population of 2,514,014 in China, mainly distributed in Qiandongnan (Southeastern Guizhou) Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Yuping, Xinhuang, Tongdao, Zhijiang, etc. counties in Guizhou Province neighboring to Hunan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

　　The Dong people are mainly engaged in farming, planting paddy rice. The special local product is the glutinous rice, with Xianghe glutinous rice enjoying the highest reputation. A small number of the Dong people are engaged in forestry. Fish culture in ponds or rice fields is also common in the populated areas of the Dong people.

　　The earliest name of the Dong people ---- “Geling” was found in the historical document in the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279). The other names of “Dong-Man”, “Dong – Miao”, “Dong-Ren”, “Dong-Jia”, etc. ever appeared in the Ming (1368 – 1644) and the Qing (1644 – 1911) dynasties. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, they have been called by a joint name of Dong. A general designation of “Dong-Jia” is called among the folk people.

    　　The Dong people have their own language, belonging to Dong-Shui branch of the Zhuang-Dong language of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. They had originally no ethnic characters. The Dong’s written language has been created since 1950s. Currently, most of the Dong people understand the Chinese language.

　　The populated areas of the Dong people are regarded as the “Hometown of poems and the sea of songs”. The rhythm of the Dong’s poems is strict and rigorous, with varied subjects. Especially the Dong’s multi-part cappella should be the most succinct part in the traditional culture. It is of a most precious value both in culture and in music.

[Dietary Habits]

    　　In most populated areas of the Dong people they have three meals a day. In some places they have four meals a day: two times for cooked rice and two for tea. The Oiled Tea is the favorite food-drink of the Dong people. The Oiled Tea, fragrant and sweet, would be effective for refreshing the mind and keeping a cool head; also for expelling the damp fever, prevention and cure of the flu and diarrhea. When the guests come, the hospitable Dong people would entertain them with the Oiled Tea.

    　　The daily vegetables for the Dong people are very abundant. Except for the fresh vegetables of pumpkin, balsam pear, fragrant-flowered garlic, most foods should be salted and pickled, e.g., pickled cucumber, pickled turnip, pickled sward bean, pickled fiddlehead, etc.. The daily dishes of the Dong people mostly taste sour. They have not only the soured soup, but they process various pickled dishes with the soured soup: pickled vegetables, pickled meat, pickled fish, pickled chicken, pickled duck, etc.. The tradition had it that the pickled vegetables of the Dong people started in the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279).

    　　The shrimp sauce used by the folk Dong people is processed in the earthen jars. However, the salted and pickled fish, the salted and pickled pork chop, the salted and pickled beefsteak, the salted and pickled chicken and duck, etc. should mainly be in the tubes, both the wood bucket and the bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) tube will do. The best time for processing the preserved pickled fish would be in winter. The longer to pickle it, the more delicious it would be. Except for the pickled foods of fish and shrimps, they may often be eaten freshly.

    　　The grown-up men of the Dong people are generally fond of drinking. They mostly drink rice wine they have made by themselves, without high degrees and tasting light, pure and mild.

[Architecture]

　　The Dong people are good at architecture. The drum tower and the roofed bridge in the Dong villages, with ingenious structures and varied styles, are typical of the Dong’s folk arts in architecture.

　　There are many drum towers and the roofed bridges in Guizhou and Guangxi, which enjoy good names for a long time in the populated areas of the Dong people. Such ancient construction structures, prevailed during the period at the end of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) to the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), are of a tightly structure, of unique modeling, and rich in the national temperament. The whole structure has been mortised together with the high quality wood of China Fir and has not been nailed without a single nail, without a single clinch bolt or any other iron pieces. These ancient structures have arisen straight from the ground one after another.

    　　The drum tower in the Dong villages, with its outward appearance like a polygonal pagoda, is generally 20-odd meters high. From its 11 storeys above to the top of the drum tower, the whole part of the upper structure has been supported only by the 16 wood pillars of the China fir. The center of the building is wide and level, with the area of about 10 m². In the center part of the building there is a large heated stone bed for making fire. All around there are long benches with wood railings for rests. At the top of the tower there are figures of treasured gourds or thousand-year cranes, symbolizing good luck and happiness of the Dong village. The eaves’ tips of the drum tower rise high and up-warping, ingeniously and delicately wrought, as if they would fly and leap.

    　　The roofed bridge, also called the flower bridge, is one of the peculiar architectures in the Dong villages. Generally speaking, the Dong villages are built at both sides of the streams. The Dong people reside over the waters. Therefore, the stone arch bridge, the stone plate bridge, the bamboo bridge, etc. appear in the Dong villages here and there. However, the roofed bridge should be of the most ethnic characteristics of the Dong people, which the Chengyang Roofed Bridge located over the Linxi River in Sanjiang area of Guangxi would be the representative of it.