One of the first things I noticed after moving to Kaili was the large amount of murals, statues and photos depicting two bulls fighting each other. I wasn't sure what this was actually about until a few weekends back when some friends and I took a bus to a nearby village to celebrate the Miao minority's New Year's Festival. While walking around the village of Leishan, we noticed 2 separate herds heading down to the waterfront of a river which splits the village in two. The first herd was the typical crowd of Chinese people one sees very often over here, but the second herd was a rare sight indeed. Around 20 very large bulls were also being led down to the waterfront that day, and when we followed, we saw that a large arena had been set up for the bullfights. Not knowing what to expect, we really found the first three fights quite uneventful. The first two bulls just locked horns and stood still for about 15 minutes until some Chinamen tied ropes around the bulls' back legs and used them to pulled the two bulls apart. The second fight was a little more exciting in that the bulls went into the water and clashed until one bull proved dominant and the other fled back to shore, emasculated. The third fight was not even a fight, because the bulls let love overcome them, and well… um… let's just say they that with two bulls, who needs a cow. With the combination of our tired legs, poor view, and 3 lackluster fights, we decided to actually go down to the beach to see what was really going on with these bulls. Our desire for action was quickly satisfied when two bulls started chasing each other directly towards the crowd we were in. As I ran away from the two bulls and 50 Chinese people chasing me, I cleverly headed up a small path thinking that no bull would ever follow me. As I turned around to see the damage done behind me, I was surprised to see a bull less than a foot behind me. Luckily, I had enough time to jump to the side of the path just in time for the two bulls to race past me, with their enormous horns about a foot from my face. We decided to take it easy after that fight, and just watch the rest of the fights from a safer place on a small wall. After the fights were finished, we tried to take a cab back home, only to find that the road was fully blocked. We walked about 10 minutes in between the cars of a gridlock traffic jam and caught another taxi on the other side which got us to the bus station with a solid 30 seconds before the last bus home left. All in all, it was a great start to the Miao New Year.
