• When visiting guests in Miao people, remember that you ca n’t eat chicken heads.
• Guests are generally not allowed to pinch chicken liver, chicken and chicken legs.
• chicken legs are reserved for children.
• Miao women are not allowed to sit on a bench with their elders.
• In the past, the Miao family usually let the male eat the food first and the female for the latter.
• Sometimes the mother can eat at the same table with her husband and son, but the daughter and daughter-in-law always eat after they finish.
• When people eat together at the fire pit, the side near the center pillar is used to let the elder or the guests sit.

There is usually four phases of a Miao wedding:

Before the wedding:

• After Miao young men and women fall in love, their parents choose a good day for them to marry. However, for a period of time before marriage, the men and women could not meet. The day before the marriage, the man would send the wedding supplies to the woman's house. Among these greetings, there would be a large and thick sticky Black sesame rice cake. It usually weighs about 25 kg to 30 kg. The dumplings symbolize that the bride and groom will have ample food and clothing after marriage.

The Welcoming ceremony

• In the morning of the wedding, The groom would be accompanied by the best men and go to bride's home with gifts.
• Within the best men, there must be a married middle-aged man with experience.
• When they arrives at the woman's home, the female relatives of the bride would carry bamboo poles to stop them.
• The women would sing to the best men. After each song, the men must give a present to these women. Each gift would make the women to take back one bamboo pole to make way.
• Walk like this for a while, the groom would reach the bride's home.
• At the bride's house, the girls would stand surround the groom and design games to tease him and to make the guests laugh.

Wedding ceremony

• After the groom gets the bride, the bride and groom would toast to the elders and guests and accept their congratulations.
• Before the meal begins, the bride and groom must feed their parents first.
• During the wedding, the girls from the bride's family can cover the groom with a large bamboo basket, making the groom unable to move.

Marriage crying

• It is one of the Miao marriage traditions
• It usually starts from the first half month or one month before the wedding day.
• As the relatives and townspeople come to the bride's house, they would give gifts and the bride and the visitors would start to cry.
• There would be crying marriage song that they would sing
• They would cry because many of them feel sorrow about the lost of the happy life of the girlhood of the bride
• At the wedding day, the bride would also cry to thank her family or to express the anxiety before the new life.
• Occasionally, some brides would cry because they marry to someone who they don't love. In this case, the bride would cry and curse the matchmaker.
• If a girl who marries without crying is seen by her neighbors as uneducated and ungrateful.

• Climbing the knife ladder is a traditional performance show of the Miao people.
• Miao people always do this performance when there is a Miao festival.

How did this tradition came from?

• According to the ancient Miao myth, there was once a young man named Zhang Erlang 张二郎. When he was young, his parents, his brother, and sister died tragically. When he was all alone and lying on the roadside, a man named Zhao saved him, who decided to raise him up. Thus Erlang changed his last name to Zhao.
• One day, a strong wind came to the village, and all the people in the village were blinded by the sand. Some people said that only the dew on the moon could wash the eyes. In order to save his life-saver and fellow, Zhao Erlang determined to get the dew on the moon, so he carried a yellow umbrella and came to the big tree which soared into the clouds. He put the knives on the tree poles, and then walked along the knife ladder to the sky. 36 days later, a yellow umbrella slowly fell from the sky. The umbrella was covered with dew. The Miao family washed their eyes with dew and saw the sky again. However, Zhao Erlang never returned to earth. To commemorate Zhao Erlang, Miao people perform climbing the knife ladder whenever there is a Miao festival.