1. Clothing
Both men and women wear cotton or brocade (in the past, homemade homespun or linen) gowns with a loose right hem, which looks like a cheongsam.
Men's clothes are above the knees, and some women's shirts reach to the insteps. The colors vary with age. Middle-aged and elderly people mostly wear single blue and black, while young girls like bright colors. The collar, cuffs and placket are decorated with patterns, and the oblique placket is inlaid with patterns one to three fingers wide, and some are inlaid with plum blossom-shaped silver ornaments, all of which are carefully handmade.
2. Diet
The Qiang people have a rich diet. The staple food is corn, potato, wheat, and highland barley, supplemented by buckwheat, oyster, various beans, and a variety of vegetables. Traditional foods include stir-fried dumplings, corn steaming, "gold wrapped in silver" or "silver wrapped in gold", potato glutinous rice cake, boiled potato, and pork fat.
3. Travel
The Qiang area has high mountains and narrow valleys, and difficult traffic. The Qiang people used their wisdom to build bamboo cable bridges, "suspension cables" zip ropes and wooden frames. The bridge was built and the plank road was dug. The rope bridge was called "箮" in ancient times. It was made by tying bamboo ropes to solid objects on both sides of the river valley. It did not use iron nails or piers, but used multiple bamboo ropes across the river side by side, with wooden boards laid on them to connect people and animals.
4. Dance
The Qiang dance style is simple and elegant, rough and graceful. It is mainly divided into four categories: self-entertainment dance, sacrificial dance, ceremonial dance and assembly dance. The basic movements are relatively consistent but each has its own characteristics. The most representative types of self-entertainment dance include "Shalang" and "Xibu Cui", which are closely related to festivals and festive activities.
5. Marriage
Before the founding of New China, the marriage of Qiang men and women followed "the orders of their parents and the words of the matchmaker". Forms of marriage such as "marriage" and "sale marriage". Marriage pays attention to the right match, and there are customs of transferring houses, marrying into a bride, and marrying by robbery. After the founding of New China, independent marriages gradually became more common. But the traditional ceremonial procedures have been preserved to this day.
With the economic development of Qiang Village, people's lives have improved, and new content has been added to the marriage rituals of the past. The combination of tradition and modernity brings the traditional culture of the Qiang people into full play and adds to the festive atmosphere.