The interaction and collision of various cultures, customs, religions and colorful lifestyles offers visitors many things to see and buy. When you visit Dayao, please don’t forget to buy some local specialty as keepsakes or to your relatives or friends.

1. Tiger-head shoes of Yi ethnic people

Shoes worn by ethnic minorities differ from those of the Han nationality because of the different cultures--especially religious beliefs. The Yis, who have worshipped tigers since ancient times, present the "Tiger Culture" in many aspects of their life.

The tiger-head shoes are made of red cloth. In the front part of the shoes, the "five sense organs" are embroidered with threads of different colours such as blue, green, black, orange, and pinks etc.

2. Huocao Cloth Bags

The locally called “Huocao Grass” is known in Latin as Epilobium angustifolium.

Huocao cloth in West Yunnan is normally made from Epilobium angustifolium. This kind of home-made rare cloth is usually confined to some ethnic branches such as Baiyi people of the Yi ethnic minority of Heqing County, so bags made from tit are naturally valuable and hardly available on the markets.

3. Yi Ethnic Paper-cuts

The intelligent Yi ethnic ladies also give full play to their inspirations by making a variety of paper-cut artworks mainly used for decorating their costumes, bedrooms, waiting rooms, and most of the time for religious ceremonies. Patterns included are mainly plants, wild lives, and holy things in the Yi ethnic religion.

Dragon, phoenix, fish, birds, butterflies, peach blossoms, lotus flowers, tigers, magpies and others are what we normally can find on these artworks. They are widely used by people of different ages, social status and for different purposes. 

4.Yi Ethnic Lacquer Wares

Patterns on lacquer wares include natural patterns, animals, plants, life scenes, production scenes, and cultural images, among which animals are the most dominating-and followed by plants. This can be why the Yi ethnic group underline the animal husbandry in their life, since they had undergone a long nomadic history, settled down and finally survived on farming.