OSS CBI Photobook 13 - Southwest China, Planting Time, 1945

OSS CBI Photobook 12, Part 2 - Koumintang 1945, continued

Kachin? Jingpo? Singpho?

I found this photo of Singpho ladies in full regalia,
having a side view of their hats,
of which we will see more as we go along.
They are not the same as the hat in the photo
above this one, which has particular features
in the back.  So the identity of these people
in the Photobook remains a puzzle:
somebody help me out here!

OSS CBI Photobook 12, Part 1 - Koumintang 1945

Boys drawn to a vehicle like a magnet -
it seems to be a universal thing.

Gene's China-Burma-India service patch.

It's early summer
somewhere in southwest China.
Katy, our scholarly consultant, says
"It looks southern from the trees of course."
We'll see trees.

Click to enlarge the details of people carrying in the grain harvest.
Behind them, war and politics loom.
That is Chiang Kai-Shek, naturally, featured on the center mural.Then on either side are some exhortations.

As Katy kindly explains:

  "The writing is a slogan about supporting the buildup of the army. The same technique of using the sides of buildings as billboards for public service announcements has continued into the present. Always a preference for a matching pair of 4 or 5 characters -- a couplet if you will, because that was so favored for inscriptions of all kinds.  e.g. on the two sides of a doorway at holidays, or on the two sides of a wall behind the desk of a scholarly mandarin."