As soon as I put down my camera, a group of girls rushed toward me and grabbed my arms and legs. They tossed me about and bumped my head against their hips. Through the crowd's laughter, all I could see were white clouds and the colorful headdresses of the girls.

Visitors will love beautiful Baisha village in Huili county, Panzhihua city, in Southwest China's Sichuan province where the locals are free of inhibitions and express their happiness in the most natural way.

My photographer friends and I were in the village, located about 45 km from Huili county, in mid-April, to see the Water-Splashing Festival. Little did we expect the locals to welcome us in a very special way.

As soon as we downed cups of fragrant, home-brewed rice wine while the villagers sang the toasts, we were seized by a crowd and rocked about, with the men's heads being bumped into the women's hips and vice-versa. Everyone burst out laughing and in an instant, strangers had become familiar friends.

This unique welcome custom which they call "shai kang", literally "sifting the bran", is as common as shaking hands or embracing, elsewhere.

The hospitable local farmers trace this custom to the sifting of the husk from wheat or other grain. It is a symbolic gesture of getting rid of bad luck and bringing good health to the guest.

The elders also believe that human beings prop up the heavens on their heads and hold down the earth with the their hips. So a bumping of heads into hips means a coming together of heaven and earth, indicating harmony in the world.

We soon found that "sifting the bran" is a rather well-loved form of entertainment, and the locals take every opportunity to indulge in a bit of fun. As the girls try to evade the men, their laughter fills the air with much mirth and as their headdresses tumble, their long dark hair cascades to the ground like a shining black waterfall.

Despite torn clothes and scratches, the young men clearly enjoy being caught and bumped into the hips of someone they love.

This initial taste of local hospitality made us very wary of the next day's Water-Splashing Festival. I decided to play extra cautious when one of the local girls said that they particularly enjoyed splashing water on guests. Taking our cue from the locals, we sealed our cell phones and other important items in plastic bags.

After lunch the next day, we followed the villagers to pay tribute to the mythical dragon living on the mountain outside the village. This area faces water shortage and paying tribute to the dragon in early spring is an ancient custom aimed at appeasing the gods for adequate rain.

As if to justify the age-old ritual, it began raining halfway through the ceremony. Enthusiastic young men rushed toward the big barrels and scooped up water to splash on anyone who happened to go past them.

More than 1,000 visitors from nearby Panzhihua and Xichang cities had descended on the village to join in the celebrations but their small bottles were no match for the basins the locals carried.

Although the tourists were soon drenched, everyone was laughing. Some young men even caught hold of the women visitors and threw them into the water barrels.

The local leaders had told the villagers not to splash water on photographers. When we raised our cameras at the approaching villagers, they laughed and said: "We won't wet your camera." Instead, they splashed our feet and back. My camera still got wet twice; luckily, it still works.

Cai Yingchun, director of the township's cultural center, says most of the 1,100 villagers in Baisha are the 13th generation of descendants of the Yi people who moved there from Yunnan province. Although they have their own dialect, the young people speak only Putonghua.

Some 80 percent of the locals are surnamed Cai or Wang, as their ancestors married only within the group. Today, more Baisha people marry outside, Cai says.

Every family has many flowering plants in their yards giving the air a special fragrance. The houses are very clean and neat. No one shuts the door at night and burglary is unheard of.

Many young people work at a nearby mine, which provides them with a stable monthly income of around 1,500 yuan ($219). All the youngsters seem to have cell phones and every family has at least one motorbike.

On Aug 30 last year, an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck the area, reducing many houses to debris. When we visited, many villagers were still living in makeshift plank houses but I was struck by the enthusiasm of these happy people as they went about rebuilding their hometown.