REWIND: China

Another unit in my "rewind" series, giving you a taste of my trips until such time as I can post more in detail (likely when I return to the states)...

Arriving in Yunnan province, China (in early April) was different than most of the other arrivals on my trip-- for me it was a real homecoming, as long-time readers of this blog know. I spent almost 6 months in Yunnan during university studying Mandarin; learning about Chinese history, religion, and economics; and doing anthropology research for my undergraduate thesis in Anthropology, which focused on the storytelling traditions of the Lisu indigenous group in northwest Yunnan. The entirety of my visit to Yunnan this time around had a nostalgic, affectionate feel, as I revisited old haunts, met old friends and, in the last section, took my parents to meet some of the people who opened their homes and lives to me during my research.

Kunming:
*I spent almost a week in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, but it wasn't a particularly eventful week. I had lunch with old teachers; saw one of my friends from the semester abroad, Mike, who was in town doing research on a Fulbright grant; spent an inordinate amount of time in my old favorite restaurants and cafes (most significantly Salvador's, the best western-style coffee shop in the city, which had been the victim of a terrorist attack since my last visit.) I stayed in Mike's apartment for the duration of my visit, but he had to go back to the US unexpectedly to look at graduate schools. It turned out to be a great set up, though, as I caught the first serious cold of my entire trip and was basically flat on my back for most of the week, sleeping and watching internet TV but not having to worry about getting anyone else sick or dealing with a hotel staff/ loud hostelmates.

On campus at Yunnan Normal University, my home for spring semester 2007
Zhongdian
Once I started feeling better, I made my way to Zhongdian (also known in Tibetan as Gyelthang), a tourist boomtown on the edge of the Tibetan world, only a short trip from the border of the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region). I had been for a brief trip with my classmates during the semester abroad and had been deeply affected by the atmosphere, which truly is different than anywhere else, and the mix of cultures I learned about during our stay. My entry from that time ("Kham is Calm," which can be found in the 2007 archive of this blog) marveled at the amazing serenity I felt while exploring the Songzanlin monastery outside of town. I returned to Zhongdian hoping to reclaim that feeling and delve a little bit deeper into the world whose surface I had only brushed three years ago.

*I stayed in a guesthouse belonging to a bicultural couple, Mattieu and Kersan, he from Belgium, she from a Tibetan settlement a couple of hours north toward the border, who were friendly and very interesting to talk to. The guesthouse was beautiful, and every morning their cook/helper made me a traditional Tibetan breakfast of flatbread with honey, yogurt, fruit, and (instead of butter tea) coffee. I would sit out in the brisk spring sunshine enjoying the view of the new temple and town rooftops before starting my day.

*I went to visit that new temple, which the people of Zhongdian erected after their town because something of a tourist mecca, and took a spin around the largest prayer wheel in the world. Afterward, I happened get into a long conversation with one of the monks. He asked me a lot of questions about American life and told me about what it's like to be a monk and about his home life.

The largest prayer wheel in the world Prayer flags against a backdrop of spring cherry blossoms *I went back to Songzanlin Monastery, which had changed a great deal (including the addition of a large and obtrusive tourist gate and a price hike) but was still equally affecting and beautiful inside. There I made friends with a pair of monks, one young and one old, who told me they were grandfather and grandson. They were delighted to talk to me, the younger taking my camera for a spin around the prayer hall and the older admiring my girth (the subject of much unfortunate admiration in that part of the world) and engaging me in a simple political discussion. When I told him I was American, he smiled. "Bush, Dalai Lama" he said happily, showing me two clasped hands. "England, Dalai Lama; France, Dalai Lama"-- the clasped hands again. Then his expression darkened. "China, Dalai Lama," he said, and his fist drove into his open hand.

At the monastery
Grandfather and grandson
*During my first trip to I had met several members of Khampa Caravan, a Tibetan-run tour company that ensures that the money from its tours goes straight to the Tibetan community in the area (rather than opportunistic businesspeople who have flocked to the city to take advantage of the tourist boom.) I decided I wanted to make a day trip into the countryside outside of Zhongdian, and Khampa Caravan seemed like a good place to start. I contacted the company, and in the course of deciding on a drive north toward Deqin I made friends with the Caravan with whom I was corresponding, whose name was Dolma.

One Dolma rounded up several of her Tibetan friends, and we all drank strong Tibetan wine and talked into the night as the Lhasa Cafe emptied around us. During my first trip to Zhongdian I had met a few Tibetans who I was told had been educated in India, but I never really thought about what this meant. Discussing my new friends' life histories, however, I started to understand the amazing strength Tibetan refugees in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces must have. Each of the men pictured below left his home in the Chinese countryside between age 11 and 13. He took a bus to Lhasa (3 days), then walked-- yes, walked-- over the Himalayas for 17 more, often with no food and little to drink. He then had to sneak over the border into Nepal, bus to the Indian border, and hope to claim refugee status there. If he succeeded, he could stay in India until his education was complete 5-10 years later, never seeing his family and recieving letters a few times a year if he was lucky. If he didn't (as in the case of the gentleman in the middle of this picture), he would be sent back to Lhasa, where he would have to start the 17-day walk all over again.

As the liquor flowed, we began trading songs and stories from our respective cultures. The cafe was empty by this time, and I got goose bumps as the voices of my new friends, strong with drink, soared in unfamiliar melodies punctuated by whoops and handclaps. (I will be sure to post some of these stories, and possibly a video with one song in the "real" entry on Zhongdian later this year.)

My new Tibetan friends
* My day trip up near Deqin was wonderful. The weather was gorgeous, the scenery stunning, and my guide well informed. We drove first up a major pass overlooking Napa Lake, then down to what locals call a "hot" valley, where prosperous artisan villages create amazing crafts, from cast iron pots of wooden sculpture to beautiful brasswork. The enormous traditional houses were bordered with cacti, certainly not an item I had had on my list of "things you would find in Tibet." The amazing day, which deserves its own entry, ended with a tortuous drive to an ancient monastery and a beautiful nunnery.

Napa lake in the spring
*Giving in to the impulse I would be fighting (and still am) for many months to do and see everything possible, no matter the stress, I arranged before I left Zhongdian to participate in a short (very short) "homestay experience." The program, new for its type in Zhongdian, was a form of ecotourism, connecting me with a farmer in a very small village outside town. He picked me up and drove me through countryside teeming with yaks and goats to his house, where I met his family, learned about his enormous 3-floor wooden house (which he built himself, over 2 years), and ate fried potatoes and butter tea. It was a too-brief, but despite the squeeze I had to make in order to catch my sleeper bus that night, a peek into daily life untainted by mass tourism (thought certainly tourism in some way) was well worth the effort

The unbelievably adorable daughter of the man at my brief homestay outside ZhongdianNujiang

I had to catch said sleeper bus because... I was due to meet my parents in Dali, 8 hours away, the next morning! Dedicated readers of this blog will be familiar with the Nujiang valley, where I did the anthropology research that made up my undergraduate thesis. I was very excited to return 2 years later, with my parents in tow. I missed the place and wanted to experience it again. More importantly, I missed the friends I had made during the tumultuous but incredibly rewarding time I spent there. And I was thrilled that I had the opportunity to share my unique experience, and this side of China (which few people get to see) with my parents-- in short, to introduce my American family to their and Pumi and Lisu alternates.

*After an exhausting but amazing trek up the valley from Dali (10 hours in a van, but what scenery!) we spent my mother's 60th birthday in Fugong, the geographic and culture center of the Lisu tribe in Yunnan. I took my parents to the market, walked them around town, and introduced them to Mr and Mrs X, who had nursed me to back to health when I had fallen ill with dysentary 2 years prior. Things went similarly wonderfully south in Liuku. After my cell phone was stolen in Taiwan, and all my Chinese contact information with it, I had been sure I would not be able to track down the numbers of all the friends I made in Nujiang. But a mixture of luck and guanxi (the complicated net of Chinese reciprocity that connects everyone socially and practically) connected me with everyone I could have hoped to see. The reunions were truly lovely.

Lisu with their bags and baskets in Fugong
My Fugong Family meets my real family-- Mr and Mrs X, me, and my parents


Nujiang scenery
*The highlight of the Nujiang trip was a 2-day stay with the Xiong family outside Lanping. Long time readers will remember Limei, my Pumi translator who attached herself to me during my stay in Liuku and with whom I stayed in the countryside at the very end of my time in Yunnan. Limei's family had long been inviting mine to come and visit, and this was an experience I wanted my family to have. So this time I brought my parents, too-- and an important gift, a sit-walker for Limei's mother, who is unable to walk due to debilitating arthritis.

Those two days were powerful in a way I'm not sure I can explain, especially not in a round-up format like this one. In depth description will have to wait until the full-length entries. But suffice to say that living with a peasant family for 48 hours was a remarkable experience for my parents (and for me, too, although I knew what to expect.) We ate meals cooked over an open fire from chickens slaughtered hours before; we slept in the simple wooden house lined with newspapers; we peed in the potato fields. At night a group of Pumi from the village descended, curious to see the visitors, and after many rice wine toasts took to singing and dancing around the fire and insisting that we join them. And the family was so, so grateful for the walker. They cannot treatment or surgery for Mrs. Xiong, who suffers terribly and gets around by dragging wooden stool across the ground. When I left, they called me their seventh child. "You are our American family now," were their parting words.

Dinner with the Xiong family

Xiong life
Our blended family together (My parents and I are wearing the traditional clothes we were given as gifts)
Mrs. Xiong playing a traditional Pumi instrument

*Our last stop was Lanping, where we arrived in time for the Sunday market, an amazing blend of vegetables, medicinal herbs that Yi and Hmong women bring from the high mountains, trinkets, practical items, and exotics (like jade from Burma.) A visit to the market was one of my favorite parts of a weekend in Lanping, and it was wonderful to be able to share this with my mother, who came along to wander.

Burmese jade traders
Some of the wares(note the porcupine quills)

I think these women are Yi, although they might be Hmong-- some kind of hill tribe wearing head gear I'd never seen before
We were reluctant to leave the market, but time was short-- we were due at the Dali airport to leave for Vietnam!

An ending and a beginning

At long last I've finished recording my five months of incredible adventure in China. As a way to close off that era of this blog, I thought I would experiment with a new feature on blogspot (well, since I began recording my Chinese adventures almost two years ago): video. Below are a few videos of the Xiong family--they give a far more vivid picture of what it was like to live in a Pumi village for three days than I ever could.


The circle dance


Limei's older brother sings a traditional Pumi song in the half-light of their house at night



Limei's mother plays the Pumi version of the Jew's harp
(I have a wonderful video of her singing, but unfortunately it's too large for blogspot)


So now, with this behind us, we shall take "Wide Eyes Wider World" into the future. There's an entire 11-day road trip down the east coast of the United States to blog about (March 2008). And by the time that's done, dear reader, we will have a year-long trip around the world to embark upon.

But that's another story...

For now, this is the chance to say 再见 (good bye) to China one last time,

The Ruralest Ruralist (A Final Three-Day Yunnan Adventure)

Xiong Limei, the young woman who had been my translator but, more importantly, my friend during my Independent Study Project in May, had invited me to visit her family in rural Lanping county for the last few days before my trip back to the U.S., so after saying goodbye to my friends in Fugong, I climbed on a bus and braved an 8-hour trip through roads ravaged by the summer rain. I planned to meet my friends Jackson and Linda and to spend the afternoon with them before meeting Xiong Limei for the bus ride out into the countryside.

It was Sunday, and the city was alive with peasants coming in from the countryside to buy their groceries. I was particularly struck by the many Yi women in their bright clothing. It seemed to me they were everywhere-- in noodle shops, leaning against the open doorways of cell phone stores, dragging their purchases down the street. My previous encounters with Yi outside of Dali during my homestay had taught me that they can be very elusive and tend to stick high in the mountains. As fascinated as ever by this life that must be so different than mine, I watched with excitement as they went about their market routines. There was even an Yi nainai watching her grandchild play in Lanping's city center park.

Yi women out for market day in downtown Lanping


An Yi woman looks on as children play in Lanping park. This was the only decent picture I ever got of an Yi woman in married headdress-- you can really see how big it is


Lama people were also in abundance that Sunday. Here a Lama woman plays with a child (I'm guessing her granddaughter) in the city park, Lanping. I love her headpiece in particular.


Sitting on the street by Lanping park talking in the evening


I was lucky enough to be able to leave my giant suitcase with Jackson for a few days, meaning that I only had a small day-pack to carry as Xiong Limei and I caught the small, beat up transport van thirty minutes outside of Liuku on cobbled roads. She motioned to the driver to stop on a small, roughly hewn wooden bridge over a burbling river. There were no houses near-- we would have to walk to her village, 20 minutes off the road. As we disembarked, a Pumi man in a dirty baseball hat looked at me with a mixture of blank curiosity and shock. He regained himself and climbed in to continue his journey, but later in the week Xiong Limei's sister, who is a doctor in Lanping, told me he had talked to everyone he met about he had seen "one of those people with white skin, like on TV" for the first time in his life.

The hike to the Xiong house wasn't easy. The rainy season had turned the path into thick sludge, and my foot was not yet healed (and would not be for months.) Nevertheless, we slowly made our way up the flanks of a long, large hill (the foothills of the mountains which are foothills to the Himalayas.) When I arrived at the house I was warmly greeted by Limei's father, a spry man with gleaming black eyes, a stubbly chin, and an impish grin, and mother, a beautiful woman with a kind face, her black-grey hair caught up in the turban traditional to Pumi people. Both of them spoke the local Mandarin dialect with thick accents I often could not understand, but they had learned to comprehend Mandarin by watching Chinese TV so we were able to communicate in a lopsided sort of way, with one-way translation required much of the time.

Limei's mother was especially happy to have me visit-- she has suffered from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis since she gave birth to Limei in her early twenties. If she lived in the US she would be wheel-chair bound, but in the remote Chinese countryside she gets around using a pair of low wooden stools. Her basic mode of transportation is to sit on one stool, place the other in the direction she wishes to travel, scoot herself onto the second stool, and start again. She doesn't move around much for this reason, and so in her 50-year life I was the first white person she had ever met, and she was thrilled to welcome me into her home. I was lucky enough to be visiting when she had the one arthritis treatment the family can afford per month, which helps to keep the swelling down. Even a few days later, she showed me the goose eggs developing by her knees and elbows. It was hard to watch and know that I couldn't change the situation for her or her family-- but as soon as I returned home I sent her a grasping tool of the sort given to the elderly in nursing homes here to pick things up from far away when I returned home.

The Xiong house was different from any I had ever been in. It consisted of two long, wodden buildings with a yard in between-- one building for the animals (pigs, goats, a horse) and one for the family. The family house had two levels, with the upper reserved for storage and the lower divided into a bedroom for Limei's parents, a bedroom for Limei and her siblings (if they were home), and an all-purpose kitchen/dining room/living room where the family spent most of their time chatting, preparing dinner using the san jiao (meaning "three legs," a cooking rack) over the open fire, and eating. There were no bathrooms-- while I stayed with the Xiongs such business was conducted in the potato fields or behind the house (depending on what sort of bathroom excursion you were headed on). There was also no running water (the Xiongs get their water from a stream a few minutes down the hill) and minimal electricity, only a few light bulbs to use at night.

Images of the Xiong house





I slept surprisingly well in Limei's extra bed, sheets and blankets wrapped around a wooden board. Limei's father brought us in a couple of bricks heated from the fire to keep us warm in our beds, and we barricaded to door from the inside with a large concrete block to stave off any intruders.

The weather was quite rainy and wet for the time I spent with Limei and her family--it was late July and the wet season had its claws in deep all over Yunnan. This meant that Limei didn't need to spend all of her time herding the family's goats and pigs, as she would have during clearer weather. Instead, after a breakfast of fried potatoes and pork Xiong's mother, father, and older brother (home from medical school just to see the foreign visitor) took turns doing Pumi dances for me and singing traditional songs, sometimes accompanying themselves on a roughly-hewn wooden instrument something like a cross between a guitar and a banjo or pounding the beat on a tightly-rolled up sheep skin that stood in for a drum. The songs and dances ranged from made up on the spot (Limei translated a sad song her mother sang about losing her own mother at age 13) to the thoroughly traditional, to be performed at rituals and on holidays.

For dinner, they killed one of their chickens for me to eat. This was a big deal-- for people living a subsistence lifestyle, a live chicken is a sustainable resource who will provide eggs (for eating and for producing more chickens) throughout its life. A dead chicken is one night's dinner. Thus, killing a chicken for a guest is an enormous honor. So even though I was fairly disgusted by having to watch as they chased the chicken (clearly cognizant of its fate) around the yard, slit its throat, drained the blood, etc, I tried to honor their way of honoring me by not cringing. And in some detached way, it was interesting to watch the process of creating a chicken dinner from start to finish.

The beginning of the process of cooking a chicken over an open fire


Xiong Li Mei and her mother outside their house


Getting water from the giant water vat


After dinner, the songs and dancing commenced again, lasting long into the night and lit only by the fire under the san jiao and the single bare lightbulb.

Xiong Li Mei's mother performs for me

In the morning, Limei was determined to find me some Lisu people to speak to about stories-- my thesis research was focusing on Lisu stories and their relationship with Christianity, and I hadn't had a chance to talk to any Lisu from the Lanping area. We walked an hour and a half down the road. As the rain intensified and I grew tired, Limei insisted that there was no need to take a bus--the village we were walking to was only a few minutes away. My foot was getting sorer and sorer and I was getting wetter and wetter, but I didn't crack until she pointed across the road and said "Okay, now we only need to climb over there." Miserable, I started up a small mountain, my foot throbbing with every step up the steep, muddy incline. As we reached the top I could barely walk, and the rain was coming down in buckets. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and began to cry. Limei was flummoxed, unsure what to do. "Li se," she said to me, "don't cry here. There may be gui around. They will like you too much if you cry." She was referring to a legendary figure in the Pumi and Lisu pantheon, a malevolent, flesh eating spirit that loves to torment humans. Later that night, when I complained of an upset stomach (probably from an overstimulating day and our dinner of roasted pig's head) she wondered aloud if the cause might not be a gui from earlier on the mountain. Regardless, I was finally able to pul myself together when I looked around and found that the worst was over and we had emerged on a level, sandy cow path (with a few cows munching wet hay to prove it.)

The outing unfortunately proved to be mostly fruitless-- we found only a few Lisu home during the summer planting season and were able to convince them to tell me a couple stories, but my black mood prevailed and they didn't have much to offer. Luckily, one of the people at the last house we visited was taking a large load of hay into the nearest village to sell, and he offered us a ride in his huge purple wood hauler. I sat in the cramped passenger seat, with Limei on my lap and the farmer's dog on her lap. Luckily, it was only a 15 minute drive, with the transmission vibrating mightily underneath us all the way, belching diesel.

I was scheduled to leave for Lanping, and then Kunming, early the next morning, but Limei's uncle arrived at the house that night to try and convince me to come to his house nearby for lunch. As politely as I could, I told him that I would be leaving to go back to America before lunchtime but that I really appreciated his generosity. "But," he protested, "I already killed two chickens for you!"

I felt terrible, knowing what a sacrifice those chickens were and what message they sent about his feelings for his would-be lunch guest. But my bus would not wait, and even if I had had the time I doubted I could climb up the enormous hill to his house with my bum foot. The situation was tense-- the family couldn't understand why I wouldn't just postpone the bus trip to honor Uncle, and I desperately wanted not to be perceived as ungrateful or rude. I dodged a bullet by arranging for Uncle Xiong to come for breakfast before I left. He and his two daughters joined with Limei, her brother, and father in showing me a traditional circle dance done at the Pumi New Year. Limei's mother sat on her low stool in the middle of the circle, clapping and singing along, seemingly fine with her inability to dance. Somehow it wasn't as sad as it might have been.

Before I left, we took pictures together and Limei's parents issued a formal invitation for me to return any time with my parents. I was their American daughter, they said. We took our final photographs, then Limei and I left for the first leg of a long trip back to America.

All of the Xiong family, gathered to say goodbye as I leave for Kunming and then the US