The Sound of Music (pt 6)

Posted on April 2, 2009 by admin

The second of my back-to-back trips up the Mountain was with three German sisters in search of minority musicians willing to let us record them while performing. The oldest sister (and I mean “the oldest” at the ripe old age of 25) is a friend from JH who is beginning her graduate research in ethnomusicology, and the two younger girls were visiting from Germany during their school break.

Since I was going as their Chinese translator (and also was hoping to understand some of the B dialect wherever we ended up), I felt as if I were somewhat breaking the stereotype of the monolingual American. My pride should be deflated, though, by the fact that I was communicating with the three girls in English, not German. The middle sister kept apologizing to me for her poor English, but I contended that her English is better than my German (which consists of the numbers one to ten and a couple of cuss words).

After staying the night at David and Julie’s house, we headed out to a new village twelve kilometers from MN to visit a musician my teammate had met at a festival last year. Adam’s father went with us as our escort; he knows the B musicians in the village and was willing to spend the day helping us meet them. Before driving out of MN, he suggested we buy some packs of cigarettes to take as gifts. I showed him a container of homemade chocolate cake, oatmeal muffins, and candy I had brought from JH and asked if that would work as a gift instead of cigarettes. “Even better,” he said.

When we arrived in the village, dozens of people were standing along the road, in doorways, and on their balconies, waiting to see the foreigners. I found out later that it was the first time foreigners had come to visit the village. As if four white ladies showing up weren’t enough of a curiosity, I gave them even more of a shock by driving a truck all by myself. I wowed them further by saying a few basic sentences in B language; I’m sure by now the rumor has grown to say I’m fluent in B!

We spent the next few hours listening to the musicians sing and play cymbals, an “elephant leg” drum, traditional guitar, and a bamboo flute. My ethnomusicologist friend had them show her how to play each, and we recorded about twenty of their songs for her to analyze later.

As we expected, the B musicians wanted the foreigners to sing for them as well. The three sisters are all very musically gifted, and they sang several songs in three-part harmony for the crowd.

I couldn’t help but make jokes to myself all day about how surreal the experience was—I felt like I was translator for “The Von Trapps Come to Yunnan Tour.” Back home, the three sisters have five more siblings, and they’re all musically inclined. They’re German, not Austrian—I do recognize the difference, as well as the fact that the real von Trapps might be offended by my comparison, given the history for which they are famous.

All we needed was to end our day by walking over the mountains into the next country, while a group of nuns sang “Climb Every Mountain.” China and Burma, Austria and Switzerland…they’re practically the same.

Village Noises (pt 4)

Posted on March 31, 2009 by admin

Staying at David and Julie’s house always reminds me of staying at my grandmother’s with my cousins when I was a kid. We make a pallet on the floor and everyone sleeps crammed into a tiny space, boys in one room and girls in another. Every time I go to their village, it’s a bit like a grown-up slumber party.

On a recent trip, I slept in David and Julie’s tiny spare room with Lydia and my two teammates, B and S. There’s barely enough room for four of us to sleep in there without being on top of each other. On the first night, when the lights went out, we stayed awake talking for a while, trying not to be too loud and disturb those on the other side of the paper thin walls. Once we were quiet, I lay there listening to the village sounds outside: dogs barking, people stumbling home in the dark, the faint sound of a baby crying several doors down. Soon, I fell solidly asleep, physically tired after driving the truck up to the village.

A couple hours later, I heard a strange squealing sound at the same time that I felt what I thought was a small animal on my legs. I sat straight up, only half awakened from my very sound sleep, and instinctively threw the cover off my legs. I fumbled for my flashlight near my pillow and shined it toward my feet. Turns out it was a false alarm—Lydia had kicked me in her sleep.

I dozed back off, but a few minutes later I heard the squealing again, coming from the wall near Lydia’s head. I also heard B whisper in the darkness, “There’s some creature in here with us.”

I was particularly concerned because the creature in question sounded like it was very close to Lydia’s head. Which was also close to my head. It wasn’t a rat—different kind of squealing, not squeaking. Didn’t sound like a gecko, but maybe another kind of lizard? Or a bird? But how would a bird get inside our tiny room?

I shined the flashlight along the edge of the wall and the corner where Lydia slept, trying to avoid her eyes, which somehow remained closed through all the squealing and my rustling. I leaned over her and lifted up the edges of the pallet, looking along the floor. Nothing.

B and I discussed what it might be in hushed voices, and I repeated the search process a couple more times as we heard the squealing again. S never budged from her sleep, and Lydia appeared oblivious as well. B asked if I thought the noise could be Lydia grinding her teeth. It sounded to me like a basketball player’s shoes striking the wood of a court—surely teeth can’t make that noise.

I drifted back to sleep, and in the morning B and I began telling the others what we’d heard. S had no idea what had happened. David and Julie suggested it might be the neighbors baby ducks peeping in the night. Lydia immediately had an answer: “It was probably me grinding my teeth.” I was relived for the explanation, but a bit alarmed for Lydia’s sake that she is grinding her teeth hard enough to wake other people up. I suggested she should buy a sports mouth guard to wear in her sleep to protect her teeth and jaw.

The next night I slept peacefully, awakened only by the morning village sounds: people setting off with their baskets towards the tea fields, a rooster crowing, the school bell calling children to class, and the same baby crying several doors down.

Next in the “Back-to-Back Trips” series: ”Detours“

Mountain March Madness (pt 3)

Posted on March 30, 2009 by admin

When my friends from the Pacific Northwest came to visit B Mountain in January, they saw that the kids in MN only have one basketball to share among 115 elementary school students. Sometimes they will play on the court at school with smaller toy balls, or they may even kick around a piece of fruit as a soccer ball.

The Northwest group decided to get the students of MN village several balls as a gift. After we drove back to town, they purchased the balls, along with a pump, and we stored them in the supply room at the café until I could go back to the Mountain for my next visit.

The balls were included in the truckload of stuff I drove up the Mountain last week—along with household supplies for Adam’s family, a bag of clothes for Julie’s new baby, a bicycle her sister asked us to deliver, and a couple of rice sacks of baked goods and fresh vegetables.

I asked David what the most appropriate way would be for me to hand over the balls to the kids. He said, since their house is right across the path from the school’s basketball court, they could keep the equipment there in their house. This way any village kid could use it, not just the students at the school.

The kids didn’t take long to figure out that David and Julie had several balls in their kitchen, and now they come over every day before and after classes to get the balls and play for a couple of hours. On the fourth day after we brought the equipment up to the kids, I counted about 50 of them running around the court, yelling and laughing and pretty much going nuts. There were two half-court basketball games going on (older kids at one end, younger at the other), and some variation of soccer/dodgeball/kickball going on with a soccer ball right at the center of the court. Chaos seemed to be prevailing—and the kids were obviously having fun.

Next in the “Back-to-Back Trips” series: ”Village Noises“

Saying Farewell (pt 11)

Posted on March 1, 2009 by admin

This visit to their village will remain one of my favorite memories with Lydia’s family. Time spent chatting and catching up with each of them. A couple of evenings spent warming my hands over a pot of coals with the road crew, giving them a story to tell for years to come, I’m sure. A sun-filled morning riding motorcycles on dirt roads, getting covered in dust. A lazy afternoon lounging on the grass by the river with Lydia and Wendy. The hike up to see their grandmother.

Despite the family’s assertions that I must come back every year at least once around the holidays, I don’t know when I will be able to go back and visit again. Saying goodbye feels a bit like leaving my own family, except with the knowledge that there will be no phone calls or emails or digital pictures to keep us connected in the days ahead.

Lydia’s Home (pt 1)

Posted on February 6, 2009 by admin

Two and a half years have gone by so quickly, and going to Lydia’s village felt a bit like a homecoming for me. Because I’ve been responsible for Lydia’s education and living expenses since she was a senior in high school, her family has adopted me as one of their own. Going there around the time of the Lunar New Year, I feel like the American cousin who can’t visit often, but is always welcome.

To get to the village, I had to fly from the provincial capital to LC, where I lived for two years. From LC, I took a bus two hours to a little market town—basically, a wide spot in the road where Lydia met me at the “bus station” (i.e. a bench outside a mom-and-pop shop). That two hour bus ride, as I now well remember, is the winding-est section of road I’ve been on in the province, through mountains higher and steeper than in JH, where I live now.

I always try to guess on bus rides who will be the first to start puking. This time it was the girl in front of me. She was by herself, so I helped her hold back the curtains while she stuck her head out the window to vomit, and I gave her my water bottle when she was finished. Thankfully, I didn’t need her to return the favor.

Once I met Lydia on the road side, we got in the cab of a freight truck to go out to her parents’ house. It’s about a twenty minute drive through fields and mountains, along a very picturesque little river. When Lydia was still in high school, we would walk the road from town to her house, over two hours’ walk, enjoying the scenery and conversation. But going to college in a bigger city has changed her, and now she prefers to ride when she can.

(to be continued…)

Next in the series: ”Sleeping Arrangements“

Old Village

Posted on January 23, 2009 by admin

I took advantage of the opportunity I had while my friends from the Northwest were with me to go once more up the steep dirt road to MN old village (as it’s called in local language). My first visit was in summer 2007, and I had tried to go back in fall 2008, but was prevented by heavy rains. This time, though, I made it with no problems.

Jim and Andrew took turns driving the truck up the narrow, winding road—fun for them, a relief for me. Driving to this village would be impossible during rainy season, but at this time of year we’re contending with billowing dust on the roads, not mud. The way is dirty but passable.

MN old village is, to me, an enchanting place. Unlike villages that are situated on the main public road, the old village is completely surrounded by forest. The village homes and the temple are nestled snugly in the trees. Fields of tea bushes collide with the stately ancient giants of the forest, overwhelming the visitor with greenness and life, even now in the relative dryness of this season.

The temple itself at MN old village is quite different from those in more affluent and favorably located villages. It is made of wood and less gaudily decorated with gold paint on the outside. We met several young monks here, and one stoic lad was particularly interested in showing us around. While the other boys giggled and seemed unsure how to answer my questions as we toured the temple complex, our 15-year-old monk friend quietly yet confidently led us to places in the complex he thought we’d like to see. He answered my questions as I asked them, apologizing for what he didn’t know.

In addition to the temple, our young friend said he wanted to show us a couple of other places in the nearby forest: “water like that you drink out of bottles” and “a very large tree.” The water turned out to be a mountain spring, positioned right at the edge of forest and tea fields, in a beautiful spot overlooking the valley below. We spent some time admiring this handiwork of the Creator before moving on to the tree.

The young monk led us back through the village and into a different section of forest. Our group let out a collective gasp as we entered a clearing and realized the “very large tree” had recently been chopped down and shaped into eleven massive beams for a village home. Quite a large tree it was.

Our friend has only been a monk for a short time, but plans to remain in the robes for at least ten years, he said. Many young boys in this area become monks for only a few weeks or months, so I was struck by his dedication at such a young age. Quiet and contemplative, he appears to be serious about seeking out something deeper in life. I hope to take photos from our visit back up the mountain to him and continue our friendship and the discussion.

Friends from the Northwest

Posted on January 21, 2009 by admin

Visits from friends bring great refreshing when you live far from home, and I was greatly refreshed during the recent visit of a group of folks from the northwest US. They ranged in experience from seasoned Chinese travel pro to first time overseas journey, but each one of them was a trooper and bravely jumped into every situation I placed them in during the course of the week.

Literally, they bravely jumped into traffic with me as we had to cross busy streets in the provincial capital. They demonstrated further bravery by jumping into the truck with me to drive up the Mountain. I warned them that I drive like a local and then spent the next three days proving it by my prolific use of the horn, cutting off bikes while changing lanes, and not stopping before turning right on red. (Those of you who have ridden with me in my truck in the States in recent years know these habits have become hard for me to break!) I’m fairly certain I did keep my promise to them not to drive in the left lane around any blind curves in the mountains—locals do drive this way, but I have my limits in how much I will assimilate.

They also bravely rode bikes with me all over my town and on some nearby village roads. It’s one thing for them to subject themselves to be passengers in Chinese traffic—but this group ventured into traffic on their own. I was truly impressed.

Not once did they complain about anywhere we slept or anything we ate. I’ve never seen a group dig into fish hot pot on their first night in China the way this one did. Hot pot can be weird enough as it is, but the one we ate had a fish head (with the eyes!) floating in it. No complaints. They loved the chili peppers used to spice up practically every local dish, and they had a blast shopping in the wet market for vegetables to eat on our road trip.

When we set out for our first night in the village, no one appeared the slightest bit worried that I confided I had only been there once before, two years ago, and I didn’t know for sure where we would sleep that night. They gamely joined me for the adventure. On the second night, before we went to bed, our village host asked me to tell them that they may hear rats in the rafters after the lights go out. The next morning, I sensed a bit of disappointment when the group shared with one another that they had lain awake in the dark listening for little rat feet, but had heard none. I’ll have to do a better job next time in arranging the village rat experience.

Undoubtedly, the group saw, experienced, and learned much on this trip. But I, too, had an educational visit with them. I learned what slacklining is. (Google it if you don’t know.) I learned that China is similar to Iowa in the prevalence of hacking, spitting, and blowing snot rockets. (I can say that here because I don’t know anyone in Iowa, so surely no one in Iowa is reading this.) I also learned a great deal about engines: the difference between a stroke and a cylinder, that the manual choke on our Chinese truck is old-fashioned (I had no idea!), and what to look for when motorcycle shopping (thanks for going with me to look at the Yamaha, Suzuki, and Honda stores, guys!).

Thank you James, Jim, Andrew, and Michelle for coming all the way over here to see where I live and work, for going with me to some far out places, and for loving the people who I love in this corner of the world.

Truck Driving

Posted on January 2, 2009 by admin

It is rare to drive to or from the village with an empty back seat or truck bed. If word gets out that we are coming or going from town out to the countryside, friends will call and ask us to pick up goods for them at the market or to let a close friend or relative have a ride. Most people only have motorcycles, tractors, and the public bus available to them as transportation. Because we understand how difficult travel conditions can be, especially if you’re needing to transport goods, we are happy to oblige if we have extra room. I’ve hauled everything from sisters-in-law to a new refrigerator.

On my latest drive up to MN village, I had five adults and two children wedged into the cab of the truck, along with several bottles of water, boxes of baked goods, a bunch of bananas, and the children’s two helium balloons. No one could move, and I could barely see out without having to push an inflated rooster and cat out of my view.

In the truck bed we had all of our backpacks, several rice bags of vegetables, a few pounds of pork, a chicken, a crate of oranges, a jug of cooking oil, two whiteboards (for alphabet practice), and other miscellaneous items. Along the road, we stopped in smaller market towns to pick up more vegetables, bags of pig feed, some fertilizer, and four sacks of cement mix. I could feel the truck handling differently as we made our way down the road, adding more weight. Dark clouds began to roll in as we got closer to the village, and I picked up speed to beat the rain—bags of cement mix are pretty useless after they’re out in the rain, and the tarp was neatly folded under everything in the truck bed.

Both coming and going, I had to stop to let a passenger be sick along the side of the road. Many villagers aren’t used to traveling by vehicle for more than a few miles at slow speeds, and their stomachs can’t handle the motion of the mountain curves. When we stopped for a break at another point in the trip, I noticed one lady sitting in the back seat staring at the inside of the door, without moving to leave the truck with the rest of us. I asked if she was OK, and she said she didn’t know how to open the door. I showed her how to pull the handle and also how to roll the window up and down. Later she told me she’d only ever ridden on a bus or in the back of a tractor—it was her first time to ride inside a car. Her first time to open a car door.

This particular lady had asked if I could take her and a friend to the market town along with a load of firewood they wanted to sell. I had room, and the town was on my way home, so I gave them the ride. When we arrived at the market and had unloaded the wood, she handed me a bag of bamboo shoots in thanks.

Part 12

Posted on September 22, 2008 by admin

After lunch at the aunt’s house, we went back to visit with the grandparents again, and I tried out one of my conversation starters in B language with the grandmother, a woman in her 70s: “Have you ever been to JH?” I was shocked to hear her answer. Not only has she never been to JH, she’s never been any further away than the tiny market town at the bottom of the mountain road. In over 70 years of life, she’s never traveled more than a 90 minute drive from her home. She told me that when she was younger, she was in a tractor wreck, and she never got in another moving vehicle again after that. Amazing.

She asked me if JH was my hometown—to her (and many others) a Chinese person from JH is just as much an outsider on the mountain as a foreigner is. I told her no, I’m from America. She asked how far away that is. I told her it’s very far. She asked if you could get there in three or four days by driving a car. I told her no, it’s much further than that, and you have to fly in an airplane to get there. She asked, well, if you were to drive a car, how many days do you think it would take? I told her I guessed it would be at least more than thirty days, but there’s an ocean, so it’s really impossible. I think the concept of an ocean was more than she could comprehend, having never seen more water than the small river that runs by the New Village. So I just decided to leave it at that: America is at least more than thirty days’ drive from B Mountain.

I continue to be astounded by the fact that I can now communicate with this incredible woman who raised ten children in this small wood home. In over 70 years she’s never been off the mountain where she was born and raised, in what we would consider the middle of nowhere in SE Asia, and for the first time in over five years of living here, I had a conversation with someone like her without a translator. In the past, I would have just sat and smiled at her, and she probably would have patted her hand on my knee, and we would have taken a picture together, and I would have looked back and thought, “What a sweet little old grandmother. Wish I could talk to her.” And now I can! Only by the grace of God.

We said our goodbyes to the grandparents and headed back down the path to the main road to the New Village and Colleen’s home. She and her sister collected leaves off of vines along the way to make in a soup for dinner. She asked me if I’d ever eaten so many wild plants in my life; I assured her that no, I had never eaten as many wild berries, fruit, mushrooms, and leaves as I had at her house.

I spent the evening sitting on the porch outside her family’s home, enjoying the coolness of the air and resting my feet and my mind after the long but enjoyable day on the mountain. YGS came skipping down the road, looking up at the balcony as she approached the house and waving both her arms as she saw me sitting there. She ran up the stairs and flung herself at me in a great hug. I asked her where she was going. She said, “I came here to look for you!” She sat in my lap and told me about her day, and I tried to tell her what all we had done that day. The same as Colleen’s grandmother, YGS is another person who I had never been able to communicate with in the past on my trips to B villages. Children who haven’t been to school and can’t speak Chinese are usually very shy around me, but just being able to speak a few halting sentences in B language opened wide the door for me to have a new little friend in YGS. Throughout my two days there, I often prayed silently for her as she sat in my lap or as she led me by the hand down the village path.

Part 13

Part 9

Posted on September 8, 2008 by admin

The sky was overcast as we walked, which kept us from getting sun scorched, but the humidity made the trip sticky and sweaty nonetheless. We arrived in the village some time before noon and headed towards the grandparents’ house to greet the family. Colleen had told us there were a lot of cows in the village, and sure enough there were—actual cows, not water buffalos. They wandered freely throughout the village paths and were completely docile. The youngest sister walked up to one and put her arms around it in an embrace and began stroking it like a pet, it standing there all the while looking as if it couldn’t care less one way or the other what this girl did.

The paths throughout Old Village were all dirt, no concrete at all, which made for a disgusting muddy mess in rainy season. It didn’t take long for me to realize after we arrived in the village that from that point until I left to head back down the hill to the New Village, every place I stepped was not just mud from the rain, but mud combined with manure from the cows that walked anywhere and everywhere. Ben and I were wearing hiking sandals, but everyone else was wearing flipflops or barefoot. I was repulsed by the thought that I was walking around in that mess with open-toed shoes on, but thankful that at least my shoes wouldn’t come off accidentally like a flipflop would.

The grandparents were both at home, as well as several other relatives and various people whose relationship to the family I couldn’t figure out. Everyone was very gracious and friendly in welcoming us to the village as we were seated on the grandparents’ balcony where the household was gathered. Once they figured out that we had been studying B language, they quickly began asking us questions to find out who we were and test our language skills. Each time we understood their question and answered appropriately, everyone laughed and cheered and assured us that we were speaking very well. I was again asked to count to ten, which was quite entertaining for everyone. I was more than happy to accommodate them; counting is one of the easier language skills, and if it made them happy, I would gladly oblige. Now, I’m sure when I’m able to speak B language more fluently, I will not be amused if people ask me to count for them, but at this point I’m willing to entertain.

All the while that we sat on the porch chatting with the group, Colleen’s grandfather had been bustling around in the house doing something I couldn’t see. About the point when the conversation outside started to drag and I had finished counting, he came shuffling out carrying two steaming hot cups of green tea. He had been inside boiling water for us on the fire. I was very grateful for the tea, since I had barely had anything to drink that morning. I couldn’t quite figure out why, but the Old Village still had water running though the New Village didn’t, and they were able to serve tea to their guests as was the custom. The boiling hot cup the grandfather handed me was glass and had no handle, so I had to take it from him and set it on the ground next to my stool as quickly as I could without burning my fingers or dropping it. Colleen talked with her family a few minutes more, giving me a chance to gingerly pick up the cup a couple more times and test it to see if the tea was cool enough to drink yet, but it was still scalding hot. Before I ever got a chance to drink it, Colleen announced that we were going to her youngest aunt’s house to visit their family. Ben and I both picked up our cups by the very top rim where it was bearable to touch, moved aside the small stools we had been sitting on, and began saying polite goodbyes to the grandparents as we looked for a table to set the tea cups on. Both of us tried the tea again in an effort to quench our thirst before we left, but it was still too hot to do more than just sip. Colleen noticed us standing there with the cups and brusquely took them from us to set on a ledge in the kitchen, saying “Here, I’ll take those; let’s go.” So much for getting a drink.

Part 10

Rebecca Henderson

writing, reading, living

Tag Archives: village