Steps, moon radicals and dictionaries.

  Longji, China
Sunday, February 3, 2008

    Chinese Mama made some calls the next day and found out the terraces were finally open, but the government was still forbidding people to stay in the villages because of the weather.  After taking a few more plague buses and with some carefully constructed misdirection to subvert the powers of the ticket office (they wouldn't let us in!), we finally made it to the terraces.
 
    Walking along the road that hugged the terraces' ridge and climbing up the little stone paths - the only way to access the villages and to reach the top, was beautiful and amazing.  With all of the pine trees and rocks cutting into the mountains, the villages reminded me a lot of the copper mining towns in Northern Michigan with their dark stained clapboard houses, disassembled metal equipment leaning against the buildings, and the steep steps built into the houses constructed to withstand snow and rain.

village, steps, terraces

But then there would be men balancing a giant wooden pole across their backs muscled from years of physical labor, balancing buckets attached to the ends carrying the skinned and bloodied legs of caves, or pig snouts dripping blood.  The darkened clapboard houses had the red and gold characters of "reverse happiness" slapped onto the doorways, sending out felicitations of the coming new year, adding color to the outside of the house along with the husks of corn hanging from the eaves.  Cows and chickens would wander around the stone paths and the houses, moving in and out from the homes' raised first-floors which primarily function as barns.  Throughout all of the villages the smell of wood fires mixed with the cold air, the smell of wet dirt as the ground began to thaw, and cow dung, making everything smell like coming spring and warmth. 
 
    The rustic feel of the villages added to the overwhelming beauty and scope of the terraces.  As we approached the ever-closer frost line, I was completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of China's human history as I looked behind me at the thousands of years old terraces I had just climbed.  It was completely incomprehensible.  Some of the ways the people of Longji, the village we were approaching, live are still similar to the way people lived in the village hundreds of years ago.  There are no roads to any of these villages.  The only way they are accessible are through the stone paths that cut and weave through the terraces, meaning that everything needs to be carried on the back of the villagers.  Sweating, the three of us kept stopping and resting as we climbed the stone path up to Longji, to catch our breaths and rest our legs.  At one point as we were resting on a rock, an old Chinese man wearing a heavy down jacket trucked up the stone path with a heavy bag on his back, barely out of breath and not even breaking a sweat.  We felt completely schooled by this elderly man who would have easily taken us in a fight.  And nobody has cars or machines to move heavy objects up and down the terraces.  I spent the entire time wondering how they did it because a lot of the houses have satellite dishes - big ones!  And homes have washing machines and televisions - all of this had to be carried up.  It was completely amazing and humbling to think about. 
 
    We eventually reached the village of Longji, which was situated right at the edge of the frostline.  It was around lunchtime when we entered the village and after walking around for a few minutes, a man opened up his door to say "Nihao."  After a few minutes, he asked us if we were hungry and if we wanted to eat.  We weren't quite sure, but finally we said yes because when we were ever going to be invited into a Yao family's home for lunch again?
 
    We walked into the giant wooden house where there were two little old ladies sitting around a small hearth in the middle of what could be considered the foyer.  To the right was the main artery of the first floor with high ceilings since there was no second floor.  There was a saggy looking dog, curled up on a roughed up bag of rice, with her two little puppies playfully wrestling and rolling over on top of her.  The only other things in the house were the hand painted signs wishing the family a happy new year and a small metal disc hanging above the hearth.  Sticking out from the sides of the disc, were two sets of hooves, blackened from the smoke. To our immediate right, was an entire pig on the ground, freshly slaughtered and with bright pools of blood all around the chopped body.  Its head was turned towards us for extra effect.
 
    "Oh God," said Lindsay, as her vegetarian stomach obviously lurched to her mouth. 
 
    The home was completely empty except for the small burning hearth, a bed in a corner, and a table near the slaughtered pig full of knives and tools.  It was a large home too, with thick tree-sized wooden beams for supports and big windows, making it feel like an oversized rustic cabin.

Dinner.

The family sat us around the small hearth, with the two grandmas sitting directly across from us.  One was embroidering a sole-insert and the other was wearing a head wrap made by fabric that looked like a towel.    
 
    It was so strange being in this family's house as they prepared this meal for us of rice, meat (from the slaughtered pig) and some type of organ (stomach, perhaps?). We've taken to calling organs or any type of mystery meat "moon radical" because most animal organs have the moon radical in their name.  As the family cooked the meal in a small wok over the hearth and Lindsay prepared herself for a meal that was violently upfront about not being vegetarian, Erin and I took turns leafing through her Chinese dictionary to find appropriate things to say to the family since we quickly exhausted our Chinese skills within minutes.  We tried to have a conversation by asking them what their names were, wishing them a happy new year, and telling them we were 'too clumsy to dance' or that they 'could handle these matters at their own discretion.'  They eventually found a family friend who knew a little bit of English.  But it was strange being there because the family wasn't overcome with this intense curiosity about us.  They didn't make a big deal about us being able to use chopsticks or saying 'thank you,' and they didn't try to talk about or make fun of us in front of us.  For the first time I felt normal around Chinese people - I didn't feel like I was a big deal or a freak anomaly.  I was just a person who was travelling and who just happened to be hungry at the same time they did.  I wasn't expecting to find that in some poor family's house in a village only accessible by a stone path. 
 
    We eventually left the family after thanking them wholeheartedly and decided it was time to leave the terraces before night fell.  We finally made it back down the stone path after having our route intercepted by roaming cattle and geese in time to have one last homecooked meal from Chinese Mama back in Longsheng.

terraces

The next morning, we packed up and headed back to Guilin so Erin and Lindsay could meet up with their mom in Beijing, and I could start the solo-part of my journey and head into Laos.