rice terraces
what did america eat like before all of our food was wrapped in plastic and bought in stores? when our food was all locally grown? before television and the food processing industry and moden life replaced our traditional american ways of life? i really don't know, but i have an idea of this way of life, in recession, here in southwest china.what about wealth? are health and traditional culture and natural beauty and community another form of wealth? do these things lose their value when tourists come through with our flashing cameras and when TV beams in images of the good life in cities, shining hair shampoo, cars clothes?
these questions dominated my thinking during the four nights our group spent in the middle sixth village in guangxi province, site of the famous rice terraces that are cut like stairs into the hillsides. the scenery was gorgeous and the way of life compelling, but it quickly became the backdrop for the human drama at play at the intersection of mass culture and isolated cultures.
middle six village was a two hour walk along flagstone paved, winding, steep walkways to a road, and had only had electricity for three years. a road is under construction, to be finished in a year or two. at either end of the footpath, where the roads end, tourism is developing rapidly as the village in the center looks on. tourist come to see the stunning rice terraces and the local minority cultures that have lived there for centuries, the yao.
fleeing wars seven hundred years ago, the yao fled from shandong province near beijing thousands of miles away to southwestern guangxi province. there, on steep marginalized land, they dug their terraces and laid their stone paths. the older women their grow their hair long and wear it in buns and stretch out their ear lobes with heavy silver and copper earrings.
our group had gone to their village in an effort to both observe village life as well as do our service learning project. we planned on picking up the garbage that littered the town of a few hundred as try to educate the villagers on how their trash disposal. they had no plan as a town to deal with the waste a junk food diet produces, as in the past then were used to throwing egg shells or corn cows into the rain gutters lining the stone pathways and letting it decompose there.
plastic litter from junk food packages was scattered all over the town like a rash. it turns out that nearly all of it was from junk food eaten by the town's children. before 9am one morning i saw one girl eat three popsicles! one of our students told of seeing the little son from her homestay, at grandma's urging, steal money from mom's purse (or at least take it without asking), to buy the two of them ice cream lollies.
on the first full day of our homestay our group filled dozen of trashbags with litter as the townspeople looked on. the following day the students planned a skit to perform for the villagers to show them the the litter they had no plan for could hurt them in their desire to develop tourist trade as well as degrade their environment.
all the while as this was happening, the townspeople would try to sell us their needle work, their the silver and brass jewelry, or offer to take our backpacks for us on the hike out of town. my host mother was very upset with me and ray, our other male instructor, for buying the needle work of the guide who led us into town in her house rather than buying hers. in trying to negotiate a price for her work later on, the conversation was always that they were poor and needed money.
men from town now often go to guangzhou my former home and where we will visit a Santa hat factory in a few days through a connection of mine, to find factory jobs to send money home. if families here want to buy appliances or the like, they can either take out loans or find other streams of income. they have a little need for a lot of cash, as their land is theirs, their houses, spacious three story wooden structures (ground for animals and the dugout toilet, middle for people, upper for storage) built without nails from local cedar trees, last for centuries. they have fresh water flowing throughout the town in open ditches. they can grow all the food they need.
it is security without disposable income. i am not trying to idealize their lives, as i am sure my four days there allowed my only a patial understanding of things that most likely can lead to misinterpretation. that said, with the tourists walking through from one town to another, with the coming of electricity three years agao and with it tv and freezers and fridges for cokes and ice cream, how has the village's perception of wealth change?
the final night of our stay we had a dance performance and skit, followed by an informal song exchange. our skit went fine, although our audience seemed less than attentive. their dances were interesting and instructive. they started with songs party cadres had taught them about chairman mao, which they did not know well at all. i think they thought that we wanted to see these dances, as they know they are popular with the many chinese tourists that come through.
ray had to ask them to perform the songs and dances of their own culture, not what the mainstream expected them to perform or what they expected the mainstream to like. (for example, the yao kept on asking us if we wanted to see them comb their long hair, as this is a hula-like abberation local custom and eroticization of local women that is a big hit with tourists.) it was a surprise to them.
in the end, the men and women exchanged their traditional courtship songs in otherwordly resonating high and low tones; this was their culture of and for themselves, and they were surprised and happy we wanted to hear it.
the sad thing is that this generation we saw sing these songs may be the last one to know it, as the children, watching tv and listening to mandarin language pop, no longer even understand the words to all the songs, let alone are able to sing them themselves. is this not the loss of a treasure?
finally, how do we contribute to the conservation or loss of this wealth? what does it mean for me to eat a chocolate bar in their village, or even at home? can i feel better about having stayed in a villagers home, rather than in a hostel in the richer towns? will having the young of the village see our skit and watch their elders sing the old songs help their village preserve its natural and cultural beauty?
finally, when i return home, how easy will it be for me to rturn to my suburban american way of life? drive to work, stop at in and out on the way home, turn on the iPod? i pray i may make some change.
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