Month: March 2009

Cool and sunny, the air was crisp after a windy night.

The sister’s family was not there yet when I showed up in the morning. The musician was playing with a crossbow in the yard, a newer one he just made needed more tuning. He walked me up to the fire to have tea and boiled egg. It thundered here on the mountain the day before. They prayed before every meal. Their son, showed up briefly, said hardly a word, and disappeared.

After morning meal, we walked the narrow path to their plot of land on the hill. On our way, he cut off a few sticks by the road, I was curious to know what they were for.

Their patch of land is not that far away, with gorgeous view of the Nu River down below. Right before he started, the musician, AhChe Heng, prayed again by the field. Too bad he wasn’t facing me and I didn’t mic him.

He pulled out some strings, and used the sticks to make lines for the corn rows. How obvious. Using an axe, he loosened the soil, leveled it a bit, and continued down. Who can guess a piece of land on the hill can feed a family this way?

After a couple of rows, the sister’s showed up. She joined the digging crew while the doctor boyfriend planted seeds. When I took a break from filming, I asked for some corn kernels too to help out. Four in one hole.

Rows after rows, they went up and down the hill. The sun climbed higher, the cool breeze of the morning turned to simply heat. Even following them filming was tiring, I could only guess what it felt like swinging an axe hours after hours. I paid special attention to his hands again. They must be really rough, but they are capable of creating great music. I’m not rushing for him to play yet.

People had a short break with steam buns brought by the sister and some soft drink, not for long though, still had a lot to work on. The sister and her boyfriend switched role. Ah-Che never stopped. He is nearing 60, quite amazing what these mountain people are capable of.

We eneded the day with all the corn kernels ran out, but they kept on going until all the field had been dug properly.

The house was filled with smoke when dinner started cooking. The fire in the middle of the room, the center of a house. It looks so nice and romantic, but I’m sure it has it’s health problem. I do remember a talk given by a MIT researcher on low-tech method they invented to help replace these open fire-pit with stoves. Would that be something that this place needs?

After missing a day due to miscommunication between me, Kang, and the musician, yesterday (the 11th of March) I went up the mountain very early in the morning to catch the musician’s family before they head to the field.

When I got to his house, he’d already back with a crossbow and a shoulder bag filled with arrows. I couldn’t get where he had been to, his Mandarin is sparse. After a short break with tea, he went downstairs to sort the young walnut tree stems. They were given by the government for them to plant on the hills. He rebundled the branches of similar length together and placed them in the bamboo baskets.

Upstairs, his family gathered by the fire, preparing for a morning meal. For these farmers, they only have two big meals a day, so they have a whole day to work in the field without eating. His younger sister and her boyfriend, a retired doctor came to help with the planting. First they were hesitate to let me follow them but was convinced eventually.

Packed and we were on the road, the little girl about 3yrs old included. The path out of the village was fine for a while, until the group left the musician’s wife at a closer field with their granddaughter, and the sister pair left for another field. It became almost straight up. Their land is on the furthest lot away from the village. We climbed to the top, by a cell tower, and could see the junction where a small tributary joins the Nu River. It’s low water season, the small river looks very rocky as if nearly broken at places.

I set the camera up and film the planting process. In the backdrop, the emerald colored river curved between the mountains. I’m not expecting too much from the filming result today, just to have him get used to having me and a camera in front all the times.

The day gets hotter when the sun peaked through the clouds. After he was done with the quarter acre or so mountain top lot, we walked down the path to meet his sister.

They were on a very steep slope with little room to stand and plant. The ground is rocky too, a few holes the musician dug was filled with slates and he had to basket carrying dirt in from elsewhere.

I get interested in filming his hands, the same hands that could do so much.

Later in the afternoon, with still some bundles of young tree sprouts left, they decided to call it a day. We walked a very steep and narrow path down the mountain, joined the concrete drainage path, and met the wife and the little girl still up the field.

The little girl definitely has a strong attachment to the musician, likes to have him carrying her across the steams on our way back. Close to the village has a patch of bamboo. I like the view of them going back home together among these tall bamboo trees waving in the wind.

Everybody was exhausted, the little one was struggling not to fall asleep. They got the fire started, made tea, barley and sticky rice pancake before another meal of rice and veggie. The barley pancake was so filling I had little room left for anything else.

The sun was almost set when we left the house. The sister lived in another village 10 miles up the river. They took the little girl with them, so the musician and his wife would be child free to finish up the rest of the planting the next day.

I’ll come back the day after to film them plant corns and if time allows, some knife-making.

I left Beijing on the 6th of March and got in to FuGong, Yunnan on the morning of the 7th. That was after a 16hr bus ride followed by a 3 1/2 hrs flight from Beijing to Kunnming.

The bumpy ride made it hard to take a nap. I was fully awake the minute the mountainous Nu River canyon came in to view — even only a dark shadow in the night. At the border control just below Liu Ku, the first big city by the river, the young guard was puzzled at my passport. It seemed like forever before it was recorded and handed back to me. All the trips before, they only checked it on the way out.

Dizzled in FuGong, my home base for probably the next month or so. The city looked the same except a few new drainage ditches been dug out. I had a much needed nap, shower, and when the night fell, my friend Kang came back from his business trip and we met for tea at his tea house to catch up.

All was well. The next day (Sunday, the 8th), after almost a whole day of pussing around with errands, we headed up the mountain village to meet the old musician, and the priest who is a good friend of Kang.

The priest is a good-looking man but suffered from polio. Once the topic is right though, he gets quite funny. He too, was keen on learning from the musician but the old man’s lack of education made it hard for him to communicate. The priest knows some music, so he believes he can translate the way the old musician plays his lute to written notes. In a village like this one, such efforts are mostly just thoughts.

The old musician came out to meet us while Kang and I walked toward his house. He looked much shorter than I remembered but didn’t seem aged at all. The little girl used to be on his back is running around now, and as fiesty as ever. The musician’s wife made us tea and boiled eggs — I know that’s a special treat for guests. Kang acted like my translator. He was so talktive sometimes they just drifted to some conversation I had no idea about, which was fine, considering I just needed to have him agreeing on me coming later to film. The lack of education and material necessities don’t make the mountain people less humorous nor generous. Perhaps it’s exactly the pure good human nature that draws me here to tell their story.

The musician have a family funeral to attend to up on the mountain so I have another two days to spare before filming begins.