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.