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.