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PERFORMANCE+TANG2AN1-2007, June 6: Woke up early as the crowing rooster outside our room (4am-6am), ventured over to the restaurant to nibble at some Chinese breakfast, but just consumed a bunch of tea and had a little bit of Chinese b-fast dumpling. After exploring the surrounding rice paddies and taking in the scenery with some of my friends, we all went to the entrance of the village to follow the Dong welcoming party. It is customary for the Dong to meet guests (especially fellow Dong from other villages, or say…CCP officials doing a cultural tour???) at the entrance of their village and sing the welcoming song, as well as play their wind and string instruments. They also offer small cups of rice wine to those entering. After witnessing this operation we followed the choral parade to the aforementioned drum tower, where we witnessed a beautiful and thrilling performance of primarily Dong songs (love, history, etc…), but also a skit or two demonstrating aspects of Dong life, such as their dating habits and customs, exaggerated no doubt, but informative nonetheless, and reminiscent of cultural performances by student groups as William and Mary. After discussing it with the same program director the day
Zhun3bei4jie2mu4
Dong girls preparing for the presentation before, and having practiced as a group, we (W&M students) rose to the stage once more to sing again! I took the mic once again, this time to introduce ourselves and our songs (“In the Jungle” and “I Will Survive”) and thank everyone for their hospitality (in slightly nervous Mandarin). We then rocked the figurative house (it was an open, yet still oven-like space), even having the entire audience swaying with us and clapping of their own accord. After our performance one man yelled out a slightly lilted and broken “wondaful!” I would later chat for a great deal with this Cantonese Enya/Bruce Springsteen-loving tourist on the Flower Bridge.
The secondary activity of the day was our trek up to the mountainous Dong village of Tang2an1. We were received by a special man by the name of Zhang1 Qing4wei1, a man originally from Tianjin who traveled to Tangan to conduct research on the Dong language and its relation to/comparison with ancient Chinese language, and eventually married a local Dong woman, making this mountainous, serene paradise his home. Words can hardly touch on the physical and figurative beauty of this paradise, so I will spare you their sub-adequate efforts. Just
imagine a close worldly incarnation of your dream living space and this is what Tangan comes close to for me. Tangan is home to a special joint Sino-Norwegian eco-museological project led by the inspiring Joan Jest. He arrived some years back to help the people of Tangan solidify their sustainable agriculture/preservation methods, creating a perfect and undisturbed natural cycle of animal-raising and rice-growing, using the waste of one to feed the other (the process is a bit too long to try to remember and reproduce here in its exactness). We learned how the Dong use their weaving as a metaphor for love and care, drawing comparisons between feelings and the interwoven strands of a shirt of jacket.
Tangan, being harder to reach, tucked away at the top of and on the side of a mountain, was notably less touched by the controversial claws of so-called development, with the exception of a few inner-village vendors and prevalent satellite dishes (made for quite a stunning and illuminating photograph). I drank from the village’s holy fountain, where water flowed from the top of the mountain, and it was by far the clearest-tasting water in China thus far.
There we learned the
legend of the Dong’s head figure, the legend of the Goddess Sa. According to the legend, this “grandmother” of the Dong was originally a normal villager pursued by the vicious Han4zu2 (the Han people), and rather than allowing for her capture or murder she jumped off a local mountain, at which point she became a goddess, and a figure of rebellion against the oppressive force that forced it out of interaction for so many years. The Dong originate from Fujian and Zhejiang and were the first to harvest rice by the Yangtze River. While their history is much older, the rice fields in Liping are 800+ years old.
Descending from the cloud tops of Tang2an, we soaked in the breathtaking expanse of rice paddies and cavernous valleyspace. We ran and played with children, passed villagers and said “hellos” and “ninhaos,” and eventually made it back down to Zhaoxing, still our point of lodging. We ate dinner Dong-style in a local’s house, and I finally got to have my spicy food! Sat under the flower bridge for a good while, watching the rain, and around 10pm I talked about politics, religion and new age music with Lin2 Xiao3zi, the man
from Guang3dong1. Shortly thereafter called it a day. I am falling asleep, and I will bid you adieu until the next available internet connection!
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Kay Laycock
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Great Job
What a wonderful journal. Makes me wish I were along. Love, Gramma