Leaving Mother Lake (17 page)

Before we even saw their faces, just from the way they held the leads of their horses, we knew that only one of the four guests was Moso. When we met up with them, we recognized our neighbor Yisso, a big man with a thick head of black wavy hair and laughing eyes. As for the three Han Chinese, we had never seen them before. One was quite old, with white hair, and evidently the leader, because he was doing most of the talking.

“Ni hao!”
the children called out in the few Chinese words they had managed to acquire at the local school.

“Ni hao! Ni hao,”
the officials answered, with big kindly smiles on their faces.

Being grown women, we only looked and nodded our heads and pretended not to be excited, but we followed them for a little while down the path until we had made sure that they were going to Yisso’s house. When we turned back, we could not contain our curiosity. “Maybe they’re surveyors,” Erchema said. “Do you remember the surveyors who brought all that candy?”

“Well, I hope these guests have brought some candy too,” I joined in emphatically, because I had never eaten candy wrapped in paper, and because I didn’t remember the surveyors who had come when I was still living with Uncle in the mountains.

The news that there were guests staying at Yisso’s house spread from door to door like wildfire, and before we had sat down for dinner, we had already found out that they were not surveyors but cadres from the Cultural Bureau in Yanyuan county who had come to record Moso songs. We also knew their names. The leader, the old man with the white hair, was Mr. Li. The younger ones were Zhang and Zhu, though we were not sure as yet which was Zhang and which was Zhu.

“They heard that our village has the best singers,” Dujema said with unrestrained pride.

And I thought, Yes, that’s true, we have Latsoma and Zhatsonamu, and I can sing louder than anyone else. I asked Ama, “Why don’t they come here to stay with us? Why do they have to stay with Yisso?”

“Yisso speaks Chinese,” she replied rather gruffly. Then she muttered, “What use can Moso songs be to the Han anyway?”

My Ama was stirring a big pot of stew. There was a deep scowl in the middle of her forehead and her mouth was all tight. She was in a bad mood because Zhema had come home late to help with the dinner and because, since the Cultural Revolution, nobody in our village ever felt very enthusiastic about Han officials, even if all they wanted was to collect our songs.

Nonetheless, over the next two days, whatever their mothers and uncles thought about Han officials, the children followed Mr. Li and Zhang and Zhu everywhere, running back and forth from house to house to give the latest news. As for us, the young people, we gave up our work in the fields and listened to the children’s every word.

The first morning, Yisso had taken the Han by canoe to the island of Lewube and they had climbed up the hill to visit the little Buddhist temple that had escaped the Red Guards’ fury. There, standing under heaven, the Han had squinted in the bright sunlight and turned in every direction, pointing above the lake toward Gamu Mountain and then beyond the jagged horizon to places of interest to them. “Kunming is in this direction!” “No, no! It’s over there!” “Aya! Over there is Chengdu!” In the afternoon the Han had gone to Zhatsonamu’s house and she had sung the goddess song for them. And in the evening, the Han had tea with old Guso. There was a big crowd of people in the house, and Guso was telling the story of the rabbit who got the better of the tiger. Of course Yisso was translating! How else could the Han know what he was saying? On the second morning, a little boy called out, “I saw the guests suck on little brushes and foam at the mouth!” This time I could no longer repress my curiosity; I had to run after him to see for myself. I had never seen anyone brushing his teeth.

In the afternoon the children ran ahead of Yisso and the cadres from the Cultural Bureau, who were making their way to our house.

“They’re here!” Homi ran in to tell my Ama. “They’re in the courtyard!”

My Ama wiped her hands on her trousers and glared from behind the cooking stove toward the front door, where Yisso and the guests were stepping through, squinting in the darkness and stumbling on the dog, who sprang out of their way after nipping Mr. Zhu on the leg. I shooed the dog outside.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Don’t worry!” Mr. Li said to me while Mr. Zhu rubbed his leg.

Mr. Li had brought us a pack of tailored cigarettes, brick tea, and rice wine, and my mother, seeing that these people knew the proper way to behave, at last softened her stance, and placed their gifts on the ancestors’ altar.

Soon we were all sitting at the fireplace, Zhu still tapping his leg and the others brushing the dust off their trousers, then peeling their apples with a knife in Han fashion, and drinking black tea because no one expected Han Chinese to like butter tea. Zhang had tried to entice Jiama and Homi and the other children to play, but they were too shy. When he went to touch them, they giggled and twisted their bodies sideways, and suddenly they shrieked and ran outside looking for their mothers. Jiama then grabbed hold of Ama’s vest and Homi took my hand.

Meanwhile, Mr. Li had explained to my mother that he wished to hear as many people sing as possible and that he wanted to organize a big dance in someone’s courtyard. To my delight, Ama answered, “We can do it here.” And when Yisso suggested bringing more firewood for the bonfire, she said firmly, “No need, we have enough.”

I could have jumped for joy, but instead I asked Yisso, “Do they have any candy wrapped in paper?”

Ama turned about and fired an astonished look in my direction. Pulling me to her side, she said sternly, “Namu, come and help me over here!” “Over here” was in the courtyard. “Where have you learned to beg from guests? You’re a grown woman! Just as well they can’t understand what you’re saying!”

That evening the villagers made their way to our house, bearing pine torches to light their path. The Han were already standing near the bonfire, talking among themselves, Mr. Li looking like a leader, Zhang holding a black plastic box, while Zhu, who had evidently got over the dog bite, was demonstrating a dance step. As the villagers walked into the courtyard, Mr. Li and Zhang and Zhu bared their brushed teeth, smiling from ear to ear, calling out, “Welcome! Welcome!” in Chinese. And soon we were all standing in a tight circle around the fire — watching with wide-open eyes, feeling much too curious to have anything to say, until an old woman commented between two drags on her clay pipe, “You wonder how they can ride horses with those flat butts,” and everybody laughed.

Zhang put the black box on the ground, and Yisso translated that Mr. Li wished to hear all of us sing and that someone had to start. Now, among our people, if you can walk you can dance, and if you can dance you can sing, so we were not short of singers. But we thought that, to begin with, they should hear someone special, so we turned to Achimi because she was an old lady and she could sing about our old stories. Jiaci accompanied her on the bamboo flute and Achimi sang a sad and hopeful song about saying good-bye to the horsemen who were taking the caravan to Tibet. After Achimi, women and men of all ages stepped into the circle, one after the other. I followed my friend Erchema. When all those who wanted to sing had had a turn, we waited to be told what to do next, all the while watching Mr. Li’s every move and trying to guess what he was saying to the others. Then Zhang nodded his head and pressed on the black box, and we heard Jiaci’s flute and Achimi’s voice coming out of the box.

“Ah! What is this thing?” the people shouted. “What is this black box?” And they moved as one body toward the box.

“Don’t push! Don’t push!” Mr. Li cried.

“Do that again!” the people answered. “Touch that box again!”

So Zhang touched the box, and when Jiaci again heard himself play, he said: “This box learns very fast, it only listened to me once and now it can already do it!” Everyone laughed. Yisso translated for the Han and they laughed too. Then he turned to the rest of us and spoke in the superior tone of one who has traveled the world. “It’s called a tape recorder,” he said, using the Chinese word. “These things are made in Japan.”

“Where’s Japan?” someone asked.

There was a pause. For aside from Dr. Rock, who was a ghost from a fabled country called America, our people knew only two types of foreigners: the English, who were in India and Tibet, and the Japanese, who had made war on China. But no one had ever bothered to think of where Japan was.

So Yisso spoke up again. “Japan is an island in the east.” And old Guso, who could not take his eyes off the tape recorder, shook his head. “Well, that’s no good. You can’t ride a horse to an island.” And again everybody laughed.

For the rest of the evening, we sang and the Han recorded our songs and then played them back to us until, very late in the night, the tape recorder began emitting whiny tremolos and Mr. Li explained that he wanted to save the rest of his batteries for the next day. Besides, he and his colleagues were very tired. So we wished them a peaceful night and watched them disappear behind Yisso, who was carrying the wondrous tape recorder under his arm. We did not move. We sat around the fire talking about the black box for a long time.

THE HAN STAYED THREE DAYS
. On their last afternoon, Yisso once again brought them to our house. They had something important to discuss with my mother — Mr. Li wanted to take me back with him to Yanyuan to take part in a singing contest. He had chosen three of us; the other two were our best singers, Latsoma and Zhatsonamu. Mr. Li would take care of all our expenses and “if the girls win a prize, they will bring back a little money.” And above everything else, of course, if we won a prize, we would bring fame to our village and our Moso people. And yes, Mr. Li was quite sure that we were good enough to win a prize. Did my mother agree to let me go?

At first I could not believe it. But as Yisso kept on talking and my sister Zhema and my friend Erchema and the others turned toward me, smiling with admiration and a little envy, I had to trust that I was not just wishing for this but that it really was happening — I was going to travel with Latsoma and Zhatsonamu to the city; we were going to take part in a singing contest in Yanyuan, and Yisso would accompany us because we did not speak Chinese and we were very young and we knew nothing about the world. Now, I had no idea why anyone would want to sing Moso songs in the city, but just the same I was overjoyed. Ever since I had gone to live with Uncle, I had watched the birds fly over the mountain peaks and wondered what lay beyond. I had watched the horsemen with the caravans and I had listened to their stories about the world outside. And now it was my turn. I was going to see the world. I was going to see all the marvels the men talked about. I was going to see the cars and the trucks and the movies and the airplanes. I was going to see the “oil road” that was so slick and shiny, Zhema’s lover had once told me, you could admire your reflection in it.

Over the next few hours, I grew every bit as impatient as when I had said good-bye to Uncle. In the meantime, my mother dispatched my sister to the neighbors to borrow the things I needed for the trip, and soon they had assembled three different outfits in beautiful bright colors, with matching jewelry. My Ama said, “When you leave your home, you must look your best, you don’t want your people to lose face. And remember the old proverb ‘There are no white eagles, and there are no good Han people.’ So don’t leave the other girls. You must stay together wherever you go. You must be just like eyes and eyebrows!”

Zhema added, “Yes, you must be like the fingers of one hand! Inseparable. And please, make sure you bring me back some white socks.”

The village girls also wished for something: “Can you bring us some scarves?” And they handed me a box of wild mushrooms to trade for their goods.

But my Ama scoffed: “Namu is not going to trade anybody’s mushrooms. You silly girls! She’s not going to the market! She’s going to win a singing contest!”

I gazed at my mother, and I thought, yes, I am going to win a contest and bring fame to my family and to my village, and everyone will be proud of me!

When we set off the next morning, all our neighbors had assembled to accompany us to the edge of the village and wish us good luck. We were like the caravans of old — ten horses and nine people, for Yisso had decided he would need two helpers to take care of the horses when we arrived at the cement factory, the first stage on the famed oil road, where the cars were to pick us up.

Now, according to Moso custom, we must never ride horses within the boundaries of the village in case we should meet an older person, as it is considered a great insult for a young person to stand above an older one. But we had barely passed the last house when my mother told me to get on my horse, and while I stood above her on my little pony, she took the reins and led me forward to show how proud she was of me. After a few steps, she stopped and handed me the reins and walked back to where the other villagers were standing, waving us off. Several times I turned to see her standing on the road, following me with her eyes and warming my heart with her pride, until the trail curved and I lost her.

THE TREK TO THE CEMENT FACTORY
took five days, during which we spent as much time walking alongside the horses as riding on their backs. We passed through Moso villages, and then through Pumi and Yi villages, where Mr. Li impressed us with his ability to speak the local language. Wherever we knew people, we took advantage of local hospitality to eat and sleep indoors — but on the third night, we made a fire outside and piled up pine needles for mattresses and slept under the stars in the mountain. Generally speaking, Moso women do not like to travel very far from their villages because of the wild animals, and also because in the old days, before the Communist liberation, the mountains were filled with dangerous people and bandits. That night, when we slept outside, Latsoma and Zhatsonamu grumbled that it was too cold and they missed their beds. But young Zhu said, “Hey! What are you complaining about? This is the best there is! Look at the sky . . . this is an all-star hotel!” And I thought, I am going to see what a hotel looks like.