Country Roads
I’m again here now in the country, and hardly anything could I find to say for it. Nor for this quiet residence of ours, the new house, for whose first Lunar New Year I reluctantly come back with Mom and Dad this time.
Nothing to say, still nothing to say.
I’ve no idea the way how this peace of land talks, or how to find one way for it. In fact it has been imposed by the outside world their way, harsh and unhelpful.
The day villagers here start to realize the beauty of the nature, and start to love their woods, hills, rivers and fish ponds, is the moment a soul could be found here.
I was too unready to tell myself anything when arriving here at midnight, that all the above was all I wrote on a paper. Huazhou, this little town located west of Maoming with a development still too dear to promise, could draw no particular attention except a funny tongue distinctive from standard Cantonese. High temperature speeds up every life process, pleasantly that of birds and trees, unpleasantly that of moulds and bacteria, telling you that being lazy, as everyone around does, is the best way for easy survival here. You won’t find the uncanny scene here unbearable when you come, instead, just so natural. All dirt and waste with streets and bowls unclean, lazy workers, all mix perfectly with the hot tropical air and its pre-industrial peace. It’s dirty, but, hey, leave it. Newer blocks of houses of almost the same one repulsively dull shape, rise along the roads between the fields.
Don’t be mistaken. This is by no means my hometown. I would rather refer to it as my father’s, not mine, not even if I wish, and even if I had not been born in Guangzhou. Or it would be had Dad and Mom thought it a good idea to let me stay here longer when I was a very young boy.
2007-2-16
Country Peace
Here we are, the tiny settlement of Daichin(大村, ridiculously meaning “big village”) northeast off downtown where my grandparents spent all their life and would rather spend the rest of it.
Being the eldest among his six siblings, four of them now away in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, my father undertook the task of erecting for their parents a new shelter, the old one already too shabby and dangerous to live in. Though a little loud to me in color, our three-storied building is of nice design.
Forget about poverty, boredom and ignorance, one of the pleasant attractions of the country comes from nature, the color. Green, of life, all year round, as you can breathe it. The woods are green, of bamboos, banana leaves, and banyan trees; the lands are green, of rice fields, grass at the roadsides; the fish pools are green, of algae and other water plants.
Let’s take a brief look at what believe here. Like most rural communities in China, rather than one single god we have gods of different names including ancestors of one family, and like most others, traditional beliefs are losing the battle in young people’s minds. Customs, valued only by the elders, is virtually a burden to carry out to their descendents making a living far away. Not until in late nineteen nineties, long after the devastating Cultural Revolution, did old villagers re-establish a temple for gods, namely historical figures such as Kwan, at the southeast end of the village. Another god of ours leads a tougher life: the local “Father of Land”, as “Tudi Ye”(土地爷) in Mandarin, has its place believed at the foot of the largest banyan tree of the village. Worshiping of either has always been by no means something sacred, in which on a fine day a family collects and come to the place and knell down and pray, burn sticks of incense (giving fragrant smell), displaying food, a message of reporting peaceful life and no hunger. Paper is burned, as an act of sending money. Finally we light noise-making firecrackers, to scare away ghosts and evils. Such events, relating with good luck gods can give us to our life, are never serious but firm in the mind of a country man, seeing elders doing so since his childhood, though allowing him to play whatever faces before god.
Our night is dark and silent. Leaning againt the window of my room I saw one corner of the sky lit up by urban lights approaching and threatening what suddenly came to my mind as one truly important element of life here- peace. Frogs and birds singing in the pool and in the trees, bamboo whistling as wind blows, darkness when no light of our neighbors is on. Too sad it is going to vanish as the town gradually expands. All this, which we take for granted through generations, will be gone with the wind as population grows and villagers as well as urban dwellers feel obliged to have more housing here.
2007-2-17
Country Kids
The third day since I was here, entering New Year’s Eve tomorrow, as I have been finding it such warm pleasure being with children from the countryside. They are like the country scenes I’ve taken picture of, they were born and bred here, kids of the nature. Having their pre-school education at home and with their neighbors, something adult-like of them makes them lovely and easier to talk to. Unlike wayward kids in the city, they are helpful and they listen to you on what to do and what not to. On the other hand unlike their parents they have a sense that is more brightly expressed and felt. For instance they seem to be the only ones here aware of the beauty of the country.
I took the following pictures of them, three kids of a neighbouring family of ours, as they showed me around.
18/02/2007
Country Year
The fourth day, the New Year’s Eve comes at the top of all things. We’ve got to get prepared everything in this new but messy little house. My Uncles, aunts and cousins began arriving since yesterday. Our lives have all changed a lot, unbelievably, though which we scarcely share. Though I got up earlier this morning and ready to lend a hand, I somehow found labor work, after all, is not my type. The kids cleaned everything from tables to stools. Our men cleared up the courtyard to make room for car parking. My mother and my aunts worked together and a bamboo rack is put up for hanging wet clothes. Oh, water, I forgot how many times Dad and I have to pump it up today.
What we are so driven out for is traditional and exceptional. One of the traditions with utmost importance, in the mind of my grandparents and the villagers, is the Annual Feast, as reads Ninlai(年例) in Cantonese, an event which in our village, usually begins on the third day of the New Year. Acquantants are invited to eat for free. Not every family present one every year because it is expensive. We decided to have one this year for the simple reason we have a new house.
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