Due to a weeklong national holiday, Middlebury in Kunming
had a five-day weekend. Four of my friends and I decided to take advantage of
this break to explore Xishuangbanna county in Southern Yunnan. We found a guide
to take us on a trek through some remote villages near the China/Burma border.
We set out for our hike on Sunday morning, taking a bus out into a village for
lunch. Our guide Aixin knew the countryside and the people in it like the back
of his hand. We received warm welcomes from the restaurant owners who quipped
“How did you come by so many beautiful women?” They served us piping hot dishes
including tiny chestnuts gathered from the forest and fresh vegetables. After
our meal, we played with their baby bunny, puppy, and two little kids.
After lunch, our bellies full and ready for a long trek, we
headed out up a tiny path behind the village. That day, we hiked for hours and
hours. It poured as we were going down one of the hills and we tucked our rain
jackets up over our backpacks, continuing on like colorful hunchbacked bugs in
the forest. The trees intermittently opened up to show a patch worked valley of
chartreuse and emerald plantations. We rested in a pagoda down in the valley
and Aixin handed out fresh apples. We passed through a tiny village of people
who speak the language of one nationality, wear the clothes of another, and
live in the niche of another. The houses were wooden brown, the muddy paths
tucked into the forest, pigs roaming in and out of the fences. A young woman in
a satiny blue skirt with a red headscarf, a baby tucked into a white shawl on
her back, called to us, inviting us in for water, but we had to continue
on.
Wherever a tree had been cut, the locals placed a stone on
its stump for the tree spirit. Temples and pagodas for resting sprinkled the
countryside, melancholy golden dragons arching their way across concrete
staircases. Each village we passed through was full of babies - baby pigs, baby
puppies, baby babies. I was glad to have both Aixin - who knows the local
culture - as well as Prim, who is Thai, to teach us about the Buddhist traditions.
Watching these people and their traditions, it was easy to believe that the
spirits of their ancestors were watching over them, easy to believe that each
tree and stone had a soul.
When we reached the next village, we had to pull off our
shoes to enter a sacred temple patio. Our socks were already cold and wet, so
padding around without shoes made little difference. We could hear Buddhist
chants through the decorated walls, and peeking through the doors we could see
rows of men and women kneeling in the dark, each of their faces illuminated by
a candle. Aixin told us they were celebrating the "Open Door
Festival." Kids trolled around outside, banging fireworks reminding us
that they were playing behind the flower-draped buildings. One surprise was
that three other kids from the Middlebury program happened to show up in that
same tiny village while we were there!
We had the choice to stay in that village or continue on.
Aixin told us it was only three hours further and we really wanted to make it
to the next village so we set out again, fortified with yellow apples gifted to
us by a village woman. We tramped down the path out of the village and onto a road.
At that point we were tired, but as we trudged on, a lazy glance to one side
startling each of us in turn as we came upon a vista of blue skies, white
clouds, and the most beautiful rolling hills and valley I've ever seen. It
filled us with the energy we needed to make it through the rest of the hike.
Festivals Passing
Through Mengwa
Halfway through our trek across a small part of Southern
Yunnan’s countryside, Abby passed out moon cakes to celebrate the moon festival,
a holiday that wouldn’t be celebrated by the local people whose cultures are
considerably removed from the rest of China. We munched on them happily before
heading out again. Dusk was coming and our local guide, Aixin, started to get
antsy, telling us to walk a little fast because we still had to clamber down a
small path, cross a bridge, and hike halfway up a hill. When we entered the
small path back into the forest, the darkness was overwhelmed by screaming
cicadas. Clambering down the slippery mud in the dark put us all on edge, but
when we finally made it across the rushing river the next road was wider. Some
moonlight shone through the clouds, but it was still really dark. Aixin's time
estimates turned out to be pretty far off target, and we continued climbing up
for what seemed like hours, sweaty and dirty, until we finally got to the point
where his pal was waiting for us with his tractor.
The road ahead of us lit by one flashlight, the tractor
roaring and rolling and slipping in the mud, frequently grinding to a stop and
starting to slide back, this terrifying and thrilling ride was unforgettable.
There's a certain kind of laugh that means “I'm having so much fun but I'm also
almost positive that I'm going to die in the next forty seconds,” and that laugh cut through even the tractor’s grindings at
every sharp turn. Whenever the tractor couldn't make it, four people had to hop
off and push until it got going again. Looking left, I could see the valley
below us, misty moonlit clouds sleeping below the dark hilltops. A few minutes later
we looked ahead to see firework sparks streaming up and falling down, and we
knew that the village must be close. It didn't feel like real life.
When we finally rolled into the village, a group of boys
were banging on drums and jumping up and down, celebrating “Door Opening”
festival. We shakily clambered up the stairs to our homestay. That night I was
awoken by the cries of the family's sick baby, and slipping outside, I found
everything washed in the cool light of the full moon - Happy moon festival!
Aixin woke us up early the next morning to go to the
temple. We left our shoes outside and entered the dark, colorful, sacred space.
A handful of people crouched on the
floor in lines, each clutching a banana leaf with the names of their deceased
family members carefully inscribed, a candle licking the back of each leaf to
illuminate their names. We stepped out to use the "bathroom" (the
forest,) and when we came back everyone was preparing to "Scramble,"
we didn't really know what that mean because Aixin didn't give us a very good
translation, but we waited. Everyone was clustering around the middle of the
temple where their ancestor offerings were. With a sharp shout that must have
amounted to "go"! they all started pushing and
grabbing for the things inside. The old ladies staggered out, grins cracking
their wrinkled faces as they cackled with joy at the Karma their feistiness had
just earned them.
After going back to the house for a snooze and breakfast,
we geared back up for another "three-hour" hike. Aixin took us up to
a lotus pond that is sacred to the locals. They go there every March to
celebrate water-splashing festival. "This pond has a beautiful
story," he said "Many years ago there was a village here. The
villagers shot a deer and divided it up amongst all of the residents, except
for one widow, who lived there," he gestured to a temple behind us.
"The next day, there was a terrible flood. Everyone died except for two
young lovers, the man pulling his lover out of the water and running away to
start a new village. The old widow also survived. This is an evil place."
We rested in this beautiful, evil place for a long while before continuing on
across the countryside that we had fallen in love with within two days.
