China Revisited -- 2013 [21]

Village End-Notes

As we prepared to drive back to Shenzhen and the visit Guangzhou, there are a number of items I have not yet fit into stories. For these, all worth mentioning, I will offer a series of notes.

Note 1: The Great Uncle

On our first visit to the Zhang village we met Edward's grandfather's brother. He came out to greet us. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say he was brought out to greet us.

He is a tiny man, short, thin, and a bit fragile; but he stands very straight, with a strong handshake. It is the handshake of a man who has spent his life doing physical labor. He was wearing what I have always thought of as a Mao hat, the short-brimmed Army cap with the single red star that everyone wore in the pictures of China I knew growing up.

Memories of pictures of China from that long time ago are hardly helpful in thinking about modern China, yet it is just such fragmentary images and impressions that often shape our understanding of places we have never been. Our perceptions are fixed on a sliver of something much larger, more complex, and changing.

I did not see another hat like that during our time in China.

We exchanged the "Welcome/I'm glad to be here" sentiments, but we did not have time to sit down to talk over tea.  And we did not have an opportunity to ask questions. Maybe he is no longer capable of extended conversation even if we had sat down and our interpreter had not been eager to shoulder the work of such translation.

But what I wouldn't give to spend an hour with this man, listening to what he has seen and done, to be inside his head.

Note 2: Strawberries

When we first arrived at the Luhe (town) house, the daughter of Edward's uncle, the one with the four year old who was frightened of me and the one Edward referred to as "my sister -- that cousin brought along strawberries she had just picked when she came up to visit. They were great strawberries. In fact, they were so good, I ate my share quickly, then part of Donna's share, and then perhaps, well, more than I had a right to eat.

The next day on our way back from the visit where we had met his great uncle, Edward drove us to a strawberry farm at the edge of town where three of us -- Yujia, Edward's mother, and me -- went into the fields to "pick our own" strawberries.

The field was very well set-up and cared for, like all the cultivated fields we saw.

The plants grew on raised beds in long rows, growing through black plastic ground cover. The three of us took bowls and went down the rows. I picked as quickly as I could but I was no match for Yujia.  Apparently all those memories of my strawberry picking chops are not accurate; maybe I have gone rusty in the years since I last picked professionally.

Yujia cleaned the whole lot in very cold water at the kitchen sink once we got back to the house.  These berries were, if anything, even better than the ones we'd eaten the day before. And in January no less. This was my very first experience picking strawberries on New Year's Day.

Note 3: Do they? Don't they?

Donna lay down for a nap almost as soon as we got home, still feeling tired from jet lag, and she missed dinner.  Dinner was at a restaurant with Edward's mom's family.  The family had gathered, not to celebrate the New Year but because someone in the family was moving. I met a lot of people I couldn't talk with, including an uncle who had been a doctor and another uncle who had been a farmer.

There were a lot of toasts, which I gather concerned the move, the new house, good fortune and all that.  Among other things we were served dog meat and cow's stomach soup.

The soup spoke directly to the great American do-they/don't they undercurrent about the Chinese.  We, of course, generally find the idea troubling. More troubling is what to do when it comes your way on the lazy susan. Can you just say No without giving offense? Our Korean kids always told us people make all sorts of allowances for Americans, so bad manners won't matter. Funny kids.

Hypothetically at least, we want to experience culture to the extent we can, we don't want be excused because we are Americans, and we certainly don't want to give offense. But the soup was real.

Edward solved the problem for me.  He was kind enough to explain what was in the dishes as they were brought to the table -- a "heads up" for the squeamish American -- which also gave me a way to sidestep. At the end of our time in China, Vicky, a classmate of Edward and Yujia's, confirmed for us that it was OK to pass up some things. "I don't eat organs," she said during a conversation about "interesting" dishes. It was a welcome endorsement for our selective American appetites.

Note 4: Chennault

The day of the celebration for Edward's father, as we sat around the table under the trees, the visiting businessmen asked us about an American airman who had helped China during WWII. Did we know Chennault? Had we heard of him?

We consulted. Hmm, maybe? No?

Regrettably, we had never heard of Chennault.  It was a humbling moment. These businessmen said Chennault was a great man, a good friend of China, a great American.

Later I looked him up.  Sure enough, Major General Claire Lee Chennault, was a legendary leader of the "Flying Tigers," architect of the Chinese Air Force, and leader of Chinese efforts in the air war against Japan beginning in the 1930s. I had heard the name "Fighting Tigers," of course; boys of my generation would have grown up with any number of catchy, daring names like that. But I had never attached it to anything specific. The "overseas" I  learned about was, primarily, Europe. Countries in Asia, across the Pacific Ocean (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, "Red China"), are notably remembered in terms of specific wars and little else -- in terms of mystery more than history.

So Chennault was new to us, his part in history largely forgotten in America, but clearly not in China.

If I had that hour with Edward's grandfather's uncle, the man in the Mao cap, I would like to ask him questions about Chennault, that American friend-of-China from a lifetime ago.

China Revisited -- 2013 [#10]

Little Faces

The young waitress who wanted to be photographed with us was one of many memorable young faces that are now China to us. As I did during our months in Korea in 2011, I found the face of babies and children to be endlessly fascinating.  I suppose it is the grandfather in me, but I also find them endlessly endearing.

"Grandfather" is as close as I can come to analyzing this interest, although I can describe the phenomenon.  For one thing, as we all seem to know without being told, the very young are unabashed; they have not yet learned to hide their curiosities and emotions.

These two boys were being walked around Luhe by their older sister and grandmother on the afternoon we arrived from Shenzhen to see the village. They were, I imagine, not sure of what they were seeing.  It is likely they had never seen a non-Chinese before. I stepped closer to take another picture and had to back away since they were clearly becoming frightened.

This little girl in red was riding on the back of a scooter.  Her mother was driving, weaving in and out of traffic, and a younger sibling was riding on his mother's knees. We often saw four on a scooter at once (mother, father, two kids). Donna counted six on one scooter, which was a record for us.

This little girl is the daughter of Edward's cousin.  He would say the 1st daughter of the 1st daughter of the fifth uncle on his father's side. We met her at the family apartment building in Luhe.  She was quite frightened of me at first -- well, for the first day at least -- so it was hard to get a photograph. Eventually she seemed OK to have me in the same room, but she never exactly warmed up.

We found this little boy in Edward's mother's home village. He, too, has a family connection, although I can't set it out for you now. He was more than willing to let me photograph him.  But his real friend on our visit was Yujia, who took his hand and sometimes carried him along our walk.

These little boys were playing at the edge of a rock pile in Edward's mother's village. Like kids everywhere, they entertained themselves with what they had at hand. Their parents (or mothers, at least), no doubt, were around; but since they played out in the open, they were easily watched and cared for by the whole village.

In Edward's father's village, on the day we went to celebrate the opening of the senior citizen's center, we saw two children in particular who hung around to see what we were up to.  One was this little girl, whom I have written about before, who demonstrated her English skills for us.

Another was this little boy, who sat or stood beside his grandfather at the table under the big tree where the adults were exchanging information and then asking us questions. This little boy watched for the better part of an hour without fidgeting or, apparently, losing interest to the adult chatter.

He watched us with keen interest but without apparent concern or fear. He and his grandfather clearly had a congenial, respectful, and close relationship.

At one point, his grandfather had him raise his thumb to say Okay after we had complemented him on his good behavior and long attention span. His little jacket, like many we saw, showed the influence of American culture (Mickey Mouse) and the common presence of English.

The little boy in what looks like black and white pajamas was the only person we saw on our visit to the Hakka village, an abandoned ethnic compound on the outskirts of Lehu.  He watched us when we drove up and while we were getting out of our cars. But when I got my camera up and ready, he would not look up from his game.

Perhaps my favorite picture of all was this picture of Ye Wan Ping, the 14 year old daughter of another cousin. When we visited her home after our brief visit to the Hakka village where we saw the little boy above, she greeted us at the door with an extended exchange in perfect English.  She wanted to meet the American teacher who had meant so much to Edward and Yujia while they were students in our own small village in western New York.

"What is your favorite subject in school?"  Mrs. Zoller asked.

"Oh, English, of course!" she responded with no hesitation.

For us it was worth the 18 hour plane flight just to meet Ye Wan Ping.