By Evan
…a continuation from the last post.
Alexis and I with the Nong men, by Andy
After a day of tomb sweeping, all able adults set themselves to preparing the food, and we, changed into normal clothes by now, were set outside on chairs with the kids, chickens, and dogs all running around they way each is liable to do. They gave us as a snack a plastic bag of the five-colored glutinous rice, which they had made just that day using natural ingredients to cook the five batches into five different colors, and then we were left with the kids. I held up my end of the trade with my buddy Xinwei, who had continued his lengthy interrogations on and off through the entire afternoon, with a five Hong Kong dollar coin, which he immediately dropped, setting the kids on a thirty minute search.
As we sat watching the kids — of whom there were maybe twelve, aged four to fourteen — it occurred to me that these kids were unusually mature for their age. Maybe because they grew up in the country, or maybe because of traditional Chinese parenting, but none of them acted out, and the old ones all took care of the younger ones like little parents-to-be. The boys broke out their plastic rifles and started playing commandos around the farmhouse while the girls braided each others’ hair — just as I’d expect to see at a family gathering back home. Alexis played with the cutest little four and a half year old girl you’ve ever seen, and Andy alternated between chasing the dogs up a mound of sand and reading news on his iPhone.
An hour and a half later, dinner was declared done, and we were rushed into the communal dining room. We were seated at the men’s table, while the women sat at the table to our left, with the children by themselves in the smaller adjoining room. The table was then piled to capacity with steaming hot dishes — crispy, fatty pork, pig’s feet, fatty pork in at least one other incarnation, green vegetables, chopped cucumbers, pickled vegetables, more rice, roast chicken, and… braised dog! A bowl was set in front of every place, which they filled with beer for us and with a clear liquid from a giant plastic gas canister for the Zhuang men. Then Old Nong thought better of the distillate discrimination. “You want to try our home-made sweet potato alcohol? (你們要嘗嘗我們自己釀的番薯酒嗎？)” Clearly we said yes, and we were all given second bowls, which Old Nong filled with a red plastic dipper from the gas can, spilling some on our pants. The booze was… well, better than baijiu, with a kind of earthy raisin-like sweetness mixed with a hint of lychee and an acrid aftertaste, but oh, that food was good (I ate all but the dog, which I hold more taboo than Alexis holds pork). Old Nong summed it up, “We know how to eat around here! (我們這裡的人懂得吃).”
The womenfolk were eventually called over for a photo op, by Old Meng
All the menfolk of the family were present at our table. To the right of Alexis sat the old uncle, 68 years old, a retired traditional Chinese medicine (TCM, 中醫) doctor who spoke to us in slow, measured phrases of high-pitched Mandarin, with frequent pauses for reflection. He often made mention of how similar to Chinese people he thought we were, especially how Chinese Andy looks with his buzz cut. With his Mao-era outfit and the hand-labeled “Chinese Medicine Cabinet (中藥櫃),” he was downright endearing. His oft-repeated platitude for the evening, chimed in whether anybody was talking or not, was, “Eat! Drink (吃飯！ 喝酒!)” succeeded closely by a lifted bowl. Following him was the camo-clad second brother in from Jingxi, who attentively raised toasts at every minor lull in the conversation. Old Nong sat next to him, followed by the eldest living brother (the eldest had died) in from Shenzhen. Next was Old Meng (老蒙), husband of their third elder sister (三姐夫), a garrulous employee of the People’s Court in Jingxi who was the most sharply dressed and never missed an opportunity to insert some Party line into the discussion. Then it was the third brother, a very quiet man with a receding hairline who likewise had returned from Shenzhen for the occasion. Finally to Andy’s left was the little brother, the 29-year-old doctor in the village infirmary up the road, terribly shy but blessed with a beauty mark over his left lip similar to mine. He took up the duty of refilling our bowls with sweet potato moonshine, spilling more and more on our pants as the evening progressed.
Oh, we had high times with the men, discussing their lives, their work, China, the drought, everything. Though only two of the brothers and one of the sisters lived in town, nobody could fathom missing the occasion of 3/3. As everybody finished eating, the men repeatedly mentioned how happy and honored they were to have such guests as ourselves at their feast, even though we tried in vain to explain that we were just round-eyed party crashers lucky enough to stumble into such a nice family. But they would hear nothing of it. Then the women left their table and assembled their chairs in a line to the left of us, just quietly observing the conversation among the men. Eventually the kids filed in too and took seats with their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. Only very seldom did a woman deign to toss her two bits in, and the oldest were generally snatching plates from our table to reheat them in the kitchen and bring them back to us steaming. It was a misogynist’s dream come true.
High times with the sweet potato booze, by Evan
Eventually uncle doctor in his great blue beret got too drunk to sit with us and was dragged to his bedroom by his wife and daughter. A family friend with a tremendous mullet surnamed Wang showed up, and between his intent to catch up toasting the foreigners, Camo brother’s intent to be left behind in toasting us, and brother doctor so intent on refilling our bowls, that we weren’t long after in getting cross-eyed. We took pictures with everybody, exchanged contact information (or so I’m told by Andy at least), took our sleeping gear from the bikes and were escorted by every single member of that family ten minutes walking to a preschool on the highway, which was run by one of the sisters. They set down kiddie cots for us, and we crashed like oil tankers.
The next morning, Old Nong woke us up bright and early with a bag of milk drinks and chemical-tasting taro buns. “Stay another day with us (多戴一天吧),” he said, “you can leave tomorrow and still be in Xishuangbanna in a week or so! (明天走的話，一個星期到西雙版納沒問題!)” No matter how much we tried to convince him how much time it takes bikes to move 1,000+ km through mile-high mountains, he couldn’t be convinced. We finally compromised, agreeing to take an early lunch and be on our way.
That's the face of, "I just woke up in a preschool with sweet potato booze on my breath," by Evan
We slowly packed and dragged our sorry, hungover butts drearily back to the house, where a much smaller contingent (the Jingxi group had driven home the night before) was waiting for us with reheated leftovers from the night before. Wang, the neighboring buddy was back and just as the night before was displaying his MacGyver-like skills of opening beer bottles with anything — his teeth, the table, chopsticks, the dog (ok, not the dog!). Soon a Nong cousin showed up with another case of beers, followed by another Wang, this one with an even more ferocious mullet and… you guessed it, a case of beers. It was like being with my country family in Florida! I was about to puke and tried to refuse the beer at every toast, but old uncle doctor, today again in full verve, insisted it was only a soft drink (只是飲料) and should be drunk as such. We wanted to tell him that our four-year university degrees qualified us to make our own judgments on what beer does to our bodies, but seeing his happy face, we sucked it up. We sloughed down a few bites of the food and begrudgingly knocked down a few bowls of beer before changing into biker gear and hitting the road. On the way out, Old Nong told us one last time that he was honored to have us as guests and that we should come back next year for Spring Festival, when they’d have an even bigger party. We thanked everybody fifteen times, shot back one last half bowl of beer, and cruised off down the road.
Unfortunately it didn’t end there since it dawned immediately on me that sweet potato booze, though not so bad going down, ain’t so pretty on day number two. We limped the bikes down the highway just to the next town to find a hotel and sleep it off. The only hotel in town, however, was full, and so we had to continue slowly rolling, me ready to ralph or fall off the bike the whole way. Funny how the universe balances our fortunes.
And that's the face of, "I just woke up in a village party committee multipurpose room, and we're 3 days behind schedule," by Evan
One village later, we came across a funerary procession of Zhuang people, several wearing the traditional mourning gauze, and Alexis asked if we could stay somewhere in town since his friend was “sick.” An old man fetched a key from inside the house and escorted us to the village Party Committee chamber / people’s militia base / youth home / farm safety board offices / mediation center / retired people’s association / technology and culture night school etc. etc. that was in fact just a dusty room full of signs for its various intended uses but which was clearly opened maybe once a year. We sprawled out on our sleeping mats and tucked in for an afternoon and night of sleep. Finally the next day we managed to get cranking again, having lost three precious days of our tight schedule to Xishuangbanna, but who cares! Life has been good lately.
