By Evan
Mr. Ma making a booze run on his Forever, by Andy
So after leaving the market of Lüchun detailed in the last post, we rolled out of town past several farm vehicles packed to capacity with Hani women and into the valley below. Only half an hour of riding later, Alexis was invited into the house of an older Hani man named Mr. Ma for tea. We didn’t know it then, but we were in for one hell of an LBXperience, one that would end much more wildly than anybody expected.
Mr. Ma sat the three of us down on a couch in the middle room of his snug, three-room house and made us some of his own tea. His traditional wife, with deep wrinkles on her face and a protruding belly, and wearing a black turban with red tassels and deep purple shirt, busied herself in the kitchen and outside the house with this and that. Mr. Ma then embarked on what would turn out to be a half a day of the most exquisite BS’ing (吹牛) I’ve ever witnessed.
Before I get into all that, I should tell you what kind of a person we were dealing with. Mr. Ma was tall for a person in this part of the world and built solid. His wispy but full mustache and lively eyes served to accentuate the stories he told us in his erudite yet still crudely accented Mandarin, which he spoke in the same bubbly rhythms and intonations as Nigerians speak English. (more…)
