The goal of this particular trip was to get an understanding of the current sociolinguistic situation in Luquan county. Since basic word lists and phonemic/tonal illustrations had already been obtained, my aim was to get more of a qualitative view of how Nasu is "changing". I intended to spend a week in the area, with the majority of my time spent in a fully Yi-speaking village. My professor agreed to accompany me up to the area, introduce me to his contacts, and get me settled in. Then, I would complete my research at my own pace, and come home when I was ready.
It was a bumpy two-hour bus ride north out of the city to Luquan. On the way, I reviewed some basic Yi phrases and syntax with my professor, Zhang ChunDe. He handed me some more research he'd done on Nasu, and I tried to review it when the bus wasn't clambering through construction zones. I'd opted to make this a formal research trip primarily because Nasu is my professor's native language, and Luquan is his home county. His perspective and connections, therefore, would prove to be invaluable.
The bus dropped us off in the middle of town and we switched to a taxi, which swung around at Zhang ChunDe's instruction and picked up one of his colleagues, a local Yi researcher and a former student of Zhang Laoshi's, before arriving at a restaurant for lunch. It's interesting to see how well respected my professor is, at least 10 of his colleagues taking off to join us for lunch. There was a bit of baijiu (alcohol), and I drank when I was asked to and proposed a toast or two when it was appropriate. It's a difficult game, drinking with the locals, and I've made my fair share of mistakes and seen others flounder ignorantly in the face of the Chinese drinking culture, as different as it is from Western drinking practices. Even more difficult is balancing Chinese and Yi drinking cultures, which differ enough to confuse any outsider, shot after shot, drunker and drunker. This time, singing was absent and the men went around the table drinking shot after shot of the strong, clear alcohol, showing their empty glasses after each turn. It was Chinese drinking culture. Three shots, then five, ten—I lost count.
After lunch, Zhang ChunDe's colleague, who we'd picked up in the taxi earlier led us to a car, where one of his associates was waiting to drive us out into the countryside. It is impolite in China to thank a very close friend or relative for anything (it's expected that you'd do the same if the opportunity arose). These men had taken off from work to drive Zhang laoshi and myself around. Another sign of respect to Zhang ChunDe. I thanked them for their assistance.
It was almost an hour out to the first village. I began asking questions to frame my research. "What ethnic groups live in the area?" ("Yi, Han, Miao, and some Hui.") "How is the educational system structured in relation to minority languages?" and so on. They asked me what kind of food I liked. If I preferred beef or pork. I explained how since I'm Jewish, I'd grown up eating very little pork. "Good," they said, "then tomorrow, we'll take you to a beef restaurant for lunch."
We arrived at the first village, and got out of the car. We approached a home and asked the two grandmothers there if we could come in to talk. It had been raining and the men were out in the fields farming. There appeared to be two grandmothers, a grandfather, a mother, and two children: a very young girl and a baby boy. They led us into a sitting room, swarming with flies, and set out some stale sunflower seeds for us to eat. I did my best to ignore the flies, landing on every part of me, and greeted the family in Yi. Zhang ChunDe explained what I was doing there, and that I was interested in studying Yi and learning about their village.There were 66 homes in the village, they told me, only 10 of which were Han. The rest were Yi (Nasu). All of the residents of the village were bilingual in Nasu and Mandarin, and could switch between the two when the situation necessitated it. In fact, the mother was Han, but had adopted the Yi culture and language. She went into the other room, and came out to show me the traditional Yi garb. We talked for a while and then set out.
When we got back in the car, they told me there was some bad news. It had been raining all week off and on, and it seemed as though it would continue. Unfortunately, the mountain roads out to the village that I had hoped to stay in were not paved, and it wasn't safe to go by car. Instead, my professor suggested that we stay in a hotel that night in the main town, do some more interviews there, and then head to Wuding-a county over to the West the following afternoon. He asked me if I wanted to arrange for a language consultant to do some phonetic documentation, and I explained that I'd rather continue to do more qualitative interviews.
Back in town, we visited a Yi research office, and I examined some ancient Yi texts and other artifacts. Later, I checked us into a hotel, and took a nap before heading out to dinner at a duck hotpot restaurant owned by a friend of theirs-a Yi woman, whom they told me sang beautifully. His colleagues met us again for dinner, and they all played a drinking game involving playing cards. Someone would specify how many spoonfuls of baijiu to put in a glass, and then they would lay down their cards. The risk was that if you chose to add more spoonfuls and then lost, the cup would come to you to drink. I watched for a while and didn't fully understand what was going on, but I got my fair share of alcohol after the food came out. More toasting. Someone said to me in 'English', "CHEESE!" before raising their glass. (They meant to say 'cheers'.) There was more singing than at lunch-the Yi drinking culture coming into play. One of the local Yi officials, brought me around to other tables to toast his friends. They all welcomed me to Luquan, and I thanked them all for their warm welcome, toasting them back.
After dinner, they drove us to an old apartment complex. On the way, they explained that we were going to visit a Yi expert. "There is no one better at Yi studies than Zhang ChunDe," my driver began, "but when it comes to Yi writing, there is no one better than this man." Zhang ChunDe proudly nodded his agreement. The sun was going down, and lots of old men were out with their grandchildren. Several men, upon seeing Zhang ChunDe, came over to greet him. We made our way up to the second floor, and entered a small, dark, hard-floored apartment. A little, old Yi man named Li ChengZhi greeted us at the door with a big smile. He wore a gray Zhongshan jacket (Mao style), with the sleeves rolled up. A box of Chinese medicine on the counter indicated for bones confirmed that his jacket had probably fit at some point.
My interview with Li ChengZhi was exceptionally interesting. He was a lexicographer, in the true sense of the term, a profession which, with the onset of computers, I would wager no longer exists like this in Western society. This man, however, at nearly 70 years-old, had been working on his dictionary for over 25 years. The room was lit by a single bulb, hanging from the ceiling. Li pulled out a drawer packed full of note cards, each one, he explained, listing a word, its translations, and cross-references. He showed me his 600-page handwritten manuscript, corrected several times over. He'd handwritten the Yi Characters, their IPA transliterations with linear tone indications, and their Chinese (HanZi) translations.
"With so many dialects of Yi, how do you account for differences in the vocabulary and writing systems?" I asked him.He chuckled to himself, as if only he could understand the difficulty of the task. Then, he showed me how he'd categorized the word listings by dialect.
"What is your motivation to keep working on this dictionary?"
"I don't have an office anymore," he began. "I work out of my home. But, with such lacking facilities, it's my spirit that keeps me going."
"Why did you decide to make this dictionary?"
"Oh, I didn't choose to do it. It just happened." He went on to explain how after graduating from college in 1961, he'd gone into work as a translator, translating movies into local ethnic dialects. "There were eight autonomous states in Yunnan," he continued, "and one team member for each state." He repeated himself a while and stumbled over dates. In the early 80s, he began studying Yi writing at the Yunnan Nationalities University (where I'm affiliated), and after graduating from that program he ended up working on the dictionary.
He went on to emphasize the problem of standardization. "Why," he asked, "should Liangshan (in Sichuan Province)
Yi be the template for a standard Yunnan Yi script when there are many more Yi people in Yunnan than in Sichuan?" He explained that the way that provincial and county borders had been established by the Chinese government did not necessarily agree with separations of traditional Yi groups, and that differences in provincial and county language policies had shaped the development of Yi societies in different areas.Before leaving, he showed me a copy of his dictionary which had been published. "This," he said, "is a previous edition." His Yi handwriting had been scanned in and printed in the book. He reemphasized how long he'd spent on it. "And they spelled my name wrong!"
The current copy, he explained, was in its third review. He was almost done.
"What will you do when you're done?" I asked.
"When I'm done?" he repeated longingly. He sighed. "When I'm done, I'll rest."
The next morning, they drove me back out into the countryside. They stopped the car on the side of the road, and we got out and walked into the fields. They told me how the winding road we'd been driving on was relatively new, and that the ancient road went right through these fields and over a very old bridge. We walked for a ways, and I saw that they were building a new highway through the area. Finally, we arrived at our destination: an ancient Yi inscription on a cliff wall. They told me it was at least five or six hundred years old. I noticed that there were Chinese inscriptions as well, and they explained that they were from a later date and told a different story. When evaluating the current and future state of a declining language, it's fascinating to see how long and rich of a history has led to its current position.My professor asked if I wanted to stay in the area or go with him to visit his family in neighboring Wuding county. I told him I would go with him, having already gotten a brief but very interesting view of the Nasu in Luquan county. We stopped for lunch at a Hui restaurant for beef (as promised) before heading out. More alcohol, more singing, and more rain.
Each county in Yunnan has one main town, a county seat. Interestingly, the Wuding and Luquan county seats are only 7km apart. They had once been a single town, and had been split by relatively modern political separations. It fell in line with what Li ChengZhi had been talking about. The Nasu from these two areas, geographically so close, had historically been very closely related if not the same group. With political separation, however, it's possible to see how differences in language policy affecting the two counties differently could theoretically cause the Yi of each area to change independently.
Upon arriving in Wuding, Zhang ChunDe told me that we were going to visit his family and then his colleagues at the government offices. We dropped off our stuff at his family's house, a nice three-story tenement in a residential area of town, and sat eating some fruit and sunflower seeds. After a while, we set out to the government offices, where we again examined some old Yi documents. They were very old, and I noticed that they don't store them very well. I remembered when I'd reviewed ancient documents back at the University of Rochester, and had to enter a special room and only handle the books with special gloves on. We sat for a while and drank tea.
Later, Zhang laoshi told me he planned to treat everyone to dinner, and that we could catch a bus back to Kunming after that. A bunch of his colleagues from the government office joined us for dinner, including one of the secretaries and her young son. I bring two types of gifts with me when I go on field research trips: cigarettes and candy. This time I'd brought some premium cigarettes from Yunnan for the men and some American blow-pops that I'd picked up in an expat store in Kunming for the kids. I gave one of the lollipops to the woman's son (with her permission), and he came back a while later with his tongue turned black.
It was an in
teresting dinner. They ordered a bottle of baijiu and a bunch of beer (with me in mind), and I polished off many shots of the former and bottles of the latter. Everyone got extremely drunk, and it became clear that we weren't heading back to Kunming that night. The dinner carried on and there were scores of toasts, Yi serenades, plenty of food, and so on. At one point, they asked me to sing a song in English. I told them I couldn't think of anything, to which they suggested I sing the first thing that came to mind. About halfway through the first verse of the Beatles' Help!, I forgot the words and made up a few of my own before giving up and sitting back down.The sun had long gone down, and everyone stumbled out of the place. By the time Zhang laoshi and myself were outside, his colleagues had booked us two rooms in the hotel upstairs. I went up and dropped my stuff off, and then we packed into a car to my professor's "nephew's" house. He led us quietly through a gate, and picked some berries off a bush for us to try. Without them being washed, I was a bit wary, and pocketed mine, pretending to put it in my mouth.
Upstairs, we entered his apartment to find his teenage daughter getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth over a bucket in their living room in front of the TV. His wife, who had been sitting watching television, immediately went to work playing host, washing berries, peeling apples, setting out sunflower seeds and so on. The man whose house it was pulled out a large, clear gasoline-style jug and poured out more baijiu. I opted for tea instead, trying to prevent myself from getting too drunk. We sat for a while making noise, and more men, his neighbors, joined in the fun. I felt bad for the girl, who'd gone to bed, but for whom it was clearly a school night. At one point, one of the Yi officials leaned over and asked me, "do you see this kind of home, compared to what you're used to in America, and think that it's lacking or poor?" I explained that I don't look down on anything I encounter in China, and that it's not more "poor" than what I'm used to in America, but that it's just "different".They drove us back to the hotel, and I tried to get some sleep. A few hours later, at around 3am, I was woken up by a mosquito buzzing in my ears. I got up to splash some water on my face and noticed that my arms were itchy. In the light, I saw my hands and forearms had been all bit up-not by mosquitoes, but by bed bugs. There's a clear difference in the marks. Rather than getting back in bed, I stayed up till it was light, then went for a walk. After breakfast, we picked up our stuff at my professor's family's house, and then boarded a bus back to Kunming. All in all, it was a brief but rewarding trip, and certainly gave me some more motivation for my research.
[Photos from this trip are up, and I should have an article on my trips to Lijiang and Sichuan (and their accompanying photos) online soon as well!]
