After nearly two months of a frustrating search to evade modern China and find the old one, we traveled to the southern stretches of Yunnan province during monsoon season. Known for their unpredictable weather, mudslides and impassable roads, surely, this place would not be high on anyone’s list to visit or build skyscrapers on-top of villages. We had travelled as far as their transportation system would allow and were perplexed when we found ourselves still surrounded by phony tourism infrastructure and jaded peasants. The government had recently rebuilt almost all the rice farming villages to resemble 1800’s establishments and then turned the farmers into a tourist attraction – complete with an entrance fee.
On a desperate search for this “real” China that I had heard so much about from Emily over the last 8 years, and feeling nearly defeated, we ignored the maps, roads and tourist signs and instead, started walking into the valley below, through the rice terraces. We could see a giant cliff in the distance shadowing over a small village with smoke billowing out of a few huts and no roads in sight. It was an alluring and magical sight to our eyes and so off we went, determined to see what we could find there.
We tip toed along balance beam like ledges of grass between ponds filled with rice, following the slow and steady flow of water, trickling from one terrace to the next as we made our way into the valley. For a few hours we continued on like this, only pausing to find a new route, or allowing the occasional farmer with bushels of food on her back to pass.
As we began to descend towards the village, there was a fantastic series of explosions, echoing across the valley behind us. Smoke began to rise from the clustered homes, and chickens and goats went scurrying to the fringes. Was there a battle going on inside? Were they warning us to stay away? We kept walking onwards until we came towards the small homes on the edge…doors left opened, curtains blowing in the breeze and completely deserted. Maybe we had gotten more than we had bargained for when deciding to leave the roads behind.
As we approached the village square, we began to hear the banging of pots and pans, children giggling and dogs barking, as our noses took in the smell of roasting meat. Suddenly we were in the middle of it all. Every home, with doors wide open, had tables full of people inside, buckets of steaming food, and children running gleefully back and forth. Men carried vats of food bigger than I’ve ever seen before. It looked like they should have been catering some massive event – not a celebration in this tiny village. Speaking Chinese in a nearly unintelligible accent, we were summoned from literally every home that we passed, to come inside to eat. We politely refused until we could refuse no more. We couldn’t leave without eating we were told, so we gave in and sat at a table with five old men. Once we sat, we were each given chopsticks, a bowl of rice and a bowl of rice wine – then treating us as if we had always been at their table, they went back to socializing with one another, and we were no more of a novelty than the chickens walking into and out of the homes. We sat and shared boiled pig belly fat, roasted soybeans, hard-boiled tea eggs, chicken and spicy rice noodles. It was all we could do to refuse their second, third and fourth refill of our plates, and their invitations to sleep the night in the spare room before we left.
In those few short hours, even though we could barely communicate or understand what was happening, we had been welcomed as family, given food and shelter – even with our strong determination to refuse. It’s hard to explain the feeling that you get when you experience full acceptance like the way these villagers had welcomed us. Although this may have been the norm in this village, it was the polar opposite of the modern china we had spent the last two months in and for us, it was the diamond in the rough we were desperately hoping we’d find. This was clearly not for show, not a favor asking to be returned or even entertainment for them, this was just a natural part of their culture, just like tipping would be at a restaurant in America. What if this is what all of China was like 30 years ago I wondered? What if we were born a generation earlier and visited before China became the China of today? I think it would be one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever been.