1. The time machine has taken us back an hundred years or so to unmade roads and primitive living. The town Yuanyang has two minority tribes populating it. The Yi tribe who wear colourful embroidered costumes during their daily life and the Hani tribe who wear black and a blue headscarf. The women wear the costomes and the men wear ordinary clothes and the women do the hard work.
2. We had an amusing incident today when we came across two women taking a break from carrying their heavy load of sticks. We asked if we could try to lift them onto our backs. We put the band round our heads and tried. However try as we may we could not begin to shift the load from its resting place. It weighed about 40 kilos. The pair of us even tried and we could not manage. The girls were laughing their heads off.
3. We see women at the road side crushing rocks into tiny pieces, herding the cows carrying large baskets of produce, and carrying vegetables for sale at the market. The men drive the mini buses or work in the big towns. They do help gather in the rice harvest.
4. The rice terraces are a wonder to look at. The crafting of the terraces on the hillside and the colour ever changing depending on the position of the sun. Apparently it is a photographer's heaven. It has been likened to one of the wonders of the world. Sadly my pictures will not reflect the true beauty of the terraces.
5. We visited a school this morning. However the teacher's had an inset day, so no children. The desks were all in rows with hard benches beneath and the blackboard was at the front of the class. All China follow the same structure and same materials. No small groups here, no workshops, no self exploration. The walls were bare and the teacher seem to have very little material to work with. The maths for 7 year olds consisted of work-books and blackboard work. One teacher explained that some of the farming children cannot grasp the concepts, but teachers are not allowed to deviate from the structured timetable.
6. The hotel's idea of an English breakfast is a few bits of sponge cake with some jam and congealed fried eggs. Even that would not tempt me to go native and take the noodles etc.
7. Back to Kunming tomorrow and off to Dali by train. Not sure when the next opportunity for posting will be. I sense that it is more back of beyond.
Going native
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1 You have left the comfort-zone. You have gone beyond the experience of the UK. You are in the wilderness.
2 You have widened the references which inform your thinking. As I read, I wondered what I was making of it all. In order to think about the lives and thinking of those men and women, about the sexual division of labour, I will have to listen to you. I will have to say 'Tell me more. What do you make of it'.
2.1 The matter of power. As I read I reminded myself that I had heard of no communities in which the men have the rotten jobs and the women have the good ones, communities where the women go to the city to work in offices and the men work in the fields. I remind myself of the question: why do men get the better jobs?
2.2 The case for the booking of St Peter's - or the Unity Room in Worth - continues to develop.
3 For the second, consecutive time, I must put aside the pleasures of the blog and turn to .... the credit union website. Having had a haircut, I have worked on credit union matters, SSAFA, Veterans Day, and now the credit union again.
4 Thus said, I will be keen to receive your messages, on a blog or in text, from the land beyond the land where the English breakfast has not yet penetrated.
4.1 Meanwhile, I think of the children, particularly perhaps the female ones.
Love from
Stayathome
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