CHILDREN'S DAY

June 1 was International Children's Day, which to my knowledge is celebrated everywhere but America. Li Jie, the older Taiwanese woman, took it into her head that we should take the children - 50 all told -down to Yunnan for a picnic. So that weekend she, Zao Zao, Mao Namu and I took a bus to Yongning to buy provisions. And what provisions! Each of us had a large basket on our backs, and all four baskets were completely filled with every kind of vegetable. And then, somewhat to my
consternation, we bought the chickens. Alive. Worry-prone relatives, you
might want to stop reading now.

Since coming to China I have developed a morbid paranoia of all domestic fowl - to the point that I feel even seeing a chicken is but the first step towards inevitably dying of bird flu. So it was difficult for me to live in Luguhu, which is country and where there are chickens and ducks everywhere. When visiting a Naxi house it is not uncommon for chickens to run around your feet. Still, I watched the purchase of twelve live chickens with a good deal of apprehension.

After a very good lunch in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, we assembled our mountain of vegetables and went to hire a car. Due to construction, however, we had to take a small minibus. The vegetables went in the back, but the chickens, drenched and miserable, were piled at our feet.

"I'm going to die," I thought grimly. "I'm going to die for the sake of a barbeque."

But I did not die, and soon it was Children's Day. [Relatives can resume reading now] "This is going to be exhausting," said Xiaoxue. "Why don't we celebrate Children's Day by leaving the children at home and having a picnic by ourselves? That would be fun. This way, we're each going to be responsible for about seven children, and they're certainly going to drown or burn themselves." This seemed likely. The Chinese can be very lackadaisical about child safety, and I pictured myself trying to
wrangle seven children, simultaneously hell-bent on playing with fire and swimming in the lake. If only the Chinese ate sandwiches - one hundred PB&J's would've about met the case, and I'd have personally volunteered to cut off all the crusts.

That morning we marched the children down to the lake, loading them down with chickens, pots, pickled eggs, and so on. When we got to the water, the boys loaded most of the supplies onto a boat and set off for the picnic spot. The other girls and I herded the children. Mao Namu made them sing their Naxi folksongs and "Frere Jacque," which they can sing in English, Mandarin, Naxi, and Mosuo (Naxi is my favorite - it has a lot of syllables so it's kind of syncopated). Hearing fifty Naxi
children sing "Frere Jacque" never failed to make me laugh.

Eventually we reached the picnic area - a shady spot, hidden from the road, at the foot of a large rocky hill. The children were turned loose and the men lit the fire. The other girls and I washed the vegetables in the lake and a few of the older children helped wash the chickens' feet in preparation for their death. Wang Cheng and Wang Muniang did the actual killing - Luo Wei said he didn't dare. They were killed in what struck me as a particularly inhumane manner - their throats were slit
and their blood collected in a bowl. I will say this for the Chinese - when they eat chicken, they eat the holy living hell out of it. We ate the feet, the blood, the heart (quite good), the intestines and lungs (not so good) - EVERYTHING.

After the chickens had been grilled and eaten, along with the bananas, pickled eggs, and hot dogs (somehow I could bring myself to eat chicken heart much more easily than I could Chinese hot dogs, which I did not dare to try), the boys took the boat out and went for a swim. I was very envious - I'd been reading A Room With a View and the thought of swimming in the clear, cold lake seemed very idyllic, but I supposed it
wouldn't do for girls.

In this I was happily mistaken - when the boys returned from their swim, Houzi ("monkey"), Xiaoxue, Zao Zao, Namu and I took the boat out and went for a swim ourselves.

At first we were timid - the water looked cold, and some of us [i.e. me] had large, cumbersome American bodies they were reluctant to reveal. But promises were exhorted not to look, and I stripped down to my undershirt and underpants and jumped from the boat. The others, with the exception of Houzi (monkeys can't swim, we teased her) followed in short order.

It was so nice to paddle around the boat under the clear Yunnan sky. When we got tired, we swam back and Houzi helped Zao Zao and Xiaoxue climb back on board. I was able to get up myself, but Namu, naked except for her underpants, could not be pulled up and had to drift, holding onto the side as we paddled to the bank.

"What if there are snakes?" she said, and we scolded her - a local, a Naxi girl, afraid of snakes and unable to climb onto a boat! The rest of us dried for a bit in the sun, then got dressed. We were still a little damp but no matter. Namu climbed in from the shore and we paddled back to the picnic grounds, singing "Dui Mian de Nuhai Kan Guo Lai" ["The Chinese Harmonica Song"].

As we approached the others, Old Mr Wu stood on the huge boulder and threw an empty bottle near the boat to splash us. "You have to go get that, foolish child!" Houzi commanded him. As we came closer, we saw Wang Cheng, Luo Wei, and Xiao Zhou, a 16 year old Naxi boy, waiting on the bank. They each had a washbasin, and as we screamed in protest they proceeded to soak us completely. I was the fastest - I chased Wang Cheng all over the picnic ground, but he was quick - and armed. With one last
drenching toss of the wash basin, he took off up the mountain. I could have followed him, but then what? No water on top of the mountain, and it didn't quite seem to merit throwing him off. So instead I joined the other girls by the fire with roast potatoes and beer and dried my clothes.

But that was not the end of the matter.

To be continued.