China Reflection

The seeds of journey are set into motion by one long grey hair shooting out of an old man’s face.  It doesn’t have to be something significant or Earth-shattering that pulls me towards a particular destination.  I don’t need an excuse to travel–just a feeling, some time, and possibly an offhand suggestion at best.  For me, a journey can happen almost anywhere.  I don’t need to go to the ends of the Earth.  I can easily make discoveries around my own neighborhood, in and around central Beijing, or its suburbs.  The people are there.  I don’t know their stories, but they all have them.  Most of the time I’m perfectly satisfied to wander the city and let the stories come to me…most of the time.  Sometimes, however, something someone says or does prods me to get out of my own sphere of comfort and ignites my desire to search for the stories.  But what will I search for this time?  Only the long grey hair knows…

Meet you next to the bridge

When I told The Smooth Scholar about my possible desire and interest in learning how to play the gu qin^W he suggested that I come with him to Beihai Park on a Saturday morning.  Now that the weather had become more pleasant, there would be more people outside, including a group of musicians who gathered in the park every Saturday to play music starting at 9am.  We were to meet at a small bridge in between the Northern gate and the Western gate of the park.  I was excited about meeting with the Smooth Scholar for two reasons, one of them being the music itself, but the other reason being that it would be the first time to meet the Scholar outside of the diabolo grounds.  This change of venue symbolized a big step forward for me.  Besides diabolo, he was also inviting me to go with him to a musical event in another area.  I had the feeling that I was being let in on a little secret, or let into his world just a little bit more than I had been previously allowed.

Recently, the Smooth Scholar has really lived up to his name, proving himself as a person who truly enjoys studying.  One week, he suddenly became interested in learning English and requested that I teach him one new word per week.

“Anymore than that and I won’t be able to remember,” he said.  “It would be like the story of the monkey who picks up the corn.”  This story is an ancient Chinese story.  In it, there is a monkey who picks up an ear of corn as he makes his way back to his home.  In front of him, he sees a watermelon as well.  He wants to take the melon back home as well; however, the melon is too big to pick up with one hand.  In order to pick up the melon with both hands he puts the ear of corn under his armpit so that he can carry both.  After only a few steps, the ear of corn slips out, and all he’s left with is the watermelon.  After a few paces he finds a few bananas on the ground and wants them as well.  The cycle repeates itself over and over, the point being not to bite off more than one can chew, or to study one thing at a time.

The Smooth Scholar has proved to be an excellent student as well.  Previously, where he couldn’t speak a word of English, he now often sends me English messages on my mobile phone, such as “see you soon,” “have a good weekend,” and “good luck,” etc.  He’s even written the words “diabolo,” ”play,” and “sports” with a marker on his diabolos.  When I saw the English on his diabolo it gave me renewed hope for myself when I reach the above 65 mark.  If he can still learn, so can I. 

When I get to the small bridge, I search for a few moments amongst the crowd (almost entirely consisting of elderly people), until I find the Scholar waving at me, a smile on hiw wrinkled face, video camera in hand, and wearing a blue hat.  We chat for a few minutes about how we arrived, etc.  He points out the various instruments in the the small group of elderly musicians that is assembled in front of the crowd.  I see a few ”er hus,” one “yang qin,” a “pi pa,” a “die zi,” (chinese flute), a “sheng,” and a large three stringed intstrument that I am still not sure of the name.  After chatting for a few minutes, the musicians begin.  The crowd pushes in, finding shade away from the Sun, and everyone is silent, listening to the music that floats with the wind through the trees of Beihai Park.

Cometh the Hair

After a few numbers, I notice that I am being squished and squashed amongst Beijing’s elderly audience of traditional music lovers.  I decide to step back away from the crowd for a few minutes where I can still hear, but not see the music.  The temperature away from the crowd drops a degree or two and the wind picks up, refreshing my eyelids.  The Smooth Scholar stands on a raised rock, oblivious to the Sun’s heat.  He unflinchingly holds his video camera up to his face so that he can record the entire morning’s concert.  It’s at this moment when I am observing the Smooth Scholar that I notice that I, too, am being observed.  I glance over to my left, and there it is…the grey hair is approaching, wafting back and forth in the Spring to Summer breeze.

The hair, of course, is not alone.  Although it is long and could have a life of its own, it is also accompanied by a face.  The face is a bit paler than the faces of other Chinese faces that I am familiar with.  On the eyes of the face is a pair of large square-rimmed brown glasses.  The hair on the faces head is also grey flecked with black.  The mouth is a friendly mouth, widening into a grin.  Underneath the face are all the other things that should go along with it…a body, arms, legs, shoes, shirt, pants, etc.  But…I can’t take my eyes off of the long, grey, hair.  It haunts me, waving back and forth in the wind like a snake’s tongue.

“I think I’ve seen you here before,” Grey Hair says to me.  “You come to Beihai Park often?”

I tell him that I do, often running here in the mornings.

“You like traditional Chinese folk music?” he asks. 

“Yeah, I really do,” I answer back.  There are other people now watching the two of us converse.  I notice that the Smooth Scholar has also stepped down to join in the conversation.

“His Chinese is really good.  He also wants to learn the ’gu qin.’”  I brush off the compliment, trying my best at modesty.  It still feels good when someone compliments me, though.

“You know, if you really want to hear something different…if you really want to hear some Chinese folk music….” the Grey Hair approaches me as if he is going to whisper some secret.  “You should go to Ningxia^W.  I went there a few years back to a place called Zhongwei^W.  I was on my way to visit the desert scenery near there…called “Sha Po Tou.”  Really something else.  But the thing is, if you are in Ningxia, and you go to Zhongwei, you’ll be able to hear some singing that you’ve never heard before.  This kind of singing isn’t anything that the singers study professionally.  It’s passed down from generation to generation.  Called Hua Er.  You won’t hear anyone singing like that in Beijing, and you might not even hear anyone singing it anymore in Ningxia.  I went to Zhongwei to visit their Gao Miao Temple, and when I was walking near the river I happened to overhear some people singing.  It was like nothing I had ever heard before.  Very raw, very beautiful.  I just stayed there and listened to it for a while.  It’s hard to explain.  You should go to this place.  ”

I get Grey Hair to write down the name of the town he mentioned to me, Zhongwei.  The two Chinese characters, “zhong” and “wei,” are very easy to write down and remember.  It’s hard to believe that a place with such a simple name can have this secret immaterial culture aspect…but I trust the Grey Hair.  We talk for a few more minutes, about what I cannot remember.  I do remember that he tells me he is of the Hui minority, one of China’s many ethnic minorities.  The Hui are predominantly an Islamic people.  Ningxia is also referred to as the “Hui autonomous region.”

Ningxia.  I have heard of this province.  I knew of it before.  I wanted to go there.  Whenever I heard Han Chinese refer to Ningxia, they always talked about the Hui people, “the good Muslims” that live there.  I felt like they were introducing them as “our Muslims.”  I have seen Hui restaurants, and there are always pictures of people with long white (or grey) beards, wearing Islamic hats.  When I would menion the province to my friends, they would usually pause and say, “well, you can eat a lot of mutton there…and noodles…oh, and they have wolfberries there, too.”  I didn’t know what a wolfberry was.  The only thing that I knew now, is that I definitely wanted to go there.  The only thing that kept me from making me visit the province in the past was that I lacked the name of a particular place, the name of a particular person, or just the name of something to go for.  I felt like I needed an excuse, a mission.  I didn’t want to go blindly, just in search of the Hui People and the land.  I wanted something more…something romantic.  The Grey Hair gave me my romance, and my mission as well.  I would go to Ningxia to find a song.  I might not know it when I heard it, I certainly wouldn’t understand any of the lyrics, and maybe I wouldn’t even be successful in my search, but I would do my best to find this Hua Er somewhere amidst the wastelands, mosques, and fields of wolfberries.  I was going to Ningxia, and I had the Grey Hair to thank for it.