Joseph Rock

Yesterday afternoon I caught up with the other linguist here who is working on a grammar of Mosuo. It was really good to chat and we are going to meet up again to compare notes on Mosuo.

This morning I did a bit of washing and was just heading out of the motel to get breakfast when an elderly man called me over and wanted to chat. It turns out he is Mosuo, grew up in this house in Luoshui (which is now also the hotel I am staying in, but escaped to Lhasa and then to India, lived in the Netherlands for a year and finally to England before the cultural revolution. He lived in England for 25 years, primarily working helping new refugees who had just entered the country. He came back here in the 80's and has been living here since. He told me he hadn't spoken English in about 5 years, but he chatted to me fluently in English for an hour or so. He said he doesn't speak very much Chinese though he has studied Hindi. Now he has fairly severe diabetes and lives in Luoshui.

You may have heard me speak of Joseph Rock before. A botanist who traveled and lived around this area and Lijiang in the 1930's and 40's. There have always been rumours that he fathered several children in the area too. The gentleman I met this morning remembers him well, his father worked for him a bit. He remembers that food would be parachuted in for him and he always ate from cans, never eating local food or water. From what I could gather, this man's father had died when he was quite young and Joseph Rock became a close friend of his mother. He was only six when this was going on, and he will never be sure what went on, but his mother gave birth to his brother, whom many people believed was the son of Rock. Apparently some of his features were a little unusual and some people called him "meiguo" or "America". His brother has since died but he says his mother was very beautiful so it is quite possible. But at the time he was too young to be really aware and he never asked.

He was a bit tired after telling me that, sitting on an armchair with a drip in his arm, and said he wasn't feeling that well today, but that he'd love to talk again. I think I might come back to Luoshui and speak to him and some of his family again before I go back to Lijiang for a few days.

I must admit, I was quite blown away though. I have met very few Mosuo people who speak any English at all, let alone fluently. And he has such an amazing story.

Reply to comment from Alex: From what Scott has been telling me, you either bring him into work when there is nothing to be done or make him work double shifts when there are several functions on, with an early start the next morning. I can't be distracting him that much, he didn't call me the other morning because he'd been kept back at work till after midday. I think you are distracting him from me!