Spring Festival Preparations

Well, Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is drawing near and everyone is getting ready. On Friday the family I am staying with slaughtered a pig (and tried to feed me copious amounts of pork, deep fried and otherwise). They have also made lots of sweet things which actually consist of popcorn or rice bubbles stuck together in big balls with honey. Apparently they are suitable to eat for breakfast as well as between meals and in the evening. They also bought string and were busy sewing Tibetan prayer flags onto it. My stomach seems to get upset whenever I stay at this house. I'm not exactly sure why- though I suspect it might be the copious amounts of oil in everything. It doesn't seem to help even when I restrict my eating and try to avoid eating much of the oiliest stuff. I haven't had much appetite anyway, but their hospitality won't even let me skip meals or just eat rice, veg and tofu. Most of the time my stomach feels bloated and every two days or so I have to make frequent hurried trips up the side of the mountain. It is starting to take a toll on me.

This morning I decided to walk to Lige to have a shower, use the internet and eat lunch somewhere else. I just had a couple of pieces of the popcorn and rice bubble stuff for breakfast and when I was halfway there I started feeling quite faint and a little dizzy. No cars came past going my direction so I had to walk the whole way. Got down to Lige, went to my other home the "Mosuo culture chatbar" and ordered a bowl of noodle soup with egg and broccoli (feeling a need for protein and fresh greens- and no pork). Scoffed that down and then raided some of my supplies from lijiang (coffee beans, peanut butter and chocolate). Went next door for a shower but they had no hot water today so I went back to the chat bar guesthouse and ended up washing my hair in a basin in the courtyard. I had to wait for Grandma who lives behind the chat bar to wash her hair first. She stripped to the waist and washed her hair and upper body. She is in her 80's. She complained to her granddaughter (my friend) who was helping her that the shampoo doesn't get her hair clean and sent my friend to get a handful of washing powder. When she had finished she starts plaiting her long grey hair and as it gets thin towards the bottom, she plaits into it some fake black hair strands (like thick nylon). When she has a really long plait (grey and black), she winds it round her head and then winds some other cloths round her head.

Incidentally, I frequently hear this kind of comment "It doesn't get it properly clean". The family where I live have a washing machine that they don't use for this reason. I want to comment that if they washed their clothes more frequently they would never get so dirty that the washing machine had difficulty cleaning them. It seems that when they put on clean clothes it is crucial that they are completely spotless (if possible) but then are happy to walk around in them for 3 or 4 days, regardless how grotty they get. If you have a washing machine I would think it would be easier to wash a little more frequently and look clean more of the time.

Anyway, I followed Grandma's example and stood in the courtyard in my bra and jeans washing my hair. I think Mosuo people are less conservative than most Chinese people. They apparently have outdoor hot springs too where everyone bathes together naked. I'm not sure that I'm game for that here (Maybe in Europe). I stand out from the crowd a bit too much. Everyone already watches everything I do. Well, I have to go back to my lovely family that make me regularly sick. Mmmm. Not sure what to do about this situation. Must I choose between my research and my health? Well, I'm planning to spend New Year in Yongning and after that I'm going to travel a bit anyway. I'll survive a couple more days. Maybe I can find someone else to work with on the translations when I get back from my trip around the lake.

As I heard that there is some confusion about how to pronounce all these place names- here is a guide.

Lijiang Lee- Jung ("J" as in "Jack", rhyming with "rung")
Luoshui Law-shway
Lige Lee-ger
Zhudi Jew-dee
Yongning - exactly as you would expect.
Ninglang Ning-lung
Yunnan You-nan
Lugu Loo-goo

Have fun!