I’d been told that Guizhou Province was different. That I
would notice something special about it.
Colleagues said wait until you get out in the countryside.
Once you leave Guiyang you’ll see what we mean.
Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces in China as well as
one of its most ethnically diverse but no one explained it this way.
Instead they took pains to say that you would only understand once you were there.
It might be that when you arrive at a primary school the
welcome committee is a group of schoolchildren cradling communal cups filled
with liquor that should be sipped by all guests before entering the grounds.
It could be that the cook who is making your breakfast
noodles takes a big swig of the broth in your bowl before slopping in more
noodles and handing the steaming meal over to you.
And it might be that the various penalties for letting
undocumented visitors into the village are fines that must be paid in
foodstuffs rather than in RMB.
Yes, these might be ways you notice something’s different.
But
none of them bests coming to a dead stop on a mountain road because a man dragging
a very long rope of live firecrackers is coming your way.
As the fire crackers bounce into the fields and smoke rises
up around the car, waves of people in various aspects of traditional dress come
forward and pass. There are children and adults and headscarves and rope lines
and eventually a hulking wooden casket carried by the crowd.
There’s a body in there, my colleague says from the front
seat. This is very special.
Yes, I nod from the back. Very special.
And the villagers continue down the side of the road.
Slower-movers pull up the rear and we start to crawl forward
again, our car tracing the path from where they’ve come. The pop-pop-pop of firecrackers quiets with the growing distance. Paper shreds mark where they have been and where the body has passed.
And this group, along with their deceased, continues down the side of
the road making good use of an auspicious day for a burial.
I think I know what they mean when they say things are different here.
