Village People

It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A! It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A! You can get yourself cleaned; you can have a good meal; you can do whatever you feel!

...Oh, sorry. Wrong Village People. [Incidentally, I was looking at the lyrics to YMCA, and it is very nearly unfathomable that that song: a) became as popular as it did; and more outrageously, b) remains a cultural anthem to this day among basically every living generation of Americans. I have decided to call it this the "Macarena Effect." Basically, if you have a song with a hummable melody and a catchy beat, no matter how insipid the lyrics, and pair it with an easy-to-learn dance, you're guaranteed a place on the top 40. There is more to say about the Village People (capital 'V', capital 'P'), but they are not the focus of this essay.]

The village people on which I am focusing are actually from a village (unlike any of the flamboyantly costumed six band members). Today we took our requisite trip to a Dong village, the Dongs (侗族) being one of 55 ethnic minorities in China--the particular group that CACSO has adopted to study and preserve its cultural heritage. (The photo on top left shows two Dong individuals in traditional attire. They are performing a dance that meant to imitate the courtship between a pair of young lovers.)

The Dong are noted for their distinct architecture, in particular, their "drum towers" and "wind and rain bridges"; an example of the former below:

Perhaps what is most astonishing about their buildings is that in their construction the Dong employ no nails or other metal of any kind. The pieces of wood are carefully cut to fit together with great precision, thereby obviating the need for nails.

After enjoying the performances of several Dong songs and dances (accompanied by a small ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments), we hiked up a hill to the Dong museum, which catalogues the accomplishments of the Dong, and makes note of some of the particulars of their culture. Because the museum is on top of a hill, it was hard to resist taking the following photo:
Our guide and translator caught a dragonfly on the way up the stone paths. He handed it over to those of us willing to handle is (I was among them); we took some photos with it, carefully holding the insect by its hindwings. I noticed a group of children perspicaciously eyeing my prize as I approached the museum entrance. They looked so innocent and eager to play with the dragonfly that I handed it over to them to play with it.

I quickly learned that looks can be deceiving, even in a very modest, agrarian village such as this one. When I exited the exhibits, I saw the same children, playing with the same dragonfly--minus its wings! Those little barbarians had ripped off the dragonfly's beautiful, jeweled appendages, and it was beating its little stubs furiously in an effort to fly away, which, of course, was futile. I felt very guilty at having so willingly handed him over to such a cruel fate, but levied most of the blame on those little amputation-happy, sadistic savages.

On the way back, the breaks to our van were not working properly, and we waited for them to be repaired. When it turned out that it was not possible (surprise, surprise) to fix the breaks in the village, we had to find the next available bus to return us to the small town in which we are teaching English. Here's a momento of our two-hour wait for the bus:
Our group is actually composed of about three smaller groups: one that will be in China about two months, one that will be in China about one month, and mine, the two week group. Tonight the American couple we are visiting made pizza, to curb the gustatory homesickness that many of our team members are feeling after having ingested nothing but local food for the last several weeks. The act itself is, of course, magnanimous, but the irritating way the husband repeatedly joked, "I dunno: do you think the two week team has even been here long enough to deserve pizza?" made me all but lose my appetite. I am not generally a fan of having food treated as a "reward"--maybe it's just too Pavlovian for me--and I am certainly not accustomed to having the right to eat lorded over me in any way.

Perhaps it is my pride, or perhaps my resentment can in some way be legitimized. In either case, I resolved that no one should be invited over for dinner and made to feel that the meal need to be earned in some way. I don't think my response stemmed from my being among the group who hadn't been in China long enough for pizza; if I had been there two months, I would feel similarly: everyone should feel welcomed to dinner, or no one should, but there is no need to segregate (even in jest) based on the duration of one's stay.

So, my long, long day with the village people, in combination with my predisposal not to have pizza, inclined me to decline the "offer" and return early to the hotel for some much needed rest. Nothing is quite as relaxing as sprawling on one's bed, composing a blog entry, and feeling like a Macho, Macho Man.