【Poetic China】
Author: Peng Cheng
In Yuexi, a county under the jurisdiction of Sichuan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, I immersed myself in the rich atmosphere of the Golden Autumn Festival and felt the joy of a good harvest.
Arrived in the county seat of Yuexi at dusk the day before. The fatigue of the boat and car made a night of sleep particularly restful. After waking up, open the curtains, overlook the rushing water of the river downstairs of the hotel, look at the clouds and mist on the towering peaks in the distance, suddenly feel refreshed, and full of anticipation for the upcoming trip - you know, this is a corner of the deep mountains in the southwest, the mountains are far away, it is a place that is difficult to reach in dreams.
After breakfast, our group drove to Yuexi Modern Industrial Park to attend the opening ceremony of the Apple Festival. In front of you is an open dam, green and flat, and under the background of distant peaks and smoke, the many forms and details of the beautiful scenery slowly unfold. The car soon drove into the endless 10,000-acre apple planting area. The apple trees here are low and shaped very different from those in the north, like shrubs with simple and sparse branches, densely arranged along rows of cement piles, and the fruits are full of drooping, which gives me a rather novel feeling.
The venue is located next to the apple orchard. On both sides of the road leading to the venue, there are long rows of stalls, displaying many local products, including walnuts, peppercorns, amaza, flue-cured tobacco, small potatoes, buckwheat tea, tofu milk, sausages, farmhouse bacon... The harvest in this land is dazzling.
The round venue resembles a giant bowl and is filled with a festive atmosphere. On the huge back panel at the back of the stage, there are several big characters written "Fruity Lingzhou Enjoy a Bumper Harvest". 嶲州 is the ancient name of this place, and Emperor Wudi of Han set up Yue Commandery during his reign. Directly below the front of the stage, there is a row of back baskets and jars, and on the outer wall is a diamond-shaped red paper with a large "Feng" character containing various agricultural products. After the host announced the opening, a group of young women with blue printed aprons around their waists entered the arena one after another, smiling sweetly, with light gaits, holding rattan baskets in both hands, and circling the field to display the various harvest fruits in bloom.
It's the autumnal equinox. A few years ago, the state officially designated the annual autumn equinox as the "Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival". Stacking this harvest celebration with one of the traditional 24 solar terms is both rich and natural. The combination of a long and mellow traditional culture and a human nature yearning for a better life is natural, just like the mixture of a variety of flowers and fruits in the air this season.
Since it is named after the apple festival, it is all kinds of apples that sing the protagonist. Yuexi apples ripen early, have excellent varieties and good taste, and are a major leading industry in the local area. The Apple Festival is also a trade fair, and the banner of "Yuexi Agricultural Products Exhibition and Production and Marketing Matchmaking" is very eye-catching. On the tens of meters long booth covered with a white tablecloth, plates of apples were densely placed, bright and rosy, full of light, and their names were marked next to them: Shinano Yellow, Red General, Splendid Begonia, Venus Gold... Apples were cut into small slices and placed on small plates for people to taste, and the whole venue was filled with a sweet smell. An important program of the opening ceremony was the selection of "Apple King", and I was worried about several companions who were selected as judges: these fruits, the color and appearance are cute, and they have their own taste when eaten in the mouth, how to choose?
When the results were finally announced, I walked to the stand of the growers of the award-winning varieties and wanted to order a few boxes to send to friends and family. The host, who was immersed in joy, showed a hint of apology on his dark and simple face, telling me that this year's apples had all been ordered and sold out. In recent years, e-commerce sales have developed rapidly, and at the end of last year, a new double line of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway crossing the county border was opened, which significantly increased the transportation capacity, which allowed agricultural and sideline products from Daliangshan to be quickly sent to all parts of the country.
During the day is the display, the presentation of the fruits of the harvest; The evening is a celebration, a catharsis of inner joy.
Night covers the land, and the distant mountains disappear. After dinner, return to the opening scene during the day for a cabaret party. The young local singer showed his singing voice and his voice was exciting. The girls dressed in bright costumes, dancing lightly and softly, shaking their heads and waving their hands, turning their waists and walking, swaying with a strong national custom. The final program is a group dance. The actors walked off the stage, held hands with the audience in a circle, and danced different Yi dances with the change of accompanying music, pushing the evening to a climax. In the laughter, we, the guests from Tiannanhaibei, clearly experienced a sense of substitution, a kind of intoxication. I believe that there must be someone like me, at a certain moment, truly feel the connection between their soul and this strange land.
This is the function and effect of the ritual. Rituals are situations that come from reality and transcend reality, and spiritual pursuits and spiritual comforts are embedded in stylized gestures, movements, chanting, and dance. Praying for a bountiful harvest is an eternal dream of mankind and an emotion that transcends time and space. Then, when the harvest comes to the earth, celebration is a necessary ritual, a natural sacrifice.
The ancestors of the Yi people believed in natural gods, and in their eyes, the sun, moon, stars, trees and crops, acres of wells and springs, and corral stoves were blessed by gods. Then imagine that at this moment, in the high and deep starry sky overhead, the mountains in the distance are not deep into the night, and the ancient gods are also overlooking this scene in the distance.
Similar situations have occurred repeatedly over the past thousands of years. The difference is that the scene was in a humble hut, by a dark fire, a pleading confession from a hoarse throat. But those dreams and prayers are always met with disappointment and lamentation. Unlike at this moment, the harvest is a definite reality, like the heavy weight of the apple held in the palm of your hand, like the sweet apple juice between the cheeks, real and clear.
It's never too much to experience good things. Like a lover who has already tasted a lot of fine wine, how can he be indifferent when a new bottle of wine is brought in front of him? The next day, we again witnessed the celebration of the harvest, which was even more vast, rich and vivid.
This time I went further afield. The car passed through the 10,000-acre apple forest it had traveled the day before and drove deep into the mountains. Gradually, the vast world around it contracted and surrounded, and the road was squeezed into a narrow strip, circling between the valleys, next to a chaotic stream. The hillside became steep and precipitous, and I saw a few horses, a herd of black and white goats, and a lonely figure of a shepherd. The mountains are getting higher and higher, and you have to raise your chin to see the peaks, and the white clouds are swirling, often scattering scattered raindrops.
After turning a few corners, an open flat dam appeared in front of it. This place is the town of Puxiong, surrounded by mountains like a staggered screen, green and green, enclosing a large rice field in the middle. The thick golden yellow of the rice paddies was like countless buckets of paint being poured from the sky by a giant hand and spilled evenly. A poem by the great Polish poet Mickiewicz suddenly popped up in my mind: "What a field, the grains are colored!" ”
Deep in the rice field stands a large sign that reads "Sichuan Province Intangible Cultural Heritage Yi Ethnic Taste New Rice Festival Experience Base". The rice paddies are intertwined, and on several paved roads, there are neat queues of men and women, dressed in traditional Yi festival costumes and colorful colors. Everyone in the procession stood at equal distance, holding aloft a yellow umbrella the same color as the harvest field. Here, a grand ceremony is about to begin, as if an arrow has been put on a bowstring, ready to go.
No, this analogy is not apt. The tension is always associated with some kind of tense situation, but the scene in front of you is solemn and calm, serious and relaxed. With an instruction issued on the radio, a team began to move, the woman pulled up the skirt, the man waved his arm, and the movement posture carried a natural and simple style, and the originally quiet field suddenly became agile. Once again, I felt the beauty and appeal of the ritual.
Amid the fragrance of ripe rice, we walked through a field road and ascended a wide round wooden platform. The wooden platform bulges in the middle of the rice waves, like a ship floating on the sea. Several teams from the fields also gathered here, and people placed the yellow umbrellas in their hands in the middle of the field, walking and dancing around them in a circle to the melody of the song "Yi Family Happiness Ballads". A festive atmosphere spreads from the wooden platform, flowing like bright sunlight.
The catwalk and singing and dancing are still just foreshadowing, in order to better create the atmosphere. As with all rituals, the longer the intro, the higher the threshold of anticipation. Next, in the limelight, the event ushered in its climax. Several Yi women walked down the field and into the rice field, each leaning down to pick a handful of rice ears. They proudly raised their heads overhead, smiling happily, and their faces seemed to be dyed with the luster of rice ears.
Their high ears of rice, like a cluster of golden flames, led us along the village road, into the village of Hetuo not far away, into a farmhouse, and watched the follow-up to this traditional Yi folk festival called "Taste New Rice Festival". The man of the house, a middle-aged man, placed a bunch of rice ears in a bamboo grate, peeled off the particles with a spatula, poured them into an iron pot on the stove, stuffed the rice stalks into the stove and lit them, and then stirred them repeatedly with a long wooden rake. Today, when rice threshing has long been mechanized, this live demonstration allows people to understand the history and tradition, and know the shape of labor in the past.
The new rice is fried and poured onto a plate. The master dusted off the rice husk crumbs on it and held it up to everyone. I squeezed a few grains and put them in my mouth, chewing slowly, it was a little sticky, and there was a light fragrance between my taste buds.
The aroma of new rice evokes my memories of the sweet taste of apples, as if a transmission of electricity. If yesterday's apple festival saw the fruits of a bountiful harvest, then in what we see today, there is both the harvest of labor and the process of labor, and they both embody the beauty of labor. Labor and harvest cannot be separated, just as a deep love always has a concrete object.
Coming out of the courtyard, I met two little girls walking towards me. They looked fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing embroidered headbands and beautiful silver jewelry on their chests, and it seemed that they had returned home after participating in this event. The two girls are very beautiful, the beauty is simple and fresh, reminiscent of clear mountain spring water, thinking of the flowers on the field ridge swaying in the breeze. Everyone was amazed and took photos with the two girls, they smiled, and they were a little shy. An enthusiastic female reporter who was traveling with her said loudly: "This is the most beautiful expression I have seen today!" "No one thought she was pretentious.
A question suddenly jumped into my mind: everything has expressions, what kind of pictures and images can best express the characteristics of this land, so that when I recall this trip in the future, I can once again deeply feel its emotional shaking atmosphere?
They should be huge apples that are fresh and crunchy, golden rice waves that rise and fall, and are a clear place of clarity formed by the exceptionally clear sky and atmosphere of this season. In particular, it should be the smile on the faces of the people who live here, the happy laughter of the peasant woman picking the rice, the simple laugh of the man who stir-fry the new rice, and the shy smile of the girl participating in the festival ceremony.
This is the depths of the Daliang Mountain, the northeastern foothills of the Mangduan Mountain Range, remote and remote. In the long years, poverty and suffering have been like the spell of the devil, like the thick shadow of the mountain, hanging over the heads of generations of people. After the founding of New China, the democratic reform movement brought it directly from a slave society to a socialist society, "one step across the millennium." Entering a new era, the national strategy of comprehensively running for moderate prosperity and the powerful measures for rural revitalization in ethnic areas have freed people from poverty and shown a new look in their lives. The speed and magnitude of the change are beyond their imagination. A heartfelt joy that gives birth to such a smile.
This is the expression of harvest, illuminated by the glow of the times.
Guang Ming Daily (October 20, 2023, version 15)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily