▲ Lugu Lake, Yunnan 2006
Photography / The Year of the Seven Viendas
South of the cloud
Text/Seven Years
I remember Lugu Lake, a summer blue dress woven with sunshine. The pattern of the skirt is filled with moonlight, insects, paddles, seas of grass, and the path traveled with the footsteps of a nineteen-year-old.
In the summer of June, old-fashioned green-skinned trains without air conditioning. Because of the sweltering heat, I did not dare to close the window. The roar between the wheels and the rails was heard endlessly. The green fields, steaming in the summer twilight, are the strong aroma of hot earth and crops. The smoke from the burning of rice stalks filled the fields with a faint layer of blue. Dusty flocks of birds scattered around the corners of the sky.
It was getting dark soon. The dim lights of the carriage were faintly illuminated, and we sat face to face in front of the window, as if sitting together on the edge of the vast night. There was wind on my side, no wind on her side. I saw her sitting so quietly across from her, her hair as unharmed as her mood, and my hair was already flying in the wind that was rapidly pouring into the car window, and I could hardly open my eyes.
In our youth, her composure and calmness have been silently straightening out my turmoil, although I understand that she is not indifferent to time. Everything is as metaphorically opposite as we are in this moment.
Stopped by Xichang and looked at Qionghai. Eat the Yi people's very authentic baked potatoes and hand-grabbed meat, extremely spicy. The next morning, I took the only early bus from Xichang Station to Lugu Lake. The drive is long, along the winding road between the clouds and mountains, and the sun is bright and dim because of the thick clouds.
There is an episode. On the way that day, there was a serious landslide and congestion caused by the mudslide the night before, and the vehicles could not pass, and the long queues of cars were parked on the side of the road, bored. In the end, there was no way, the whole car had to go down, walk through the road destroyed by the mudslide, and then be picked up by another car on the opposite side.
The road itself is not long, just too muddy, I observe while carefully striding, distinguishing where to settle down and where not... Unexpectedly, a wrong judgment stepped into the knee-deep mud, and suddenly lost his balance, and even the other foot stepped into it. When my friend pulled me up, my entire calves and travel shoes had turned into clay figurines, covered with a thick layer of thin mud, and it was so heavy that I couldn't laugh or cry. I was still a pioneer, and later people saw my appearance and bypassed the quagmire.
A pair of traveling shoes filled with mud became so heavy that I insisted on finishing, stopping at the end to take off my socks and shoes and put on sandals. We sat bored waiting for the car on the side of the road, looking at the shoes that had turned into clay models, and couldn't help but laugh.
I got into another car and finally arrived at Lugu Lake at dusk. When you get off the bus, you can smell the air is rainy and sunny, and a few passengers, as soon as they get out of the car, they breathe heavily and stretch their limbs and feet. Called the inn booked, the owner Sig was still a young man and came to pick us up in a car.
The road was muddy, the car was turned off again, and he was sweating profusely and couldn't start it, so he whispered with a red face... This is the first time I've driven, just got the car from a friend...
My friend and I immediately looked at each other.
Finally settled down, lived in his family's rather grand double-storey courtyard, put down his luggage and simply packed his belongings and went to wash his shoes. Dinner was devoured and I only felt very hungry. Go to the bonfire party, where the Mosuo people can sing and dance.
At night, the lights were turned off, and the room was quieter. Between heaven and earth, only chickens and dogs smell each other, frogs and insects sing, and a large sea of silent grass outside the window sinks into a dream. The water rippled, and the sound of the paddle was faintly whispered. Looking up, the moon stars are rare, and the light and color are sprinkled.
This is the first night of coming to Lugu Lake.
▲ Lugu Lake, Yunnan Dusk 2006
The next morning, he woke up early and followed Si ge to the old man's house. The matriarchal clan society of Lugu Lake has been preserved to this day, and the old woman is the elder of the family. There is a chill in the house, the lighting is not good, and on a sunny day in June, the old man needs to be warmed by a fire when he sits for a long time.
I took a picture of the black tiled roof in the room, the wisps of sunlight shining through the gaps, the smoke passing through the beam of light, and the ethereal gesture was clearly visible.
Sit in the old man's home until noon, come back for dinner, rent a boat in the afternoon, and swing in the sea of grass. Lugu Lake is a living water lake, shaped like a hairpin with a lingzhi auspicious cloud at one end: on one side is a large lake, on the other side is a narrow lagoon, where is the swampy area, the wetland is covered with dense high grass, called the "sea of grass". Between the grass and the sea, I could faintly see some dark red narrow wooden boats floating there, which were pig tank boats in Lugu Lake.
On that day, we walked back and forth in the sea of grass in a pig trough boat, and the high reeds almost obliterated our figures. The teenager who rowed for us had bronze skin all over his body, and he was silent and was a character I liked. After an afternoon of exposure, we only felt that the sun was roasting the skin hot and began to peel.
▲ Lugu Lake, Yunnan Caohai, 2006
When I came back that afternoon, it was already four o'clock. I only felt sore after paddling hard in my arm. But as soon as we were resting on the side of the road, my friend suddenly proposed to go to the end of the sea of grass to have a look.
The man who rented the horse grievely brought us horses, and when we could not bargain, we did not ride the horses, and walked all the way to the end of the sea of grass. I heard that there is a long trestle at the end of the sea of grass that spans the entire wetland.
We don't know how far we are, we just blindly move forward. It seems to be the fulfillment of "the traveler chooses a path and never asks how far it is". Gradually, more and more tired, I finally came to the trestle bridge.
The gap between the clouds sprinkles a cold and cold sky light, which has a sense of grandeur. We walked on the long trestle, watching the green end of the sea of grass, somewhat tired.
The real blue of Lugu Lake was on the third day after coming here. Lugu Lake is extremely wide, we rented a boat in the early morning, rowed away from the grass sea, and arrived at the second ferry port on the shore of the lake. Get off the boat there and hike along the mountain path on the shore of the lake to Rigg Island. It is a gathering place for tourists in Lugu Lake.
That day, from ten o'clock in the morning, carrying a hiking bag and carrying weights, climbing the hill and climbing the mountain for six hours, finally arriving at Rigg Island at four o'clock in the afternoon. We walked half the outline of Lugu Lake, about thirty kilometers of mountain road.
Thirty kilometers of mountain road is long, I finally have a clear and unambiguous idea. If you walk with a heavy load under the scorching sun, if you walk fast and your steps are elastic, you are not too tired. Today, I have the impression that the feelings of exhaustion, thirst, and soreness in my whole body have long faded, but I deeply remember the feeling of being happy when walking on the high mountain road on the shore of the lake, overlooking a lake of blue blue water and ice cream-like clouds reflected on the surface of the water.
On that evening on Rig Island, we were so tired that we were only reading in the café of the inn, and I found a rare and old collection of works by the poets of Lugu Lake of the Mosuo ethnic group. I had forgotten the complex alien name, but I was attracted by his beautiful verses, and because I could not buy it, I sat down and copied it sentence by sentence.
He writes in the verse:
The shepherd's whip raised high
The melancholy sunset at the mouth of the mountain is missing
Ancient legends that fall on the shores of nameless clear lakes whisper past woven with shadows
The red shoes of my mother's marriage
Pig tank boats in Lugu Lake
Because of her infatuation, her friend once returned to Lugu Lake in the winter, and in the photo, she stood in the sea of yellow grass and smiled in the sun, or sat idly on the pavilion on the mountainside and read a book. Seeing meteors falling at night is called "sleep under the stars".
But the Lugu Lake I remember is a summer blue dress woven with sunshine. The pattern of the skirt is filled with moonlight, insects, paddles, seas of grass, and the path traveled with the footsteps of a nineteen-year-old.
——This article is selected from the work "Dust Song" of the Seventh Heavenly Year
Hugu Lake, Yunnan Province, 2006
· END·
Seven years
writer. Twilight Collector. Think that life is short and sweet. Along the way, I just want to see more scenery and seriously waste my life.
He has published "The Lamp of the Earth", "The Bed is the Grave of Youth", "Lan Ben's Wedding Dress", "Dust Song", "Happy Life", "Dust Under the Lamp" and so on. He also has translated the work "Foster Care" and edited the collection of essays "Near and Far Away".