Ducklings, the group huddle, and how to beat the rain in Dong country
These ducklings waddled into our hearts in one of the eight villages around Chengyang (程阳). Many others had waddled - very compellingly - with the same goal in mind but fallen short. It wasn't easy - we had already considered but turned down several chickens, a brown-eyed cow, a flock of goats and some scrappy young mules as our ideal travel companions. (The demure Southeast Asian "Loafus" puppy-type often aims for our hearts, with a considerable degree of success, by wagging, rather than waddling. But Guizhou, where we were headed, is dog-eating country. If we tried to save the world we would be doomed to condemn ourselves.)
But these ducklings, we said to ourselves, are just the thing for busy folk as ourselves. They're smart (recognize basket as home), waddle at astoundingly high speed (skill lost at adolescence), and have mastered the group huddle to cope with the cold weather of Sanjiang Dong Minority Autonomous County (三江侗族自治县, in Guangxi 广西). In addition, they seemingly move with one mind: like a school of fish, they dart around with preternatural awareness of the group's actions, quick to follow any tantalizing new direction or investigate a morsel. Excellent, we said. No trouble to herd along as we hike from village to village, and we won't have to worry about their stubborn individual spirit causing them to throw themselves against an indifferent society and callous government! But here we must stop and note that the society of the Dong minority seems anything but indifferent. Meeting each other on country paths, people smile, chat, inquire about your plans, and sometimes offer you a wad of sticky rice dyed yellow by mountain flowers (a Qingming special) or incomprehensible but heartfelt directions on walking down the mountain. Meals are boisterous, feasts open air, house building communal. Lost in the rain? A Dong woman may gladly guide you into her home...or her diamond-making sweatshop...and feed you lunch. A community center is sometimes much more the community center when it is called anything but "Community Center." Call it a drum tower, for example (no drum necessary), or a wind-and-rain bridge. That's what the Dong people do, making the most of the incessantly drizzly climate in their ancestral lands (the mountains and of southeast Guizhou, northeast Guangxi and southwest Hunan) by building fun places to stay dry with a big crew. They may ask you to contribute to the communal donations fund to repair and upkeep these wooden buildings, but you'll also certainly be invited in for a warm fire, tea, smokes and cards in the company of friendly old men and women and rollicking babies.Which is why, in the end, we left the ducklings where they were. Life in a Dong village was perhaps better, after all, than a bumpy journey with two wayward, roving Beijingers.
