Fieldwork Connections: The Fabric of Ethnographic Collaboration in China and America

7. Getting Started Again, 1991

7 GET TING STARTED AGAIN, 1991 stevan harrell I n the Sichuan Ribao in February 1992, there appeared the following piece by one Zhou Jifen, a single mother, former ballerina, and feminist fiction writer: Hello, Harrell! By Zhou Jifen The rugged Southern Silk Road, endlessly rising and falling through remote country, an ancient and mysterious route through the passes. You came striding and swinging with your two long legs, part of the “Southern Silk Road Household Economy and Composition Research Team.”1 The phoenix trees with their caplike canopies have outlined your tall shadow; the nakedly exposed sandstone of the mountain trails has heard your hurried footsteps; the blazing, brilliantly scarlet sun and the crazy wind that whips the dust both know you, because you repeatedly stride over the Southern Silk Road, over the old pass route, over the hot soil of Panzhihua. In the countryside, you have slept on short, small plank beds; you have knelt and squatted on the muddy earth around a little kerosene stove and 89 1. This was the o‹cial designation of our 1988 Panzhihua research, which was part of Professor Tong Enzheng’s Southern Silk Road research program. Lugu Lugu Lake Xiao J i n R NINGLANG MULI YANYUAN L i t a n g R Y a l o n g R S h u i l u o R Y a l o n g R LIANGSHAN YUNNAN PREFECTURE LIANGSHAN YUNNAN PREFECTURE 0 25 km 0 15 mi Lugu Lake Guabie Gaizu Dapo Yangjuan Baiwu Yousuo (Pingchuan) Lugu Lake Guabie Gaizu Dapo Yangjuan Baiwu Yousuo (Pingchuan) Meigu Yanyuan Xichang Panzhihua Meigu Yanyuan Xichang Panzhihua 0 50 km 0 30 mi LIANGSHAN PREFECTURE PANZHIHUA CITY LIANGSHAN PREFECTURE YUNNAN YUNNAN PANZHIHUA CITY map 3. Yanyuan County, Northwestern Liangshan and environs 90 stevan harrell •C CI IT TY Y π F Fi ie el ld d s si it te e fried “Chinese food.” Rubbing your reddened forehead, you pasted a little piece of paper on a peasant’s door lintel, saying “Watch your head.” In the closets at the Panzhihua City O‹ce of Artifact Management, there are two bright red, bright red quilt covers. Gently whisking oª the light dust we see you again, rushing from the far side of the great ocean, laughingly taking your seat at a peasant wedding banquet. That year’s bride and groom have long been someone’s parents, but every time their eyes light on that coverlet, every time their hands feel the cover, maybe they think of you. And you, in far oª Seattle, USA, do you also have a flash of memory? You can’t forget far-oª Panzhihua, the people of far-oª Panzhihua; three years after your initial visit, you journeyed again to Panzhihua. Tramping through the mud of the rainy season, carrying half trouser legs of muddy water, you went visiting; you didn’t need a guide—the old roads were still the same, the familiar people still the same! Held up by the heavy rains, you walked with Mao Chunnan, your peasant friend from Yishala Village, singing, dancing, talking . Rain? Tears? It was hard to tell black eyes from blue eyes. When you first met Mao Chunnan, he told you in plain words: he had participated in Resist America, Aid Korea. You plainly replied: “I was still little then, and never fought against Chinese people. But my father took part in the ‘Second War,’ so we’re allies.” Two pairs of hands, one yellow and one white, shaking with a tight grip. Mao Chunnan had found a foreign soul-mate, and took out hidden genealogies , contracts, even proclamations from the Qianlong period for you to see. You uphold the pure and simple virtue and humanity of the ordinary Chinese ; you’re not like most Americans who let old folks live alone, but you brought your old mother to live close by, seeing her morning and evening. You said, Mother is very aged, the next time I come to Panzhihua, will be after I have accompanied her to the end. Confucius of China said, “Don’t travel far while your parents are alive; if you travel there has to be someone who stays close.” Coincidentally, on the thirtieth of the old year, when you received New Year’s money from the father of Professor Deng of the Panzhihua City Artifact O‹ce, you ceremoniously knelt down and properly knocked your...