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

10. In the Month of the Snake, 1993

10 IN THE MONTH OF THE SNAKE, 1993 ma lunzy I had just about forgotten the trip to Baiwu with Stevan Harrell, when Director Qubi summoned Gaga Erri and me to his o‹ce on January 5, 1993, and, just as in 1991, explained the purpose and importance of receiving Harrell again. He told us to arrange things well at home, because we wouldn’t be able to return to Xichang for at least a month and a half. He particularly emphasized security and satisfaction in research cooperation. Accompanying Harrell the second time wasn’t something I could put oª; whether I was happy about it or not, according to organizational principles, I had to obey my superiors. For a long time I had been perusing articles, data, and reports about the Yi of Liangshan written by outsiders, both Chinese and foreign, who had left behind a large number of influential investigations, explanations , and dialogues about the area. Without exception, I got tangled up in unfortunate descriptions of pre-Democratic Reform society, descriptions that I really couldn’t shake, and that sometimes made me angry. Whether the writers had set out from Han areas around Xichang, or from Leshan or Yibin, or had started from Leshan and gone to Xichang, they had all prepared before they entered Yi territory as if they had only one chance in ten of surviving, and it seemed as if in their writings they all foreshadowed their own glory in daring to brave the 117 dangers of dying on their journeys. It was not di‹cult to see that they were trying to emphasize their own self-sacrificing spirit and using their own behavior on the trip as a device to exaggerate the suspense of the tale. Some people, even though they were accompanied by Nuosu guides and received hospitality from clans and their a‹nes (who often presented them along the way with pig heads, sheep shoulders, or beef shoulders), still wrote about these acts of courtesy as examples of a primitive , raw-meat-eating way of life. Their trips to Liangshan were represented as once-in-a-lifetime struggles in which they had fought their way to Liangshan in order to have the opportunity to see and hear what they termed the “savage.” What makes one think even more deeply is that a later group of moralistic fellows, imbued with modern civilization, arrogantly took upon themselves the responsibilities of civilization and progress, assuming the position of saviors who braved bitterness and di‹culties and ignored the native Nuosu culture. Their system of knowing and their moral principles led them to use downright hateful language, and contributed to a deeply etched shameful impression of this ethnic group. Superficially, these prejudices were simply a personal or scholarly matter , but for a long time they were the theoretical basis for those who directed the reform of Liangshan Yi society, and thus turned into a pretext for political repression. This had manacled the Nuosu people. I thought about the professor that I was supposed to accompany—what attitude did he have? Would he, in his articles, intentionally or unintentionally harm the subjects of his research and carve a hero’s image for himself? If so, what would I be, as a collaborator in name but a translator in fact? Of course, I wasn’t hoping that he would make the Nuosu into a symbol of human civilization or a people to be looked up to and admired. This would also be a disgrace to scholarship. From another angle, from the time my generation had entered school clear through to the reform and opening up,1 in textbooks and in public opinion, we looked upon the United States as an enemy country, and upon Americans as a people who would stop at no evil. When I 118 ma lunzy 1. The name for the policy of dismantling aspects of state socialism, which began in late 1978 and has now lasted longer than state socialism itself. was little, I had, under a teacher’s direction, made pointy paper noses to play the roles of figures fearful and hateful to Chinese people, such as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. At this particular time, the antiAmerican feeling in China was not small. How should I respond to this ggashu qobo, this “friend on the road” who came from America? The villagers that we wanted to interview would be even...