Dancing and Singing - and Shamanistic rituals - at the Prop Roots Center’s Opening Ceremony
The Jingpo/Zaiwa ethnicity’s Western Mountain villages are in a subtropical border region of China, surrounded by Burmese territory. This is where a unique and beautiful Children’s Activity, Arts and Culture Center has just been erected, the home of the Prop Roots Program and its founders: husband, Dutch-born Anton Lustig, and wife, Beijing-born Li Yang. Their project aims to boost these minority children’s self-esteem and empower them to take their future in their own hands, in a society that is highly challenged by poverty, cultural erosion and tremendous problems surrounding drugs and hiv/aids. Li Yang was trained as a lawyer and has extensive experience working in communications and PR for international organizations. Dr. Anton Lustig is an artist and also the world’s main specialist on the Jingpo’s Zaiwa language. They are joined and supported by capable volunteers from all over the world.
(Click on a picture, and they will all get bigger.)
May 26th (2013) has finally arrived. After some extremely rainy days, we got the brightest summer weather imaginable the morning of our project center’s festive opening and traditional Jingpo housewarming party. When I returned that morning, with the great shaman that I had picked up from another village, Li Yang and the volunteers were just finishing last-minute preparations, and some neighbors were already looking around. We had spread out various informational materials, set up a projector to play videos continuously, and erected a placardthanking all those involved in constructing the center. In the big activity space there was an exhibition of children’s paintings on the theme ‘the house of my dreams.’ Local women, and little girls, had put on their most colorful dresses, and the men suddenly looked very festive as well, wearing turban-like headresses with their characteristic multi-colored little balls. The reception team had already started making music and dancing, just for fun and for the good weather.
(Video's are upcoming, when ChinaCentralTV is finished with them.)
The morning was for rituals, modest in scope. The shaman who was with us that day is one of the most renowned in the area, and a very friendly old man, too. The rituals were meant to send away the bad spirits while keeping the good ones, in order to bring us good luck in the new home. Witnessing these rituals involuntarily reminded me how much the Jingpo families of the past must have needed good luck; life was hard in those days, but they were strong and united. A magnificent highlight was when, after a sudden burst of firecrackers, the shaman, with three men and three women after him, solemnly entered the house. They carried symbolic burning torches, and relics such as six long bamboo containers full of traditional white rice wine, a big pan, and a suitcase for valuables. They lit the fires: in the kitchen, in the hearth of the large activity room, and upstairs in what they rightly interpreted as the heart of both our home and the project: me and Li Yang’s office.
Some more rituals took place there, with chanting in that ancient ceremonial version of Zaiwa that only some elder people can partly understand.
Back in the yard, there was a final ceremony, which also involved long chanting. It ended with decapitating a rooster - who had been there for a long time, all tied up - and letting him dance around freely. The rooster stopped with his neck facing the house, which was the ideal result. Always nice to know of course.
Another amazing thing about that day was that we were visited by acquaintances and friends from such various parts of our Dehong prefecture, some came from quite far away, and from such different walks of life. It was a reflection and confirmation of the size of the network we have developed. It was touching when delegations arrived, from two other Jingpo villages, each quite far away, where I have stayed and done research years ago. There were also local intellectuals, entrepreneurs and government officials, as well as construction workers and suppliers with whom we have been working for the past one-and-a-half years. All of these people mingled at our big center, harmoniously and cheerfully.
Yao Jianjun, your pro bono design (Yuster.nl) must have a special influence on everyone entering our center. The building is undeniably Jingpo, but guests also find that it is surprisingly different. The building radiatesharmony and inspiration. Our center surely has a future!
That afternoon we had already been visited by so many guests, but the big dinner and evening festivities were still to come. Because of the heavy rain of the preceding days, the dinner was held below in the village community space, some hundred meters away. Therefore, the village head, Li Yang and I went past all the dining tables, not only to toast our guests, but also to urge everyone to come back up after the meal, to join the main part of our event.
Our colorful activity space is very suitable for performances on the scale of that night. The children were the first to get on stage, with various dance performances. We had seen the two girls’ great dancing before, but the Michael Jackson imitations of the boys caused a shock of excitement - such talent in all of these kids!
The next part of the evening was rather traditional. After some delay, many people took part in the traditional house-inauguration dance, which started as a long lasting round dance in the bright moonlight, accompanied by a gong, drums, cymbals and singing. Finally, everyone danced into and through the house, and up to the second floor. The shaman, who had been sitting there since the morning, recited his last short piece of chanting. Then chaos broke out.
The building was full of cheerful village people; even our bedroom was filled with dozens of them. Some women went around, forcing everyone to put a contribution into their sieve basket,in rather a ferocious manner. Some people provoked them, acting as if they resisted, which of course caused hilarious fights. The money was meant for buying drinks for the party; a local tradition. Our house was ‘warming up’ quite well. It will always remain a nice memory that the rooms we live and work in were once so full with people and laughter.
The last part of that evening was a benefit performance by my Jingpo friend Pai Dvang and his pals, a Lisu, an Achang and two more Jingpo, all great musicians and singers, belonging to the absolute top of the musical circuit in this part of Yunnan. There were also cheerful and supportive speeches by the village school’s principal and some other officials, with contributions by Li Yang and me of course. It was a fantastic night, as it has been a great and unique festival altogether.
A positive, pure and innocent feast. A culmination and reflection of what we have built up in an area that two years earlier was still new for us. It still carried echoes from what I had built up long before, in other Jingpo/Zaiwa villages. We are now really part of the village community, and we can feel that whenever we go through the village or to the market. Just like with festivities for other villagers, a large group of neighbors worked hard, happily and fully for free to make our gathering a fun-filled success.
The opening was a very good start and we are fully confident that we can keep on fostering the Jingpo/Zaiwa children’s self-esteem from here. Now that the center is nearly complete, we will have time to work on new things. Some will be cooperations with more talented people. A new type of Summer Camp is coming. And we are going to get subsidized to set up a large puppetry project. Nobody brings us money for buying our rice, but we will manage anyway. The center is an enormous asset, and we are sure that a lot more is going to happen here. Thank you for reading. We like to keep you updated via this new blog, as well as here. Here are Anton's blogs in Dutch.
