Wondering and Wandering

The Wei family compound seemed to materialize from the multitude of books that I have read about China. When I imagined a family living space from those vivid descriptions, my mind’s eye saw this home. I was awe struck to be there and to be spending time with this caring and gracious family. How fortunate to have such an experience and to be so wholly embraced and welcomed by this family.

This village home consists of the ancestor’s room, a back bedroom, a front room that houses a bed, wooden benches that surround a metal table built over the top of a fire chute which burns coal, corn cobs and food scraps. The fire chute sports a constantly steaming metal pot of water and various cooking pot with bubbling and fragrant food at meal time. The kitchen is a step down from this room and has two large brick fireplaces topped with huge woks that were constantly bubbling with food. Another room off the back of the kitchen was much like the main living space and is the main living area for XiaoWei’s brother and his wife and teenage son. The space over this section of the house is a wooden floored platform where food stuffs are stored. There are bundles of corn still on the cob, cured meat hanging from the rafters, pots of pickled food and bags of rice. A building behind this building houses stalls for food and the pit toilet.

I spent my two nights in the village sleeping in a room that was accessed by a wooden ladder. It was in the upstairs of a building adjacent to the main house. Downstairs was the cooking shed of the neighboring house, the chicken coop, and a large stall. I was lulled to sleep each night by the clucking of chickens and the snorts, snuffling and heavy breathing of the water buffalo, her calf and two medium sized pigs as my room was above their stall.

A 400 kilo pig had been slaughtered several weeks before the Spring Festival week and we enjoyed many hearty meals thanks to that beast. The food that we ate was delicious and the entire family worked together to fix the meals and clean up. XiaoWei is an excellent cook and he was right there helping his mother and sisters at each meal. We were also gifted a huge slab of smoked pork as we left the village on Monday morning.

New Year’s morning we had a delicious breakfast of special boiled rice cake dumplings that had a sweet filling. This was a traditional meal eaten to bring good luck for the New Year. It is hard to believe that I could have any better luck than having been able to spend time in XiaoWei’s village and with his family. I will carry the brilliant memories of this time with me forever.