Wondering and Wandering

Arriving in XiaoWei’s village on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve meant that the place was alive with families getting ready for huge evening feasts, firework displays and visitations to share stories, drink and to gamble a bit.

The first order of business was an amazing walk with XiaoWei’s father, BaBa to take the water buffalo out the terraced fields to graze and a visit to a couple of the family fields to pick greens, cabbage and pea plant sprouts for the evening feast.

Then a family walk to the nearest tall peaks was organized. The next couple of hours we spent hiking to various peaks to enjoy 360 degree views of the village, valleys and further peaks with smoky wisps that indicated that neighboring villages were also preparing for their festivities. As we first meandered through the village we were greeted with friendly stares or giggling responses to our many hails of “Ni Hao” and “Ni Hao ma?”

At

the top of one gorgeous peak we stopped hiking to take a variety of group pictures. It was a picture taking extravaganza and as we counted noses we discovered that we were a happy parade of 23 family members and close neighbors.

The charming parade of people dwindled a bit as it got closer to dinner time and XiaoWei and his sisters returned home to help mama with the cooking. She had stayed behind to continue the preparation for the huge feast.

When we ultimately sat down to eat, the variety of dishes was mind boggling and no less than 15 families members and the 5 visitors were fed and several neighbors popped in to snack too.
While we had heard fireworks off and on all day long, when it got dark, the sky was lit up for well over an hour with blasts of color and sound. XiaoWei, his father, his brother and his nephew orchestrated a marvelous display on the cement pad outside the door of their portion of a beautiful old wooden structure compound that XiaoWei said was well over 120 years old. The central room of the compound was a large room with a family altar where food, incense and firecrackers were offered up to the family ancestors and special homage was paid to the man who had adopted BaBa as a very young child when his birth father died and his mother was not able to care for her many children.