Country Driving [109]
The longer I stayed in Sancha, the more I appreciated the rhythm of the countryside, the way that life moved through the cycles of the seasons. Nowadays in rural China the overall trajectory is usually one of decline—that’s what I witnessed during my drive across the north. In the dying villages I glimpsed how local life was disappearing, but in Sancha I watched something different. Progress had arrived: each year led to some new major change, and always there was the sense of time rushing ahead. But the regularity of the seasons helped me keep my bearings. I liked being in Sancha at certain times—I liked the weeks in April when the apricot trees bloomed, and I liked the rush of the September harvest. I liked the calm steady days of winter. I liked to drive out for the Spring Festival, when the villagers stayed up past midnight and set off fireworks from their threshing platforms. I learned to be conscious of village time, and I made sure to be there for certain holidays and seasons.
In April of 2005, on the morning of Qing Ming, Wei Ziqi and I woke up at 5:30 and hiked up the mountain behind his house. He carried his basket and shovel; he wore camouflage farming gear. Down in the valley the apricot trees had just begun to bloom and the buds glowed like stars in the morning half-light. As we climbed higher, where mountain temperatures were cooler, the buds diminished. By the time we reached the cemetery they had disappeared entirely.
That year only seven villagers tended the tombs. The men worked steadily, piling dirt atop the grave mounds, and they chatted idly about who lay beneath.
“That’s my grandfather’s.”
“That’s not your grandfather’s!”
“I think it is.”
“Xiashuo! That’s nonsense! That’s your father’s older brother.”
They rarely mentioned names; every individual was simply a relation. There were no details, either—no specific memories attached to these mounds. As the morning light began to shine behind the eastern mountains I noticed a patch of burned earth where somebody must have made an offering a few days earlier. This time of year, the propaganda speakers always announced that the government had banned such burnings, but the villagers ignored the rules.
One grave had already been decorated before we arrived. Fresh dirt was piled high, and three white paper wreaths stood in front, marked with the character dian, : “Offering to the dead.” Dozens of white pendants had been pinned to a nearby poplar tree. Atop the mound was a candle, decorated with the words “Eternally Young.” Sancha graves rarely had such elaborate memorials, and it meant that the occupant had died recently. I asked Wei Ziqi who was buried there.
“Wei Minghe,” he said. “He was the man who used to live in the suburbs of Huairou. He used to come back every year at Qing Ming. You gave him a ride home a few years ago.”
I remembered: the friendly old man, pouring baijiu atop the grave of his parents. That year he had told me about the good heat he enjoyed in his new city home. I asked Wei Ziqi when the old man had passed away.
“Last year. I don’t remember which month.”
Another man spoke up: “This is the first time we’re marking his grave.”
“Last year he poured dirt on other people’s graves,” somebody else said. “This year we pour dirt on his.”
I picked up a shovel and added to the pile. Wei Ziqi took a stack of grave