August 29, 2022. Cloudy
Thanks to my lovely landlady who is extremely friendly and helpful. She took me to visit the principal (decision maker) of the schools (around Shaxi area) and see whether there was any vacancy for a language teacher like me. We chatted along the way and walked about 30 mins to Dongnan Village (东南村). After a short conversation with the retired principal's wife, who also helped to arrange a phone call with the current principal, they nicely declined me. The reseaon were: 1. my short-term stay would make it difficult for them to arrange a new teacher if I left half way; 2. the work enviroment in the villages might be difficult for a over-qualified city teacher to adapt; 3. the village kids were more difficult to discipline compared to those in big cities. Since I had not made any long-term plans at the this stage of my life, I just told them they could contact me if needed.
I felt sorry for my landlady because it seemed that she really wanted me to stay. The old principal's families politely invited us for dinner. We nicely declined them then went to visit my landlady's sister who lived next to the principal. I was amazed with the hosuing style of the Bai ethnic groups after having lived in my landlady's and visited the principal plus her sister. They are a typital "three buildings and a forth wall (as a screen) forming a square-shaped house with a big courtyrad in the middle" (三坊一照壁) constructing style which is unique to the Bai minorities. The buildings are two storeys' high and each side of the building normally consists of three rooms, with the owner's rooms facing the wall. It pretty much resembles a feeling of living in the traditional quadrangle dwellings although I had never lived in one before. (Below are photos of the wall of screen at my landlady's.)
On our way back home, the landlady told me that she was going to go with her sister to pick mushrooms/fungi tomorrow early morning. I insisted on joining them depite her bluff about all the hardships. After the delicious dinner generously offered by my landlady, I went out to buy some bread, packed and preapred for another mushroom adventure with the locals! Before bed, the landlady came and told me to get up at 5:30AM so that we could leave at about 6:00AM. I set the alarm but unfortunately did not get much sleep.
At 5:30AM, I finished everything quickly and went downstairs to look for the landlady. She prepared me a basket so I hurrily transferred my supplies and dumped my bagpack back to the room. On our way to the sister's, she kept calling the landlady and urged us to be hurried.
It was a dark early morning, not many people were up yet. I looked at the clear sky decorated with numerious twinkling stars as we talked about the old village life, my drifting mind had floated back in time to the same early morning ten years ago in Sri Lanka, millions of twinkling stars overhead, an intrepid young lady who was in love, sitting in the backseat of a motorbike, staring at the stars and felt asleep on her way to Nuwara Eliya...
"Beep!Beep!" A sudden sharp car horn brought me back to Shaxi. Soon we arrived outside the sister's, we placed the baskets in the back of the pickup truck, squeezed ourselves into the front seats and here we went! The ladies were chatiing excitingly in their Bai language, which I did not understand a single bit except for the few "opps and ahs" in their dialect. In about 20 mins' drive, we arrived to the mountain area where I came a few days ago. The ladies deftly put up their baskets, jumped acrossed the barrier, and spred to hunt for mushrooms.
Dawn had come, I stopped and took some photos. The landlady warned me, "do not fall behind otherwise
you will be lost in the forests and could not find your way out. I cannot tell the way so we have to catch up with them". The other ladies had gone far already, they trekked swiftly in between bushes and forests like squirrels which I could barely follow. My landlady shouted out her sister's name and then she quickly responded with a loud yell. I found this "primitive" way in keeping everyone together so fascinating! How were we different from monkeys? Mobile phone without signals was useless. The only way to hold us together was the voice signal! It worked so well that even though I was shy to call out in the beginning, I quickly mastered this amazing survival skill and cried out for my landlady whenever I lost track of her.
It was not until the sky became completely clear and bright could I start to search for mushrooms. My landlady and I were slow trekkers. We both took our time carefully searched for mushrooms whereas the other three ladies stormed among the bushes and soon gone like the wind. We both complained that with their hiking speeds, it would almost be impossible for us to find any mushrooms!
When the ladies' baskets were already half-full, I felt exceedingly fustrated: I could barely see any mushrooms/fungi! I soon realized that walking behind them would not work since they were skilled mushroom-pickers who knew excatly where and what mushrooms they could find. I changed my strategy, slowly and loosely detached myself from the ladies while keeping my ears and eyes on them. It worked well with my landlady because we were both in a leisure mood, however, hardly functioned with the other three.
One of the fungi that I found most was the "Amanita jacksonii" (鸡蛋菌, egg fungus ). It stands out with its bright yellow color and compareable larger size, and thus easy for me to distinguish. There was one area admist the thorny bushes (I guess they belong to the "quercus" genus, most likely are "quercus spinosa", see the photos below) where I found some substantial clusters of blossomed amanita jacksoniis (see Amanita jacksonii -2), the ladies were surprised and jealous. With their life experience and common sense, they knew that fungi and mushrooms normally grew in the same area. While the landlady and I were having a rest enjoying our lunch (delicious meal again generously offered by the landlady! Oh! She is such a lovely person!), the other ladies quickly set off to storm the area.
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| Amanita jacksonii -1 |
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| Amanita jacksonii -2 |
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| quercus spinosa |
Needless to say, they came back with some good mushrooms even before we finished our meal. We sat there, sharing our bread, cakes and pears while the ladies helped to make space for our baskets by picking out those inedible fungi/mushrroms.
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| Boletus |
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| Boletus, 牛肝菌属 |
The landlady and I got tired of keeping up with the ambitious ladies. We eventually agreed to head back down and wait for them by the main road. Hiking back in our own paces, we finally got to grasp the joyfulness of today's mushsroom adventure.
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| the landlady |
The second most fungi that I found on our way back was craterellus aureus (喇叭菌, the trumpet fungus). Now I knew when I saw one trumpet fungus, I could expect more in the vicinity.
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| Craterellus aureus |
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| Craterellus aureus |
Another new type of fungus that I got to acquaint myself with was "amaria botrytoides, clusters corals" (扫把菌, the broom fungus). Luckily it is also called "珊瑚菌, the coral fungus". How could these attractive beautiful land corals named after brooms!
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| amaria botrytoides |
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| amaria botrytoides |
While we were having such a great fun looking for all kinds of fungi without haste, the phone rang, they were already back to the van and waiting for us! The landlady said we must stop hunting and get back to the main road now.
I felt content for today so no bad temper for leaving. The proper path which we had been following along the forests did not seem to lead to the main road. After several phone calls forth and back, the landlady asked me to nagivate with GPS. It pointed towards the hills that we were facing, which would possible derail us from the walkable track. I followed the landlady, she continued hiking along the proper mountain path but in the meantime kept asking me whether we were on the right way. I told her no, the GPS pointed to the hills. After a few seconds of hesitation, the landlady was defeated by modern teachonlogy, we then started to march on inside the "quercus spinosa" bushes.
Luckily, we were not far from the highway, on top of the hills, "civilation" was lying within sight. We sat by the barriers, rested and waited for our van come back to pick us. Apparently hitchhike culture was not popular in this region, after several failed attempts, we started to walk back. We finally intercepted a local passenger car, told our van not to come, and sold our fungi to the local vendors for 45RMB. The landlady told me that we could sell higher price (double) in town but we both agreed it's better save the hassle.
We arrived home at about 16:00. Without proper sleep last night, I was completely destroyed. Feeling extremely shattered and fatigued, I hurriedly washed myself and then took a snooze.
At about 19:30, the landlady called me for dinner. How could she not feel tired! The Bai ethnic ladies won my sincere respect for their hardworking spirits!
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