Falling In Love With My Work

This is basically a translation of the speech that I had to say, and this is an essay I wrote for English about something we learned on the last trip.

It was hot, a heavy, hot heat that comes more from humidity then from the actual temperature. I could feel it pushing on my lungs, and the sweat already running down my back, even though it had only been 20 minutes since we had stepped out of the house. The sparse shade from trees hanging over the small path we were walking on did little to relieve the sun, and I could feel that the temperature was only going to keep rising. My and Julia’s small host father bounded ahead of us on the path, buckets barely swinging on the end of a bamboo pole balanced across his shoulders, and acting like the heat and the hill was absolutely no trouble at all. At this particular moment, watching our dad lead the way, there were only 3 things that Julia and I knew for certain: 1) it was hot, and we had only one water bottle, 2) we were going to work in the fields with our host dad and 3) we had absolutely no idea where we were going, or what we were going to do.

We were in a Dai village in Guizhou, following our host dad out to do work with him in the fields. The night before this march into the wilderness, Mr. Bissell had made it clear that all the SYA students were to go out with their host families to work, much like the intellectuals did when they were banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. However, when Julia and I had come out of our bedroom in the morning, and asked our family what we were doing for the day, they simply told us to go explore on our own, that we didn’t need to work. That point of view was quickly changed after a brisk conversation between my host dad and Zhang Laoshi.

We arrived at a small hut in the middle of the hills after an hour long walk. Our dad let the cow inside out of the hut and free to roam (cared for by another Chinese man), and picked up the 4 woven baskets we had carried to start loading them up with huge piles of wet, decaying feces and straw. Each one must have easily weighed 20 pounds, and he picked them up like he was carrying loaves of bread. With a smile and a laugh, he handed a pole laden with filled buckets to Julia, who dutifully hoisted them onto her shoulders with a grimace at the weight, while our dad went around the back of the shed to get his burden. With me documenting the whole trip on my camera, the three of us set off across small hills to dump massive amounts of manure into fields for fertilization.

After Julia had finished her ordeal, we went back, filled up the buckets again, and then it was my turn. The bamboo pole seemed to push unrelentlessly into my shoulders, and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I could imagine myself toppling sideways off the small path we had to follow (which was lined by rather unpleasant looking embankments.) I dumped my load of feces in a field, and then walked back to rest at the cow enclosure, as my dad was tired. He lay his scrawny body down on the ground, and almost fell asleep, complaining of being exhausted to death. I don’t know how he kept hauling huge buckets of cow manure up mountains. I could barely do it once.

After a 30 minutes break, we convinced my dad, with great effort, to start again. There was not a lot of spirit in his body or voice as, with a great sigh and complaint, he dragged himself around the corner of the enclosure, and started filling up the buckets again. It was plainly obvious he did not want to be there. Julia took another load, the same way we had both gone the first time (to the same field) and then it was my turn, for the last time. Julia offered to carry it again (maybe she is secretly a physic) but I insisted on doing it myself. I picked up the bamboo pole, and balancing it across both shoulders, felt it sit on the exact same spot as it had last time, putting more pressure onto my already sore shoulder muscles. I could already tell that I should have let Julia take the last load of cow manure.

This time, as we walked to the field, our dad led us a different way, along a path with small paddies on the left, and an irrigation ditch 10 feet blow to the right. As I watched my dad balance his pole on one shoulder elegantly, I thought that must be so much easier and more comfortable, and decided to try to imitate him. I was worried about balance, but it wasn’t a problem, and as it turned out, it is actually easier to balance the buckets on one shoulder then on two. So elated with my success, I turned to tell Julia how much better it was, excited to show off my new-found talents. This turned out to be a very bad idea. As I turned to talk to Julia, I kept walking. As I put one foot down, I seemed to lose track of the ground. Suddenly, it was no longer where my foot was, and I went down. Hard.

Both I and the cow manure fell down the embankment. I wasn’t worried about the cow manure that fell on either side of me, though. I was simply worried about not falling into the water that was at the end of the embankment. Desperately grabbing handfuls of reeds and hanging on for all I was worth, I slowed my fall, and eventually stopped myself, hanging upside down, 5 feet above the water. Julia and my dad, after assuring themselves that I was okay, (it wasn’t hard to convince them, as I was trying to stop laughing) soon joined me in laughter, and we all paused so we could catch our breaths. Then, without much ado, I heaved myself off of the embankment, much like a swimmer pulling themselves out of the pool.

I could feel my face blushing bright red as I brushed off pieces of debris that had attached themselves to my clothes while my host dad and Julia watched, with laughter in their eyes. Immediately, thinking only of my wounded pride, I made both Julia and my dad swear to not tell anyone. My dad, however, thinking he was very clever indeed, agreed to keep the secret, and then used the local dialect to tell every person we passed. So much for family loyalty.

This story, while seemingly well natured, taught me a very good lesson. Moral of the story: always watch where you are going, and always laugh off the embarrassing stuff. Everyone has embarrassing things that happen to them, and the best way to deal with them is to laugh. I have had this experience many times, but for once, I found myself actually wanting to tell the story. I feel like that experience of me falling down the embankment with two buckets of cow manure helped me let go of my pride, and simply enjoy my life.

Speech Festival Speech

This was my speech for the speech festival, where we had to get up in front of 70 people and say a speech in Chinese, for 3 minutes.

大家好。我叫苏菲，我是丁班的学生。今天，我要告诉你们一个这次旅行的故事。在第一个小村子的时候，毕老师要我们体验一下农民的生活和他们一起做一样的工作。晚上的时候，我和王芸以为我们的爸爸会带我们两个去干活，但是第二天早上我们发现他不打算带我们出去。我们问他的时候，爸爸说“你们不用去干活，可以自己去玩儿。”但是，张老师和他谈过话以后，他很快改变他的主意，决定带我们去干活。

毕老师告诉我和王芸我们要去挑牛粪，我们以为他只是开玩笑。当我和王芸和我们的爸爸挑桶的时候，我们以为去采摘水果或采摘蔬菜。后来我们走了很长时间，差不多45分钟以后，我们到了一个小木棚。我们的爸爸让里面的牛出去。然后他开始把牛粪放到桶里，把那个桶挂在扁担上。王芸先挑竹桶，跟着我们的爸爸到一块田地.在那里，我们把粪倒在地里，然后回小木棚。我的爸爸再把牛粪放在桶里，我再挑一桶到那里。

挑了两次以后，我们的爸爸特别累，所以他说他得休息。半个小时以后，我们说服他继续工作。王芸先挑，然后我们回去。最后轮到我挑。我的爸爸把牛粪放在桶里，然后我们把桶挑到田地里。但是，这次我们走的路跟以前不一样，我们要去别的田地。那些桶特别重，所以我的肩膀很疼，我走路走得不太稳。我重新调整 肩上桶的时候，我转过头想和王芸说话。这是个不太好的想法，因为我一边走路一边说话。身体失去了平衡，我们的右边是一个水塘我从小路上摔了下去。还好我掉下去的时候，手抓住了芦苇虽然我没有掉进水塘，可我还是头下脚上地摔倒在路边。王芸和我的我的爸爸很紧张，他们以为我摔得很严重，但是他们看到我笑的时候，他们也大笑起来，然后一起把我拉回小路。

我很不好意思，所以我告诉我的爸爸和王芸这件事要保密，不能对别人讲。但是我们回小村子的时候，我爸爸用苗语告诉每一个人。虽然我听不懂他们在讲什么，可是看到他们看着我笑时，我就知道在小村子里，你不会有秘密。

这次旅行给我很留下很深的印象。我很喜欢这里朴实的农民，喜欢这个古朴的小村子。我喜欢中国！谢谢大家。