by Li Juan
Text and photographs copyright © 2021 by Li Juan
Translation copyright © 2021 by Jack Hargreaves and Yan Yan
All rights reserved.
Originally published in the Chinese language as Dong Mu Chang by New Star Press
© 2012 Thingkingdom Media Group.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact [email protected].
Astra House
A Division of Astra Publishing House
astrahouse.com
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Li, Juan, 1979-, author. | Hargreaves, Jack, translator. | Yan, Yan, translator.
Title: Winter pasture : one woman’s journey with China’s Kazakh herders / Li Juan; translated by Jack Hargreaves and Yan Yan.
Description: New York, NY: Astra House, A Division of Astra Publishing House, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN: 2020917189 | ISBN: 978-1-6626-0033-3 (Hardcover) | 978-1-6626-0034-0 (ebook) | 978-1-6626-0035-7 (trade audio) | 978-1-6626-0040-1 (library audio)
Subjects: LCSH Li, Juan—Travel—China. | Kazakhs—China—Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu—Social life and customs. | Nomads—China—Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu— Social life and customs. | Minorities—China—Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu—Social life and customs. | China, Northwest—Description and travel. | Herders. | BISAC
Classification: LCC DS793.S6213 L5323 2020 | DDC 951.6—dc23
First edition
Design by Richard Oriolo
Map illustration and design by Jonathan Roberts
The text is set in Walbaum MT Std.
The titles are set in Flecha L ExtraLight.
Contents
TRANSLATORS’ NOTE
MAP
PART ONE
Winter Burrow
1. In the Beginning
2. A Three-Day Journey
3. The Importance of Sheep Manure
4. Winter Pasture
5. Our Underground Home
6. Winter Slaughter
7. The Only Water
8. Cold
9. The Sheep’s Winter
PART TWO
Masters of the Wilds
10. Kama Suluv
11. Cuma
12. Sister-in-law
13. The Neighbors
14. Plum Blossom and Panda Dog
15. Everyone
16. Walking in the Wilderness
17. Isolation
18. The Only Television
19. Rahmethan and Nursilash
20. Kurmash
21. Zhada
PART THREE
Serenity
22. Twilight
23. The Cattle’s Winter
24. Food
25. Visitors (1)
26. Visitors (2)
27. Peace
28. The Final Peace
PART FOUR
Last Things
29. Year of the Blizzard
30. What I’m Experiencing
31. Everything Disappears Quickly
32. Herding Together
33. Visiting Neighbors
34. New Neighbors
35. The Way Home
GLOSSARY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
Translators’ Note
Li Juan’s experiences in the winter pasture have her traveling, living, and working with a family of Kazakh herders, who along with their new neighbors are carrying on a way of life their people have practiced in the region for centuries. With the coming of each season, they migrate with their families, yurts, and livestock to the pastureland that will offer the most favorable climate and the most grass for the coming months, moving north to higher altitudes from winter to spring to summer, and south, back to lower altitudes, from summer to fall to winter. But the year that Li Juan has chosen to accompany these nomadic pastoralists, she is told on more than one occasion, will be the last. After millennia of grazing vast swathes of land, moving from one spot to the next to allow for the grasses’ recovery and regrowth, overgrazing has now officially been deemed a problem. The reason for this—and the herders’ feelings about it—remains unclear. Regardless, the herders must settle. They will henceforth live along the Ulungur River, around what have long been the spring and fall pastures, where the government has called for land to be reclaimed for cultivation and for aid to be given to the newly relocated herders to help them adjust to their new lives.
Another age-old Kazakh tradition, besides transhumance, is handicraft and textiles. Specifically, felt-based textiles. Living with a hundreds-strong flock of sheep means ready access to plenty of wool, which the herders use to make thread and felt. They use these materials to make carpets, wall hangings, mats, bags, and bands (bau, бау) for securing parts of the yurt frame together or to the ground. Various examples of these felt products feature in Li Juan’s daily life on the winter pasture, spread, hung, and piled throughout the earthen burrow. In Chinese, Li Juan simply refers to them as “wall hangings” and “patterned rugs” or “patterned mats,” depending on which surface they decorate or cover. In this English translation, we have opted to include the romanized versions of their Kazakh names. Syrmak (сырмак), which are used as both carpets and wall hangings, are made by quilting ornamental patterns of multicolored felt onto a plain white, brown, or gray felt—a kiiz (кииз). Tekemet (текемет) are carpets made by pressing and rolling dyed-wool patterns. Ayak-kap (аяк-кап) are small embroidered felt bags, and tus-kiiz (тускииз) are cotton wall hangings that bear intricate patterns embroidered using tambour stitch. Of the process for making these, Li Juan provides only glimpses—Sister-in-law’s questionable dyeing process or Sayna sketching a ram’s horn pattern with soap to teach her young daughter how to stitch—so we encourage readers to look up how the finished products look. The same goes for the foods and the central tablecloth and main seating area (dastarkhān, дастарқан), for which Li Juan simply gives Chinese equivalents, but for which we have added the Kazakh. On the map that follows, the place-names used are, on the whole, Kazakh renderings, for examples: Dopa in Kazkh, Dure in pinyin, 杜热镇; Akehara in Kazakh, Akehala in pinyin, 阿克哈拉村. Note also that this map is an illustration of the area, rather than a precise representation, and not to scale.
Many thanks to Altinbek Guler for providing translations into English and transliterations into the Latin alphabet of all the Chinese renderings of Kazakh found in the original text.
Lastly, it might help with navigating the narrative to know that since the regions where Li Juan lives, in her everyday life and during her stay with the Cumas, are a confluence of Chinese and Kazakh culture, some of the placenames in this translation are in romanized Kazakh and others in Mandarin pinyin. Also, the characters might be one year younger than stated in the book. We are unsure if their age is based on the Gregorian calendar or the East Asian reckoning, which puts a person at the age of one at birth.
—Jack Hargreaves and Yan Yan
August 2020
PART
ONE
Winter Burrow
1.
In the Beginning
FROM THE MOMENT I released my second book, my mother started bragging to the whole village that I was an “author.” But our neighbors only ever saw me, day after day, muck-faced and mussy-haired, chasing after ducks from one end of the village to the other. They all expressed their incredulity. Even as my mother kept going on and on about it, when they turned to look, they’d catch sight of me scurrying along a ditch as fast as my slippers could carry me, hollering and brandishing a stick. Not at all as advertised, quite undignified really.
Eventually, some of them came around to believi
ng her. Eighteen miles from the lower reaches of the Ulungur River, the government was establishing a new herder village named “Humuzhila.” One of the villagers approached my mother to ask me to become the “assistant village head,” with a salary of two hundred yuan per month. To emphasize that it was a good deal, he said the village head himself only earned four hundred yuan.
Deeply offended, my mother proudly declared, “My daughter would never agree to that!”
The visitor looked perplexed and asked, “Didn’t you say she’s a writer?”
In short, I am something of an enigma in Akehara village, where I live with my mother. I am suspicious for four main reasons: one, I’m unmarried; two, I don’t have a job; three, I don’t visit our neighbors much; and four, I’m not what they would consider “proper.”
But this winter, I decided to embark on an adventure truly worthy of an author—I would follow the migrating herds deep into the desert south of the Ulungur while observing and noting every last detail of nomadic life in the dark and silent winter. My mother didn’t waste a minute before spreading this news to anyone who would listen—to further emphasize how extraordinary I was. But how were we even to begin to explain my work to the herders? This was the best she could come up with: “She will write. Take all your comings and goings, your work ’n’ stuff, and write it all down!”
The herders let out a collective “ooooh” of understanding before lowering their heads to mutter, “What’s there to write about?”
In any case, word of a Han girl bound for the winter pasture quickly reached the herding teams across Kiwutu township. My mother began to select a family that would agree to take me along.
At first, my ambitions were grand. I wanted to spend the winter in a destination that was at least two hundred and fifty miles away, which would mean over a dozen days by horseback, so that I could get a taste of the hardest, most unforgiving aspects of nomadic life. But all the families who were planning to journey more than ten days refused to take me along for fear that I’d be nothing but trouble. More importantly, as the day of the great migration approached, my ambition dwindled. Think about it: to sleep on the frozen ground only to wake a mere four hours later for two whole weeks. Before daybreak, every day, I would have to grope my way through the darkness to start the journey ahead. Herding sheep, keeping up with the horses, keeping the camels in check and grooming calves … for my petite eighty-eight-pound frame, two weeks would have been pushing it. So the trip was truncated to a week’s journey … and finally, a week before we were supposed to leave, I cut the trip down to three days.
* * *
AMONG THE HERDER FAMILIES that passed through Akehara village, those who intended to travel only for three or four days belonged to Kiwutu’s herder team number three. Mama Jakybay and her family were no exception. I had spent a summer with them, and ideally I would join them again for the winter. But after a few months, a rumor circulated among the herders that I was Jakybay’s son Symagul’s “Han girlfriend,” which made me angry, and Symagul’s wife, Shalat, even angrier. For a while, whenever she saw me, her face stretched so long it nearly hit the ground.
Another important reason why I couldn’t stay with Mama Jakybay was because no one in her family spoke Mandarin. Communication between us was difficult and led to misunderstandings.
Herding families that did speak a little Mandarin were mainly young married couples, to whom my presence would have been a nuisance. Newlyweds are invariably deeply in love. If at night they were to express that love, then … well, how would I get any sleep?
The winter pasture isn’t a particular place. It’s the name of all the land used by the nomads during the winter, stretching south uninterrupted from the vast rocky desert south of the Ulungur River all the way to the northern desert boundary of the Heavenly Mountains (also known as Tian Shan Mountains). It is a place of open terrain and strong winds. Compared to the region to its north, the climate is warmer and more constant. The snow mantle is light enough that the sheep can use their hooves to reach the withered grass beneath. At the same time, there is enough snowfall to provide the herders with all the water they and the livestock need to survive.
The winter pasture is considerably drier and less fertile than the lands the livestock graze in summer. Each family herd grazes an enormous area. The sheer distance this puts between the families means that contact with one another is a rare occurrence. You could almost call it “solitary confinement.”
Herders entering the winter pasture search for a depression sheltered from the wind among the undulating dunes. There they dig out a pit up to six feet deep, lay several logs across the opening, and cover it with dry grass as a roof. A passage is then dug sloping down into the hole and a crude wooden door is fitted to complete this winter home: they call it a burrow. Here, a family can return for protection from the cold and wind during the endless winter months. A burrow is never very big, at most a hundred or so square feet comprising one big sleeping platform and a stove, as well a tiny kitchen corner, a tight squeeze. Life inside is spent shoulder to shoulder without any privacy to speak of.
In brief, living in a winter burrow is no vacation, but what other choice did I have?
And so, I eventually settled on Cuma’s family.
Cuma could get along in Mandarin and three days was all it took to get to their land. The Cumas were pushing fifty, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Kama, would accompany me and the migrating herd while her parents would drive to the burrow in a truck—it wasn’t going to get any better than that!
Frankly, the real reason they took me on was that Cuma had owed my family a good deal of money for several years. His family was poor and it didn’t look like they would ever pay us back, so we gave up expecting it. Why not stay with them for a few months and cancel the debt? That was my mother’s idea.
Later, when I found myself hoisting thirty pounds of snow, tottering across the desert huffing and puffing like an ox, I couldn’t help but sigh: bad idea.
* * *
WITH A HOST FAMILY confirmed, I started preparations.
The image of a pack camel trudging under a heavy load led me to begrudgingly reduce my packing to the essentials—yet another bad idea. Only right before I left did I learn that Cuma had rented a truck to haul the luggage—a truck wasn’t going to tire no matter how much there was to carry. So Cuma and Sister-in-law brought all kinds of junk with them to the desert.
As a result, for the coming days, I only had two sets of underwear to swap and wash and a single shirt (which became so dirty by the end of the winter that during the final group photo, no one wanted to stand next to me). For warmth, I packed a simple down jacket, a pair of camel-wool long johns, a scarf, a hat, and gloves. I packed two pairs of shoes, but it turned out that one would have been enough. The winter pasture isn’t covered in snow, as I had expected, but in sand, which doesn’t wear out shoes.
As for the clothes I would wear during the trip, I was better prepared: a sheep-leather army coat with fleece lining and a pair of woolly sheepskin pants. After all, on the coldest of days, spending hours on horseback was never going to be comfortable. Picking out boots was a major undertaking. A herder typically chooses a pair two sizes larger than usual to allow room for two extra pairs of socks. After some deliberation, I went with a pair of boots eight sizes too big.… As a result, I had to wear more socks than anyone had ever worn. My small frame in such huge boots was a sight to behold—like I was skating on two canoes.
To make sure my outfit was as reasonable and comfortable as possible, I tried it all on several times at home, adjusting as I went along. A scarf or a neck gaiter? Which hat? Which set of gloves might prove most appropriate? Two days before our departure, I trekked, wind in my face, to the barren parts of the village south of Akehara Road to test each of my potential outfits, using empirical evidence to make my final decision:
My lower half from inside out: cotton long johns, down long johns, camel-wool long johns, airtight cotton padded
pants, woolly sheepskin pants.
My top half from the inside out: long-sleeve shirt, thin sweater, thicker sweater, cotton vest, down jacket, sheep-leather army coat.
On top of that, a leather hat, neck gaiter, scarf, mask, and gloves—in terms of resisting the cold, I had faith I had achieved total victory!
The only problem was that, fully clad, I was so bundled up I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t raise my arms, turn my neck, or even swallow my saliva. My neck and shoulders were constricted, sore, and heavy. After walking only a couple of times around the house, I was out of breath. The thought of riding a horse for seven or eight hours with over twenty pounds of clothing on my back was a point of serious concern: Would I be crushed to death? But out in the frigid air of the desert, these would be the least of my troubles! Stuck neck, immovable arms, soreness, and fatigue … that was overthinking it. Even if I was encased in a suit of concrete, I wouldn’t have noticed.
* * *
ONE FINAL PIECE of equipment I felt was necessary for the journey was a thermometer. I searched all over Altai City and Koktokay County but couldn’t find a portable, low-temperature thermometer anywhere. In the end, I had to settle for a twenty-inch-long unwieldy thing. I told myself, big is good, I won’t lose it. Testing it over the next several days back home, I was surprised at how accurate it was. But sadly, the lowest temperature it could measure was negative thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit. When the temperature dropped below thirty, I’d just have to guess.
One last thing to do was get a haircut. My plan was to get a buzz cut because I had a feeling I wouldn’t be washing my hair at all for the next few months (actually I did end up washing it a couple of times). Unfortunately, the only hairdresser in the village, Mayra, was off somewhere falling in love. She hardly tended to her business—she was always appearing and disappearing like a ghost. I went to her shop ten times a day, and eight out of ten the door was locked. The other two times, either someone else was midchop or there was no hot water and I was told to come back in an hour. Naturally, when I did return, she was nowhere to be found. I was so annoyed that I chopped off my hair myself before I left. In the following days, whenever we visited other herders, or received visitors, the state of my hair put a big dent in my self-esteem.