by Li Juan
* * *
ANY TIME THERE WAS a visitor who could speak Mandarin, I always asked the same question: Is settling a good thing? The answer was always in the affirmative, but they also always looked unsure.
The horse trader cut right to the chase: “Of course settling is a good thing! But then Kazakh will be over!” I didn’t understand and asked him to explain. But he only spoke about the shortcomings of nomadic life in terms of health and education, and never explained what he meant by “Kazakh will be over.”
No matter what, all life seeks security. Everyone hopes for equal footing in this world. The people must settle, the flocks must halt their migration. Not only the herders, but earth can no longer cope with it. There are too many sheep and not enough grass. Overgrazing was making the already fragile environment deteriorate even more rapidly.
Yet, balancing the livestock with the grass had long been a basic principle of pastoralists, their age-old creed. So, where did it all go wrong?
Regardless, going forward, the flocks must be kept from going any farther south and be forced to stay near the Ulungur through the winter. To enable their survival through the winter, large tracts of land along the river must continue to be reclaimed and put under cultivation, growing fodder; the river must be dammed to irrigate the fields; vast quantities of chemical fertilizer must be added to the infertile soil, and compound feed must be purchased. And without the flocks, the wilderness will also lose its vitality and slowly degrade … it’s unavoidable. The sheep will continue to multiply and the people will continue to live as wastefully as they always have … and more than that I don’t know how to talk about.
There are those who say that this was the final year that the flocks would be allowed into the winter pasture. I should count myself lucky to have witnessed the last hurrah … though I don’t consider myself lucky at all.
* * *
AT DINNER, KURMASH CAME to ask for help with his phone again. Suddenly, he put on a video, which immediately roused everyone’s curiosity. Cuma said, “You can watch TV on phones?” It was a foreign film that no one understood, and there was no making sense of it just by looking either. Yet, we still huddled around the phone as if we were all in a trance. Even Sister-in-law couldn’t resist, haphazardly tossing the noodles into the pot before rushing back for a look.
When a Kazakh-language home shopping program played, they were floored by the variety of compact and magical electronic gadgets, accompanied by the salesman’s mellifluous copy. They asked me if those things were real and if everyone in the city had them.
I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know much about that world either, but I knew that at least those weren’t ordinary things.
Sister-in-law and Shinshybek braving the snow to clean the sheep pen; the burrow choking with the smell of the dewormer (Cuma always tested the spray nozzle inside before going out to spray the sheep); syrmak reinforced with new layers, wrapped with a new hem, and sewn with ten thousand threads … were these things any more ordinary?
Cuma lay in the center of the bed, smoking, with Kama resting her head on his knees, reading a Kazakh newspaper out loud. On his other side, Sister-in-law curled in a fetal position, her head resting on his chest, and listened intently with bright, curious eyes. Surrounded by the two women, Cuma was content. If cigarette ash happened to fall onto Sister-in-law’s head, he flicked it off for her. Outside, the wind howled; the window’s plastic cover flapped. It sounded like someone shouting at the top of their lungs into the wind: “Calm down, please, calm down!”
The news story that Kama read was about an elderly person named Abibao in Qinggil County who had raised ten orphans. Cuma said nothing for a while, lost in thought. Then, he said to me, “Where are there still unwanted babies? Me and Sister-in-law ought to go pick one up.…”
I said, “Once Zhada’s grown up and married, will you want his firstborn?” It was an old Kazakh custom for the grandparents to bring up the first grandson.
Cuma said, “Of course, why wouldn’t we?”
I said, “Then you’ll have your own baby in six or seven years, no need to look for one!”
He murmured, “In six or seven years, will me and Sister-in-law still be around?”
Cuma’s shoes, which he repaired himself
32.
Herding Together
IN FEBRUARY, “THE LONG became short and the short became long.” As the rotating globe gently tilted on its axis, the winter ebbed. Kama gradually took over all of Cuma’s herding shifts. Until then, she only covered for her father a few days at a time when he was away or ill.
Face scrunched, she whined, “Herding sucks! My face is always black, my belly’s always hungry.…”
Despite her complaints, she never tried to shirk her responsibility. She was always planning for her days on the pastures, preparing an interesting Kazakh newspaper to read on horseback (carefully picked out of the stories she had already read). She charged her phone to full so she could listen to music the whole way and asked me to write down the lyrics of a Chinese song so she could learn the words and memorize it. After thinking it over, I chose a Taiwanese campus song with a simple beat, “Orchid Grass,” and taught her the lyrics one character at a time, explaining the meaning and noting the pinyin as we went.
A little antsy, she asked, “What else should I take?”
I said, “Some kurt to eat when you’re hungry.”
Zhada said, “Biscuits and candies …”
I said, “Your thermos and a bowl …”
Zhada: “The tablecloth …”
Me: “Cooking pot, flour, and veggies …”
Zhada: “Your bedding …”
Me: “And a mat and the tent frame …”
Zhada: “Just pull a camel along with you …”
Kama punctuated our every suggestion with: “Koychy, koychy, koychy, koychy, koychy …”
In fact, Kama had been herding since she was fourteen—she wasn’t afraid of toil and loneliness. In the past, the neighbor Shinshybek’s family wasn’t around, so Cuma was busy with all the heavy lifting and the task of herding mostly fell on the girl’s shoulders. Only now there was more leisure time, which she wasn’t quite used to.
When the day came, the girl donned her father’s full gear and lumbered out the door.
On this day, those staying at home would begin to clean out the sheep pen. In preparation, Cuma woke up early in the morning to sharpen the shovels, rubbing a thin whetstone against the blades until their edges were razor sharp.
With temperatures rising and the wind picking up, the layer of sheep manure that was frozen solid began to thaw. Stepping into the soft and sludgy sheep pen, it was exceptionally humid. This wet layer (nearly a foot deep) must be removed or else the sheep would get sick. Though it was the same layer of manure that we dug in the early winter, it was now completely different. Back then, the manure had been baking under the sun for half a year. Hard and dry, the shovel could easily slice through and pry up large chunks. In its tofu-like state, though, it was impossible to pry the manure out (of course, it was still harder than actual tofu). Instead, we had to use the sharp shovel edge to cut the manure into ten-inch-square blocks, each of which we pried out with a spade. But being wet and heavy, the blocks couldn’t be moved using the spades, so we had to lug them out by hand one piece at a time until the pen wall had grown by half a meter!
The wet manure blocks were too heavy, I couldn’t lift them, so I was assigned to clean out the previous night’s urine-soaked cow dung from the cattle burrow. But the window in the burrow was too high up and too narrow, so I didn’t manage to throw the dung out. After digging a shovelful of dung, I aimed carefully and hurled it toward the opening with all my might, but in the end, it came falling back onto my head.… I had no choice but to do it the old-fashioned way, walking outside, one shovelful at a time—it was exhausting! I couldn’t help thinking about Kama out on the pasture, who at that very moment was likely perched comfortably atop the horse, l
istening to music on her phone, while reading a newspaper and humming “Orchid Grass” … such a warm day with the sun beaming down, she must have been so comfortable.
But just then, I turned my head and saw Kama coming back! Tethering her horse already! How dare she, it wasn’t even two yet.…
Resting against his shovel, Cuma casually said to me through the sheep pen wall, “She’s hungry.”
Sister-in-law dropped her work, peeled off her muddy coat, and followed her daughter inside. There was tea to pour and nan to cut for her hungry daughter! Zhada and Kurmash put down their tools to go round up the flock. I climbed up the eastern sand dune, where I saw the flock scattered across the land from north to east.
Neither Kama nor I liked to eat stir-fried offal. Whenever the dish was made, most of it ended up in Cuma’s stomach. He said as he ate, “Kama, she’s not eating now, but after one day on the pasture, she would finish this plate and then some!”
And he wasn’t wrong! The girl had worked up an appetite herding. She drank one bowl of tea after another and ate five nans that she soaked in the tea. While she ate, she complained, “The sheep are full, but I’m starving!”
I asked, “Didn’t you take some candy with you?”
She pouted, “Mom gave me three. They only lasted me a hundred steps.…”
For the rest of the day, the sheep were left to their own devices. The girl washed and dawdled, embroidered and swept. As dusk neared, Cuma rode out to bring back the flock himself.
Although Kama had only finished half her work, that evening at dinner, Sister-in-law still boiled some ribs specially to add to her daughter’s rice and soup. When she served it, Sister-in-law made a show of placing it in Kama’s bowl, drawing a sneer from Zhada. Normally, at dinnertime, mother was more likely to spoil her son.
* * *
IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS, Kama continued to return home at the same hour! There, she rested for an hour before heading back to the pasture.
Cuma said, with the warm weather, the flock could just move about near the burrow. There was no longer need for herders to follow them quite so closely.
When we first arrived in the winter pasture, the two men led the flock far, far away every day, all the way to the edge of the pasture. Once the flocks had eaten all the grass around the perimeter of the property, they began grazing closer and closer to the center. I assumed that this was to protect the territory: there was no iron fence that separated their pasture from the neighbor’s, therefore if our sheep started grazing at the center then gradually moved outward, by the time ours got near the boundary, the grass might already have been eaten by the neighboring flocks.
One breezy, sunny morning at the end of February, as I was walking back alone through the snow having just finished herding the calves, Kama came riding toward me. She shouted, “Li Juan, want to herd together?”
After a moment of delight, I said with disappointment, “I’m not dressed for it!” I was only wearing a long down jacket and a light coat. I was wearing a hat but not a scarf.
She said, “So what? It’s not cold.”
I realized she was right. It had been very warm lately and Kama wasn’t wearing a thick coat either, only Sister-in-law’s brown cotton jacket. Besides, by noon, it would be even warmer. So I ran over to her horse, pulled myself up by the saddle, and sat behind Kama. The horse swayed its behind as it happily trotted ahead. We started to sing. Then, a large band of horses galloped across the western horizon, so we cheered and whooped. The sheep rested quietly beneath a sand ridge to the far north.
It took us a long time to catch up to the flock. While the sheep flocked close together when they were on the move, when they stopped to graze, they buried their heads to eat and quickly scattered. The herder’s job was to constantly round them up and lead them to new pastures so that they don’t walk in circles eating the same grass over and over.
Every so often we dismounted to sit in the snow and listen to music on the phone, all the while observing the flock’s movements. I thought to myself, if this is herding, it is boring.…
In the distance, a figure on horseback was leading several camels westward. We watched him for a long time. Soon, the figure stopped his chase, reined in his horse, and turned to stare back toward us. Eventually, he turned his horse around and headed our way, leaving the camels behind.
When he was near, I realized that it was the old man I had seen the day before! He came to our burrow to drink tea and asked me whether or not I’d seen his camel—he had far too high an opinion of me, I couldn’t even recognize our own camels.
Apparently, he’d found his camels.
The old man was our neighbor from a nearby pasture. He’d visited our burrow at least twice already so we were acquainted. I remember him asking me, “Aren’t you Han people about to celebrate New Year?” I didn’t know the word for “New Year” in Kazakh. He explained, “It’s, well, you have this and that, all very delicious stuff that you put together on the table and eat as much as you want!” I understood immediately and was pleased.
I had been spinning a spindle, turning a ball of blue wool into a strand before combining three more strands into a yarn. The old man was beside himself with excitement. He called me a good girl and invited me to visit his home. He said his home was nearby to the northwest, only half an hour by horse or an hour on foot. He even described his three family members—himself, his old lady, and a son.
After he left, Cuma teased, “Be careful! His son isn’t married yet.”
But I found the old man rather charming, with his raggedy old coat and his cautious, considerate demeanor. His horse was a docile old thing too, blind in its right eye.
But for some reason, Kama was cold toward the old man. When he came to greet us, she quietly acknowledged him but was unwilling to stand up. She sat on the snow, playing with her phone, skipping from one song to the next. When the old man dismounted and sat down across from Kama, neither said a word. The flock stayed quietly in place. The horses sniffed each other’s faces and went about eating their own grass. Kama kept to her phone while the man quietly watched her.
Like that, they sat silently for a long while until the man’s camels began to wander off. Only then did he stand up, say his goodbyes, and get on his horse, ready to leave. At that point, Kama seemed to suddenly remember something and looked up to ask him a question. Sitting on horseback, he answered several questions in a serious manner. After a pause, noticing that Kama had no more to say, he said goodbye once again and rode his horse toward the camels.
Herding sure is lonely.
* * *
AS WE DROVE OUR flock northward, we saw another flock approaching from the east. But this was our territory! I asked Kama what was going on. She stared for a while and said, “I don’t know.”
Eventually, the young man leading the flock came into view too. As soon as he saw us, he turned his horse toward us and kicked it into a gallop. We sat on our horse waiting. It wasn’t until he was quite close that Kama finally recognized him and said hello. His face was almost completely covered by his scarf and hat, leaving only a slit for his eyes to see through. Strange—it wasn’t even cold, why was he dressed like that?
I thought: that’s right, the winds were fierce this time of the year. Young people want to look attractive, so he didn’t want his skin to turn dark from the wind.
But once he walked over and took off his scarf to speak, I saw straightaway—his face was already as dark as the night.…
He was young, twenty at most. His flock needed to pass through our pasture, so he came to let us know. After that was cleared up, he rambled on about all sorts of things just to stick around for a bit longer. He asked, “Where are you two going?”
At this point, Kama and I were already far away from our flock. She had decided to go with me to see the old cemetery on the red dirt again. We headed slowly in that direction and the boy followed along without a word. Even if he didn’t know why we were headed that way, he didn’t ask either
. Once we’d nearly reached our destination, we halted the horses and the three of us stayed there quietly for a while. The wind picked up, rumbling like a mighty river, and we were caught in the current.… I looked back and saw that the boy’s flock was drifting farther and farther away, yet he didn’t seem to be in the slightest hurry to get back on track!
When we finally began to head back, we saw that our flock was slowly drifting northwestward as well. If we didn’t hurry, the two flocks would merge together! The boy spurred his horse into a gallop and we followed him to help, shouting and yelping busily.
Before parting, he asked us again, “Where are you going?” still reluctant to say goodbye.
After he left, I asked Kama, “Is he a suitor?”
She laughed, “Koychy!” and said “little brother”—a distant relative perhaps.
At this point, it was past noon. We’d been out for two hours. I was wearing only a down jacket, with no scarf, and it was getting colder and my stomach was starting to grumble. We got off the horse and walked through the snow. The sheep were doing what they always did, head bowed, carefully searching for grass. How long must it take to fill up a belly on such sparse and withered grass! The wind continued to howl and the phone’s tinny speaker continued to stubbornly play, to which Kama danced along. I looked around me: besides dancing Kama, besides our horse, besides the flock, there were only the sky, clouds, white snow, yellow sand, and nothing else. I thought: so this is herding.
When Kama and I went herding together, she took this picutre of me.
33.
Visiting Neighbors
ENTERING FEBRUARY, THE DAYS lengthened and the temperatures warmed. After welcoming the first official visitors of the winter, Azila and her mother, our feet itched too. That night at dinner, everyone engaged in a discussion and drew up a schedule for visiting the neighbors, looking for the best days when we would set out one after another. First the young people would go, then Sister-in-law, and after her, Cuma.