.

The kids would always ask if they could use my camera. Or my tape recorder. I had a little tape recorder that made decent recordings. They would take it and sing into for a long time, enjoying hearing themselves. I still have some tapes that they made. They sound pretty good and they all sang very passionately but naturally. I at first thought they were singing native tunes handed down from generation to generation, and I felt privileged and lucky that they wanted to share these treasures with me and to preserve them as part of their village's noble history on my tape recorder but it turns out they were only singing the latest pop hits, some of them with lyrics that were pretty risque for 12-year-olds. Oh well. It's no surprise, I suppose. The sense that we had walked back in time to a place untouched by the changes of the past 200 years was always set right by the common sight of a big satellite dish in the yard of an old house. I never took a good wide picture of the village which is a shame. It was quite a sight. Except for the satellite dishes and some electrical wires strung loosely here and there it was very easy to look around and feel like this place hadn't changed at all in 200 years, maybe longer. The water buffaloes, the roofs, the paths between the endless rice paddies, the people up to their knees in the rice paddies planting rice. The satellite dishes. Except for the satellite dishes it looked like a painting from long ago. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of it. The light was always very flat there and I kept thinking I'd have a better opportunity.

Anyway, this is a small sampling of some of the pictures they would take. And one example of the garlands that they used to make for us. And of the soccer ball that I bought for them. And a picture of Shu Xia's grandmother. Shu Xia is sitting next to her grandmother sipping one of the drinks that Saozi used to give the young students if they came into the house and asked for it. I got the sense that the one they gave to Shu Xia's grandmother was taken kind of clandestinely. Shu Xia's grandmother seemed to think it was quite a treat. She came back with her water buffalo one night near the end of our stay there. More on that later. The kids liked to help me study Chinese. There's a picture that one of them took of me studying on my own just outside my room.



















Below is Shu Xia twirling. She was quite proud of that dress and seemed pretty intent on getting it photographed that day. I didn't see this picture until later. It's a nice picture. I think they had figured out that the place where I sat them to take their pictures in my hat had good lighting. This picture was taken in the same place in the back of the classroom. It was raining that day and a little moisture had gotten on the lens, which was a happy mistake since it adds nicely to the feeling of the picture. This is certainly one of the pictures that I'm going to print and send to China.