CHINA, CULTURE: Haoyou, Will the Drums Fall Silent?

By Lianne Li

To the assistant's steady rhythm of backstrokes, Long Guoan, the 73-year-old Hmong rose to his feet, hunched, approached the red ridge of the drum and gave it a few tentative taps as if to listen to its heart beat. Then all the energy of a monkey exploded from the old, skinny body with an intense rain of strikes falling from his side and back, pausing now and then with a slouched arm holding a drumstick in the air and his wrinkled face brimming with sly monkey-ish humor.



The drum dance, called monkey's drum, has been passed on for hundreds of years as a necessary ritual for festivals and as spare-time entertainment in the Haoyou Hmong village. Every man is taught to play drums at the age of twelve or thirteen. The talent to play drums has been the major criterion for judging a young man's wit. In Haoyou, they say, no one will marry his daughter to a fool who does not know how to hold a drumstick. This unique feature of the Hmong village gave it another name: drum village.

The Hmong village rests deep in the mountains among the rural areas of Phoenix, the well-known multi-minority town in western Hunan that has seen the birth of the great Chinese writer Sheng Congwen. For centuries, the Hmong village was inhabited by red Hmongs, and now has a population of over 900. The majority of them share the family name of Long, whereas a few are named Wu. Much of their traditional customs remained the same except they now wear Han dress for the sake of its cost and simplicity, and the young generations no longer choose their mate by singing antiphonal love songs as their elders did.

The villager's lives are still centered around the farmland from which they earn their living, as their ancestors did centuries ago. But changes have come along with the advances of the times. They have far surpassed the poverty line first set during the depression from natural disasters and political turmoil in the 50s. Slower, though, is their pace of economic progress; they now have a mud road to the town, finished a little over a month ago; and all families have tap water and electricity, some finally own televisions and telephones.

"We are farmers. So farming is what we chiefly do, and other things are also good to do. This is what Chairman Mao said," Long said. The local government has made a great effort in the promotion of tourism to benefit the local handcraft industry. The profit to Haoyou from sales of traditional Hmong garments -- hand weaved laces, silverware, batik -- is not as much as that of some of the more frequently visited villages in the area. Nonetheless it helps pay for some daily necessities and comes in steadily.

If only the villagers ceased to marry and multiply, their farming and handcraft industry would suffice them for their everyday life with little demand for food and clothes.

"To raise a boy is to lose money. I would have no worry if I have a daughter. With a son I have to save a lot of money in order for him to marry," Long said. According to the ancient custom of the village, a boy needs to offer at least 10,000 Yuan worth of silver as the bride-price to the family of the girl he wishes to marry, a tremendous sum that could never be afforded from their farming income.



Almost 90 percent of the young laborers have left the village for big cities and towns to earn money, the old and the women stay behind with their farmland. In Long’s case, more than 80 percent of the family's income is from earnings from his sons working "outside" (in cities and towns).

"We have less than 1 mu (1/15 of a hectare) farmland on average as a result of population growth," Long said. "A mu of farmland here usually produces some 350 kilos of rice. Our family can produce 1000 kilos at best, but that is only worth 1400 Yuan if we sell all our harvest with nothing left for food. A young man working 'outside' can make as much as 8,000 Yuan per year, supporting the family at a much better rate."

The income from young outside laborers is the main source of bride-price and tuition for the children. By policy of the central government, every couple in the village can have two children. The children are sent to an elementary school founded by the villagers, employing only 5 teachers from outside the village to give standard classes in Mandarin for over 120 pupils. Most villagers can only support their children through junior high and the common notion of the village is that a junior high school education is adequate for the youngsters working outside. With what little education they have, the 16 year-olds start working outside to support their families and save money for their future marriages. 10,000 Yuan worth of bride-price means more than two years of working.

So one generation of the Hmong village comes from the elder, drops school to work, works to earn money for marriage, and marries to give birth to the next generation who drops school at the same early age. It's no wonder the Hmong village has never produced a college graduate. He or she would be both difficult to support and cultivate in the vicious economic and educational circle common in Chinese villages.

"We have much progress in culture anyway," a teacher working at the village school said. "Every teacher has a task to teach a certain amount of villagers to read. The majority of villagers now know how to speak Mandarin, and with children's basic education guaranteed, the illiteracy rate of the village is lower than ever."


Long sat and gazed into the fire, sighing: "My drum dance today is not so nice, as I am not in a good state." He has been earnestly teaching several men the monkey's drum, but the zeal in the vigorous drum dance is faltering and fading among average youngsters. "I really wish youngsters could play better than I am now."