Min tibetanska barndom i Zorgay - Life and Culture on the Tibetan ...

ten kilos of barley that was then used to buy things for a
celebratory picnic for the whole village after harvest. There
were no rules about when to finish the harvest. Other villages
did not discuss when to collectively harvest because their fields
were near their homes, <strong>and</strong> they carried the harvest home on
their backs.
The lower <strong>and</strong> middle fields were challenging. Other
villages used carts to haul the barley home, but the rugged,
steep path to our village meant that only four or five trips using
animals could be made per day. Both animals <strong>and</strong> men were
exhausted after only one trip.
Harvest is in late June, the hottest time of year. People
labored without drinking water, because the only water sources
are muddy pools that are too dirty to drink from. Our lips dried
<strong>and</strong> cracked from the hot weather. Other villages have clean
rivers by their fields <strong>and</strong> can drink from <strong>and</strong> swim in these
rivers when they feel hot.
Everyone reaped as much barley as possible while
chanting "Jow yo ho li jow ha" 21 in unison to encourage
themselves. Elders made a fire at home, boiled tea, <strong>and</strong> brought
the tea to the fields for family members. People searched for
shady places to sit. The bread that had been made the day before
was dry <strong>and</strong> hard to swallow.
Reaping resumed after lunch <strong>and</strong> continued until it was
so dark you could not see. At night, a person from each family
guarded the barley that had not been taken home.
Harvest is much easier today. The lower <strong>and</strong> middle
fields were planted with trees in 2002 because Chinese Premier
Zhu Rongji 22 thought it would be easier for the farmers to plant
trees rather than cultivate l<strong>and</strong>. Farmers received rice <strong>and</strong> wheat
flour once they converted their fields to trees. Some villages
planted grass, but our village planted pine trees. Grass seed <strong>and</strong>
tree seedlings were provided by the Central Government.
21 Utterances with unidentifiable lexical meaning.
22 Zhu Rongji (b. 1928) was a prominent Chinese politician who
served as Shanghai's mayor <strong>and</strong> Communist Pary Chief from
1987 to 1991, before becoming China's Vice-Premier <strong>and</strong> then
the fifth Premier (1998-2003).
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