A Tie That Binds

Lock Nim leans against the brick wall with his white tank top rolled above his stomach, trying to catch a breeze. A cigarette rests between his fingers and smoke snakes through the air as he points to me and begins to speak. The group around me erupts into laughter. Tao looks at me and says, "He say you hold chopstick wrong. Like broken jaw."

The sun opens up overhead. It is June in Southern China, and the air is wet and thick. The village I am in stands like an island in a sea of rice fields; a stack of moss weathered structures in a swell of green. Between each measured plot is an aisle of upraised earth which acts as a path between the crops. It is a scene that spreads out towards the empty grey horizon, broken only by a sparse scattering of other villages. An archipelago of concrete. I watch a woman push her wheelbarrow through the field. She walks with quick, efficient strides; her hair tied at the nape of the neck. I imagine the scars and calluses on her hands. A road map of her working life.

The six women around me sit comfortably on their haunches. They fill the space between them with chatter as they tie string around bamboo leaves, bulging with sticky rice. I squat down next to them on wobbly legs and ask about the house at the end of the lane. Its roof has collapsed with the weight of neglect and vines grow into its belly. There are still pictures hanging on the wall; a book disintegrates under a blanket of dust. "Where are the people that lived in that house?" I ask Tao. Her tongue makes a clicking noise and I hear Lock Nim grunt in disapproval. "They run away in Cultural Revolution. Nobody come home." I look around and the village seems empty: an old woman washes vegetables in a pool of water fed by a hand pump, a dog sniffs at the heat in the air. On a wall nearby, a portrait of Mao is fading; his teeth are starting to peel. Tao offers me an open rice packet and instead of eating, I expertly wrap it in string, tying it in a bow like my mother always taught me to do. Lock Nim walks over and stands above us. He points in my direction and speaks to Tao. "He want to know why you come here," she says.

I place the tied rice packet next to the others. "I had to see the place with my own eyes."