The forgotten love of the Himalaya village

by Antonio Bennica (Italy)

A leap into the unknown China

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It was the beginning of April when me and some friends, all of us studying in China, decided to visit the Yunnan province and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. It seemed to be a normal day when going out from the Hostel we negotiated the price of a taxi to go to the Snow mountain. After 2 hours we arrived at the mountain and visited all the amazing park, with the wonderful blue lake under the majesty of the white mountains. But that morning was just the prelude of the most amazing experience of our life. Finishing to see the Natural Park we start looking for a taxi, and in that moment we meet a guy who proposes to drive us, only at the condition that we accept to have lunch in his house. In that moment we were absolutely worried of the situation, because trusting a guy met 5 minutes before is not so easy, so we took a bit of time to decide. after consulting each other we decided to accept, unconscious of the situation. After one hour of driving in the Chinese countryside, on steep roads, we finally get to this magic and forgotten village. The first image that i remember seeing is a small wooden house with a cow sitting next to the entrance, and on background the white Himalaya mountains. Walking on this small road we arrive to another house, from where an old woman goes out screaming joyfully to us. She hosts us in her house and we discover that she is the driver's grandma and that she is going to cook for us. The hygienic-sanitary condition in a small village on the Himalaya is surely not the best, bust we decide to immerse into the adventurous situation. So later her grandson takes me next to their house because he needs my help to capture a cock in order to kill and cook it for us. The scene seems to evolve in a Quentin Tarantino's film, with the guy fighting with the cock for 20 minutes without success, until when his grandma goes in action. With a lighting look she observe the cock, that suddenly stop to run and jump on the arms of the old woman. Without any kind of compassion she took a machete and in a second the head of the cock is gone. I was amazed of the situation we were living, but the girls with me were a bit shocked. When she started to cook i decided to walk around the village. The village was composed of 4 streets, all of them with small houses and animals. I couldn't find any person around there, until when I saw a small kid playing with a goat. I started to follow him and when i got closer i saw other 4 kids playing in the courtyard of a house. I started to talk in mandarin with them and despite their shyness I could let them talk. They were all around 5-8 years old, all living there from different families and they had never been to school. Playing with them, in that small village I've understood what really means life. It doesn't matter if you live on the Himalaya or in New York, in that moment I felt that we were all the same, and that our culture wasn't a reason of division but of interest and union. It was lunch time so I had to go into the house where our driver was cooking the chicken on the fire and after a bit the grandma served to us a kind of soft bread, grilled bacon and the seared chicken. We loved the lunch but then it was time to go, so we said goodbye to the family and all the kids on the streets and we went back to Lijiang. Probably that day changed our life, because we felt the purity of life and love. we learned from those people that we are lucky living as we live, but also that everyone can be happy just with the harmony of love. Love is the feeling that unites every living being. Live for the love of adventures.