Mosuo Song Journey/泸沽湖纪行：寻找母亲的歌谣

This Saturday, I will present “Mosuo Song Journey” to 25 teachers who are teaching about Asia in the US. I hope to learn from the teachers how this documentary may help them teach. I am developing a study guide for teachers to use this documentary in the classroom settings. I Will post my thoughts and progress another time.Presentation info:

Time: 2:30 pm, Nov 1
Location: Library Media Room A, Nazareth College.
The registration is closed now.(Sorry I should have posted earlier. I have been having some problems managing the site). You may try to write to the program, if you are in case you are interested. Here is the full program:

November 1, 2008 - Religious, Geographic, and Ethnic Diversity in China
Geographic and Ethnic Diversity in China - Stephen Vermette, Buffalo State University
Religious Diversity in China -Nevan Fisher and Lili Zhang, Nazareth College
Mosuo Song Journey- A Documentary on an Ethnic Minority - Diedie Weng, Director
Materials for Bringing Chinese Diversity in to Your Classrooms - Terry Noonan, NCTA seminar leader

November 15, 2008- East Asia Today
China: 60 Years After the Revolution- Nevan Fisher, Nazareth College
Family and Gender in Contemporary China and East Asia - Kristin Stapleton, University of Buffalo
Roots of Contemporary Japan’s Economic and Political Crisis - Lawrence Fouraker, St. John Fisher College
Socio-Economic Developments in Contemporary East Asia-Tze-ki Hon, Geneseo SU

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Terry Noonan, NCTA seminar leader, (tcnoonan@frontiernet.net)

Link to the flyer in bigger size

Meg Davis Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:54 AM
To: Diedie Weng
Dear Diedie,

Just a note to thank you again for allowing us to screen your film at Columbia last night. We had a good crowd of 30-40 people and everyone enjoyed your film. Both our speakers, Prof. Barnett and Khanan Sam Sao, commented on it in their remarks.

I enjoyed watching the film a second time also. There is a lot of food for thought — I especially like the way you allow everyone to speak for themselves without a lot of commentary or interpretation. And about 5 minutes into the film, Prof. Barnett leaned over to me and said, “We’re 5 minutes into a film about Lugu Lake and she hasn’t mentioned sex yet. This is a really great film!”

all the best,

Meg

–
Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D. (”Meg”)
Executive Director, Asia Catalyst
PO Box 20839
New York, NY 10009
www.asiacatalyst.org
www.songandsilence.com

It was my great honor to have Ms. Nora Yeah, an ethnomusicologist working for the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress, present at the screening of �Mosuo Song Journey� in the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference in New York City on March 28, 2008. Out of approximately 100 conference participants, about half came to this screening event. Ms. Yeah kindly forwarded me the commentaries of the ethnomusicologists from the conference. I would like to share Ms. Yeh�s report with you:

�At the end of showing the documentary, the entire audience applauded and many told me how much they enjoyed and appreciated seeing it.

One commented that we should regard both the Mosuo songs and pop songs and any other “modern” performing arts as part of Mosuo culture, not the dichotomy of real and fake music. This is another way of looking at the current situation.

Another viewer said that the playfulness of showing authenticity and fakeness of culture (e.g. the Han girl dressed in Mosuo costume) is well presented and has conveyed the message.

Another viewer asked if the words stating something like “Words at the beginning of songs have no meaning” were actually part of the sung text? I told her that I didn’t think so. So she suggested to put parentheses around these words in the documentary so the audience would know for sure that these are editor’s notes, not texts sung by the singers. In ethnomusicology, these are considered “non-lexico” syllables.

So, congratulations to you for the film you worked so hard to put together. THANKS for giving me the privilege to show it.”

–Nora

(From weekly Art Voice, Buffalo, April 9, 2008)

Some people think of China as a monolithic, homogenous society. Lately, turmoil in Tibet has brought attention to ethnic minorities within the country. Minorities comprise almost 10 percent of China�s population, or about 130 million people. The Mosuo are one such group.

The Mosuo are considered exotic in China. Many myths and misconceptions persist about their matrilineal society, which has existed for more than a thousand years. Their language developed without a system of writing and instead relied on an oral tradition, singing folk songs that spanned generations.

To study the Mosuo, documentarian DieDie Weng (her first name is pronounced DEE-yeah DEE-yeah) accompanied anthropologist Carol Bliss and music professor Lamu Gatusa to Yunnan Province in southwest China. Their first stop was Lugu Lake. There they recorded interviews with the locals and tourists.
Diedie Weng’s Mosuo Song Journey @ Squeaky Wheel

Tourism is a major source of income for the villagers around Lugu Lake. Locals hawk souvenirs and sing campfire songs for the visitors. Each family in the village has one member participate in the evening festivities put on for tourists and the profits are then equally divided.

Many of the tourists are from other parts of China, a measure of the rising affluence of the middle class from coastal urban areas. Increasingly, tourists come from outside China.

Up until the 1980s the Mosuo would entertain themselves with folk songs and dances. Things started to change in the 1990s when traditional songs were replaced by songs sung in Mandarin for guests. Today, the younger generation is more interested in modern pop ditties with playlists that change every year.

Mosuo songs were rural, visual creations. Love songs were sung back and forth between men and women working in the fields, fishing in the lake, or tending the farms. They were sung to ease the loneliness of the mountains and forests. Now the Mosuo are surrounded by tourists.

A common complaint is that the younger generation still sing the songs but with less feeling and understanding of their meanings. The newer songs reflect a shift in composition, too. They have a clear beginning and ending. �This is a complete structure as would come out of a music school,� Gatusa says.

One episode in the film illustrates the cross-contamination of cultures: Some of the songs the documentarians were studying, believing that they were of traditional vintage because they were sung in the Mosuo language, turned out to originally be Mandarin. It would be akin to believing that fortune cookies were a Chinese concoction because they are served in Chinese restaurants, when they originated in America.

China�s Han majority perceives the Mosuo as carefree, primitive people. The Mosuo are renowned for not having the strictures of marriage, although they may cohabitate. Women choose their partners; should children result from such unions, they are raised with the mothers. The Mosuo pragmatically do not believe in the comingling of material issues with the emotional bonds of love. Love, they believe, is too fragile a thing to go mucking it about with the quandaries of daily survival.

Because of these unorthodox social arrangements, one of the misperceptions promulgated by tourism agencies is that Mosuo women are promiscuous. As a result, a seedier element has sprung up to cater to those who visit Lugu Lake under the mistaken belief that Mosuo women will entertain them.

To find Mosuo less influenced by modernity, the filmmakers journeyed into mountainous areas, accessible only on foot or horse. There they discovered songs less tainted by the outside world, sung with much passion and feeling.

One man sings about his mother, long dead, and the villagers gently tease him: �You�re getting choked up about your mother even though you have grandchildren.� Lullabies are sung to infants and toddlers. Mothers and daughters sing to one another.

In these remote villages the filmmakers came across a song challenge, people singing across distances in attempts to outdo one another.

There are ballads with romantic overtones, while some are about the bonds between generations. Others have an instructional tone. There are morality tales, songs about respect for one�s elders and virtues such as diligence. All these were once sung and passed down from one generation to the next. The film chronicles how these village rites and their singers are in the process of change.

Mosuo Song Journey will be screened along with Seth Wochensky�s Shoot the Moon, a film about rural Springville, New York. Weng and Wochensky will discuss their documentaries after the screenings.

Friday, April 11, 8pm. Squeaky Wheel�s Cinema at 712 Main Street (884-7172/squeaky.org). $4 members/$6 non-members.

March 28 2008 Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference
noon, Columbia University, NYC

April 11 2008 Squeaky Wheel Screening, Buffalo, NY.
8pm, screening room.

April 23 2008 Asia Catalyst Screening, Columbia University, NYC.
7-8:30 Pm, location TBA. Film screening and discussions from hear from a leading Tibet expert and an ethnic Buddhist monk from China�s Yunnan province about the impact of Chinese mass tourism on local ethnic culture.Co-sponsored by Columbia University Asia-Pacific Affairs Council.

I want to share a piece of good news with you. An elder teacher Mr. Shi from Labai Village received the provincial �Excellent Teaching Adward 2007�in Yunnan Province. Shi gained recognition for his life-long teaching and contribution to the youth education in his village. For the past decades, Shi’s been the only teacher at the only school of the village. There is only Grade one and Grade Two students in the school.

Shi has been invited to come to Kunming for the award ceremony and a nice one-week retreat.When I heard this wonderful news from the Mosuo writer Lamu Gatusa this morning, Mr.Shi was staying in Lamu�s house in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan. Lamu, in his forties now, was one of Shi�s early students from that village.

(View Mr.Shi’s Teaching Video)
When I was filming my documentary back in 2004, Lamu took Carol and me to meet his teacher Mr. Shi at his elementary in Ge Village. Ge Village is one of the branch villages under Labai Village. The students� enthusiastic reading sounds led us into a yard with a clean mud floor, some trees and blossoming flowers. There was only one room at this school. The room was divided into two parts for two classes. Since there was no electricity, one side of the wall had been changed into a lower fence. So that the light could come in for the students.

Shi told me that he might retire in two years. �But I will try to keep healthy and continue to teach after that. I don�t want to leave my lovely young pupils.� Said Shi.