Hang on, help is on its way
Years ago, a young man in his early 20s crawled along a 300-year-old bridge made of ivy rope that spanned a distance of 400 meters. Fifty meters below, huge foaming waves crashed upon the jagged cliffs of the mighty Yarlung Tsangbo Canyon in eastern Tibet Autonomous Region.
"People must concentrate when worming along the swinging ropes. Any mistake could lead to a tragedy," says Ji Wenzheng, the same young man, who is now 75.
Luckily, Ji had loyal friends who were always there to help. Every time Ji crossed such dangerous bridges, the local people would send two capable young men to help: One held Ji's hands to move forward and the other supported his back from behind.
"Without their hands, I could have died 100 times," he says.
Since 1954, when Ji Wenzheng first made the perilous journey into Medog, a county located at the sharp curve of the Yarlung Tsangbo River in eastern Tibet, he has climbed over the snow-capped Himalayas to enter Medog 28 times.
Fascinated by the rich and diverse local culture, Ji was determined to help them improve their lives. His sincerity has in turn won genuine respect among the locals.
In 1954, as a member of the PLA, the young man headed towards Medog with another comrade. Their mission was to learn more about the people in Medog and find out how to help.
Medog, also called Baimagang - "a hidden lotus flower", is perhaps the most mysterious place in Tibet. It is the only county in China that has no highway connecting it to the outside world. In the 1950s, little was known about the locals who called themselves Lhobas and Moinbas.
Heavy snow blocks the region from October to next July. Natural disasters such as rainstorms, landslides and glacial debris frequently hinder transport for the rest of the year.
But for Ji and his colleague, the worst thing was the acute mountain sickness, which was aggravated by the 70 kilograms of weapons, rice, seeds and medicines each of them carried.
On their journey to Medog from Bomi, another Tibetan county 280 kilometers to the north, they constantly fought against insects and swarms of leeches. Once, several leeches crawled into Ji's nose. If he hadn't dragged them out in time, he would have died in horrible pain.
"We had to stop every 20 meters, it was very hard to breathe," Ji recalls their ascent of Doxong La, a peak which raises 4,200 meters above sea level. "At such a high altitude, the load of 70 kilograms weighed down as heavy as 200 kilograms on the plains."
When they finally arrived at a small village named Kabu seven days later, they found that 109 Lhoba people lived in 12 households. They still kept many practices of primitive tribes. People mainly lived on hunting and slash-and-burn cultivation.
There were only 37 pieces of iron farm implements, all of which were roughly assembled. The farm yields remained very low - eight households had only enough grains for eight months throughout the year, the other two could barely sustain themselves for six months.
When out of food, most people would eat leaves of palm trees, one of the most common plants in tropical rain forests. Containing high amount of starch, the leaves caused gastric perforation, a fatal disease that was taking lives every year.
After finishing the food they had brought, Ji and his colleague tried the palm leaves. "Soon I felt a strong nausea. A bulge formed in my stomach. I couldn't stool for six days," Ji says.
However, Ji soon realized Medog was a rich land where many crops can thrive. "People there only needed some help to get started," he says.
Ji and his colleague introduced new iron-farming tools and fresh seeds to the villages. As the region's major production was corn, they decided to teach the villagers artificial corn pollination. But people had never heard of it and doubted its result.
So he gave the technique a vivid name -"corn marriage". Because of his persistent effort, a tribe leader finally allowed him to experiment in a small field. When fall came, locals were surprised to see corncobs in Ji's field were much bigger than other fields. They gradually adopted this "corn marriage" and the production was boosted year by year.
They also taught villagers to disbranch cotton, a technique to increase its output, and plant more rice seedlings in a paddy field. Both productions were boosted by about 20 percent in one year, Ji says.
Having no writing skills, the villagers used to keep records by notching wood or tying knots. Ji taught locals simple mathematics in a regular class, in which he also introduced them to the happenings outside.
Located in the semitropical region, the ill couldn't receive proper medical treatment and relied only on herbs. Witch doctors were invited to cast spells to chase ghosts and demons away. Such a practice had cost many lives.
Ji had learnt some medical treatments and brought quinine against malaria and other diseases. Once he cured a tribe leader's dying daughter, who then pledged to marry him. Ji had to confess that he already had a fiance. From then on, villagers began to come to Ji for treatment.
"Smiling is a very useful way of enhancing trust, which is crucial for nurturing a bond," Ji reveals. "We always smiled at everyone we met, trying to send a friendly signal."
Ji worked in Medog from 1954 to 1970. Then he went to work in the Civil Administration of Tibet in Lhasa. After retiring in 1988, Ji extended his research on local culture in Medog, collecting information about the customs and folk stories of Lhoba and Moinba people.
"Although the locals don't have written scripts, there are abundant interesting folk tales and proverbs preserved vocally," says Ji who has collected folk tales, ballads and proverbs from every village in Medog he visited.
Ji wrote 2.1 million words in diaries and published more than 500 articles. To introduce this intangible cultural heritage to the world, he also published five books.
After his great efforts, the Chinese government acknowledged Lhoba and Moinba as two different ethnic minorities in 1964 and 1965. It made these two minorities eligible for material and financial support from the central government. Since then, agricultural output has risen considerably through the introduction of advanced farming methods and irrigation systems.
Now the Moinbas and Lhobas have moved into bright, electric-lit houses. Roads and suspension bridges have replaced narrow footpaths and single log bridges.
There are many schools in Medog for both children and adults. Some young people are studying at the Tibet Ethnic Minorities' Institute in Lhasa of Tibet Autonomous Region and the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing.
Ji's wife Kuang Xianhua worked with him in Tibet in the 1960s. "My husband is sometimes very stubborn," she says. "He gave his whole life to Medog."
In the 16 years that Ji worked in Medog, the family rarely had reunions. He didn't see his second son until the boy was already 4 years old.
This year, Ji is busy preparing his 29th visit to Medog, to collect more information and learn more about the legendary Yeti, the abominable snowman recorded in rich local folklore.
"I love the people in Medog. I think I can still do something for my beloved people," Ji says.
(China Daily 07/11/2007 page20)
