Wei Ke Qun ( Yao Jiu Ma = Daisy's mom's younger brother's wife ) and Er Mei ( her Wai Sun Nu = grandaughter ) talking to Brian on the telephone.

Brian talking to YaoJiuMa on the phone

BiaoYiMa & BiaoYiFu's home ( Daisy's mom's, dad's, older brother's, daughter and her husband's house )

San Ge's house ( Er Ge's brother )

Brian loves talking to pigs. He learned so many words and lanugages on this trip. Words: MaMa, Fish, DaDa, Ji (chicken), KuaiLai ( come quickly), GeGe (older brother), FeiJi ( airplane), shoes, Banana. Lanugages: Brian (gedegedeledenegedleg), Chicken, Duck, Gooss ( hiss hiss ), and his favorite is Pig. ZhuangZhuang (GeGe) also speaks Brian.

YuanYuan and Brian’s Nephew, ShiYiJin. ShiYiJin is 2 months older than Brian and calls Brian Uncle (ShuShu) because he is because he is Daisy’s Mom’s Brother3’s grandson.

Brian and YuanYuan. This kid is a half year older than Brian and full of energy.

Brian’s Nephew, ShiYiJin (=12 pounds), who is two months older than Brian, calls Brian ShuShu (uncle), and was 12 pounds when he was born thus his name.

Yuan Yuan and ShiYiJin

YaoJiuMa and her granddaughter, ErMei.

Daisy, DaYiMa ( Daisy's Mom's Older Sister 1), SanYiMa ( Daisy's Mom's Older Sister 3), YuanYuan, Brian, ShiYiJin, and SanMei if front of YaoJiu's house.

DaJiu, DaYiMa and SanYiMa in front of Yao Jiu's house. This house used to belong to Daisy's Mom's parents ( WaiGong and WaiPo) before they passed away and Daisy lived here until she was 4 years old.

Yuan Yuan - note: these houses are all made from packed mud. This house is 30 or 40 years old and it replaced the old house which was a few feet in front of this one. 30 years ago they had straw roofs, but now they have clay tile roofs.

Daisy, Xiao Wei ( JuErJie's daughter. JuErJie is DaJiu's daughter), LiLing (XiaoYaoMei's husband. YaoMei is YaoJiu's daughter), XiaoKong ( XiaoWei's husband) and finally YaoMei carrying YuanYuan --- walking to WeiPo's grave.

Remembering WaiPo ( Daisy's Mom's mom ). WaiPo originally had an arranged marriage with a sick man because it was believed that a good thing like marriage could cure a bad thing like sickness. It was the exception and the man died. Daisy’s Grandpa's (WaiGong) family originally was rich, however his older brother and dad took opium and spent all the money on drugs and borrowed more. WaiGong then went to the old house of Daisy’s grandma’s sick ( now dead ) husband and worked as a servant. WaiPo's dead husband’s mother then felt pity on Daisy’s now alone WaiPo and arranged her second married this servant, who is Daisy’s Grandpa ( Mom’s Dad ). The rest is all history.

Remembering WaiPo: Mama, Bryan, YanGe, XiaoHongGe (DaYiMa's son), BaBa, Xiao QiangGe ( on top of the grave Mom's older sister 1's son ), YaoJiu holding Yuan Yuan, HePingGe and someone I do not recognize digging. We had to repair this grave a lot and cut down a nearby tree to keep the roots from growing inside. The stuff on the top is Qin which is for decoration and the word Qin has three meanings that I am aware of: 1) family, 2) kiss, and 3) this stuff on the grave...

Remembering WaiPo

Walking back to YaoJiu's house

BiaoYiMa and BiaoYiFu's house. In front of the house over the chickens are cherry, peach, and plum trees blooming, and in the background yellow YouCaiHua (rapeseed) fields.

BaBa, Daisy, Brian, YanGe, XiaoWei, and her daughter SanSan (33 because she was born at 3:15am and 3 has one 3, and 15 has 5 more 3's in it, thus the name SanSan meaning a lot of 3's) -- go figure.

Brian and YuanYuan playing with gravel.

YuanYuan and YuanYuan

YuanYuan

Brian speaking Chicken to YaoJiu's chickens

Er Mei and YuanYuan ( cousins )

Remembering WaiGong

Remembering WaiGong ( Daisy's mom's dad ) - WaiGong selected this resting place right in front of his house instead of across the valley with his wife because he noticed that when it rains the ground here is always dry; and he wanted to rest in a dry place.

XiaoFeiFei ( JinDaGe's son ), XiaoLiJie (ErGe's little sister), HanJie (LuGe's wife), LuGe (ErGe's younger brother), BaBa, XiaoLiJie's husband, and ErGe (a distant relative who's exact relationship is a bit unclear, but he got me so drunk on Sorghum Wine that I could not remember much.

Daisy, 5 months pregnant climbing the mountains through the TongZi Shu ( Tung Oil Trees ). LuGe & HanJie planted three mountains of these trees and they came into production last year. The blue roof below is a factory that they are building to press the oil from the Tung seeds.

Brian and I took lessons on how to speak Cow from this teacher

We always eat from these coal burning steel tables. They are great because the whole table is warm and the middle can be removed in circular rings to fit various sizes of woks for hot-pot, and the lower section keeps your legs warm.

Er Mei eating eggs

View form BiaoYiMa's house

Neighbor kids

YuanYuan and his younger brother ( YaoMei and LiLing's kids )

XiaoKong and XiaoWei and their daughter SanSan, at BiaoYiMa's house

The flag of MaChangXian flying in front of BiaoYiMa's house

Daisy, XiaoWei and SanSan

BiaoYiMa's grandson

BiaoYiFu

LiLing got nailed by the Sorghum wine at lunch

SanYiMa ( MaMa's older sister 3 )

DaYiMa and Brian ( Daisy Mom is sister 4, and the youngest sister. DaYiMa is the oldest sister )

Back to front: DaJiu, BiaoYiFu, SanYiMa, BiaoYiMa, MaMa, DaYiMa, BiaoYiMa's grandson, and Brian; at BiaoYiMa's house

Paying respects to YeYe ( Baba's dad ) - YanGe (DaJiu's son) and ShuShu ( Daisy's dad's younger brother ). YeYe's grave is in this spot because it is where he died of starvation in the sixtys He was walking to another nearby grave and just fell down here and died, and his grave is very simple because times were poor back then.

Paying respects to YeYe ( Baba's dad ) - YanGe, Daisy, ShuShu, ErGe, BaBa, lighting fireworks and burning money. The ashes of the money carry it up to heaven so the ancestors have something to spend for whatever they need in the afterlife. Baba has one older brother ( who died ), one younger brother ( ShuShu), and one younger sister who died a long time ago.

ShuShu, YanGe, BaBa and ErGe (YaoShuShu's son) looking at a book of family historical events such as births, marriages, migrations, etc ... These books go back 600 years.

Baba recording Daisy and my Marrage and the birth of Brian into the family history.

ShuShu's granddaughter studying.

"The oldest records of our family come from GanSu, LingZhao. WanDaiRongChang" ( = ten thousand generations of this family have lived well. the word 'ten thousand' just means 'alot' in this context )

"Our family history is really old. It starts in ShanXi, FungXiangFu. It follows GuiDong road to ChongQing, JiangJing town, LiShiBa village. The first recorded relative is LiJiMin, followed by the second generation LiZhengXue, third generation LiRongFang, fourth LiTianRan, and fifth generation LiShiYuan."

"The sixth generation is LiDeCheng, the seventh generation is LiZeZhong, the eight generation is LiYuXiang, the ninth generation is LiYingKe. The first generation had 3 sons (LiZhengXue, LiZhengFu, LiZhengXian) from three wives each bearing one child. They lived in GuiZhou, ZunYi, XiaoBanQiao. LiZhengXue lived in HuangNiBang, BaoAnLi, GouJiaoWan. The second son LiZhengFu, lived in YongAnLi."

Daisy, YanGe, Brian, Baba, ShuShu walking up the mountain to remember ErGong ( YeYe's younger brother ), who had no children so BaBa goes to remember him every year on behalf of the kids he never had.

Daisy climbing up more mountains 5 months pregnant.

Remembering ErGong YanGe and Brian at ErGong's grave

Remembering ErGong YanGe, BaBa, ShuShu and ErGe burning money for ErGong

Remembering ErGong

Corn is being planted now, and in mid-April the rapeseed will be harvested and sent for processing into vegitable oil, and the rapeseed feilds replanted with rice.

Having tea in front of ShuShu's old house. This house origionally had two towers but the right hand tower was later replaced by a modern room. Baba used to play in these towers when he was a kid, and they have arrow slits all up the outer walls as they were built to defend against armed bandits. There were a lot of wars in GuiZhou against the famous bandits in this wild west state, and the deadly combination of bandits, mountains, and caves kept the Japanese out of GuiZhou for the most part.

YaoJiu, ErMei and YuanYuan

Brian has a thing about wheels. He can play with them all day.

LiLing ( YaoJiu's son's daughter). LiLing made a ton of food every day and she is expecting a baby in June.

YaoJiu and I took his HuaMei Niao (Melodious Laughingthrush) for a walk over the mountains to the next valley using the HuaMei periodically to try to lure other birds as the HuaMei is known for its ability to speak the languages and sing the songs of numerous species. The mountains are really peaceful and YaoJiu told me of how the family survived by eating the roots of ferns up here during the Great Leap Forward, and about his times in XiShuangBaNa in the Chinese war supporting Cambodia, Against Vietnam, in the 1970’s ( after the US vs Vietnam/China war). Before becoming a military man, YaoJiu was a 5th grade teacher in the valley below. His dismissal from the military was either because he expressed his opinion, did not share his JinSha Sorghum wine with the right leaders, or refused to fight the enemy; depending on which story you hear. Now he farms rapeseed followed by rice, and loves his birds.

YaoJiu walking his HuaMei Niao (Chinese Melodious Laughingthrush) past a field of YouCaiHua ( rapeseed )

BiaoYiMa brought some stuff over for dinner. ( pot luck )

YaoJiu and ErMei

FuLaoSan (TingTing's husband) and their son

YanGe and Brian

TingTing (YaoJiu's daughter) and her son. YaoJiu in the background.

DaJiu's coffin. This is a bad example, but usually people make or find their own coffins of especially good wood and keep them well polished in the entry way of their houses. The reason is that it might not be easy to find a quality coffin when you need it, so it pays to prepare and get a good one while you can. For example, there are few remaining trees like these.

DaJiu ( the oldest brother in MaMa’s family ), made the long trip back to JinSha to pay respect to the ancestors, but when he got there it appeared he forgot about the ancestors and only cleaned his own grave and coffin. Everyone thought it odd that the oldest seemingly discounted these traditions. He also walled up the entrance to his grave to keep any cats or rats from entering, which also seemed a bit selfish since he was not yet using it himself.

XiaoKong, XiaoWei and SanSan

XioWei ( JuErJie's daughter ) and SanSan

San YiMa and her daughter were really insistent we bring some food home so they packed up this Turkey-Duck. We politely refused to take it home...