Eric's Beijing Diary

Today I was thinking about the scripture in Leviticus 19 that I read a few days ago:

"And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God." (verses 9 and 10)

I was thinking of this scripture because today is Juliana's birthday, and I was remembering when John and I were gleaning potatoes in Drew Burke's potato field the day after she was born. And I was thinking of this scripture because of the unique picture in front of me. Today, as we were walking around the village, and talking with the friendly villagers, I noticed several people carrying shoulder poles, with baskets of produce they had harvested by hand from their fields. Everything is done by hand. Everything. These people live on very steep mountainside. The mountainside is terraced into tiny fields. Bringing any kind of machinery to those fields is out of the question. The people in this village seem happy and easygoing. But they work hard. I picked up one of those shoulder poles and put it on my shoulder. It's doable, but it's not light work. And some of the folks carrying these shoulder poles are young women. I even saw a little girl with a seed sack tied to her back. Everybody works.

Lucy also showed us an old temple. She said that no one could go here at night except the village wizard. She said that she believes in the village wizard because everything he said has come true. One day the wizard contacted her and said he wanted to speak with her. When she got to his place, he was speaking in a very strange voice. He asked her if she was thinking of going to graduate school. She said that she was. The strange voice told her that if she went to graduate school, she would create a problem for her family. Because of this, Lucy is thinking about getting an additional Bachelor's degree instead.

The hospitality of these folks is really impressive. They usually eat two meals a day--the first at 11 am, and the second in the evening. But for us, they made a special breakfast. The people in this village cannot afford meat, but boy do they know how to make vegetables! And noodles. They don't eat rice. At least not very often. But they are very, very good at making unique vegetable dishes. Specially that pumpkin stew we had last night. I am very carnivorous. But I have no complaints about the food in this place.