Cucurbit Flutes and Beyond 葫芦丝及其他
Yesterday: First time to shoot my temple out of control. My assignments for the students to do after school are supposedly the fewest—-only a small composition each week. In the first place, I tried to keep calm when told by my little assistant that only 5 students turned in their homework the day before yesterday, considering more homework would turn up the next day. Then,I lost the patience waiting in my dorm and headed to the classroom when there went the bell for a break. ( Students here aslo have classes on Staturday). There I had my first confrontation with my students. They hadn’t done it at all and some girls even attempted to cut away on the spot when I questioned the other one, which really boiled my blood. I ordered them to stay behind after class to finish their undone work.
In fact, I didn’t think there grew bad blood between my students and me. Instead I am geting along well with them and so will I be in the future. The only pain on my nerve is that they hate doing homework.( Other teachers have the same complaints) So their homework had been reduced a lot to the present level. My resonings were: They were just too busy.Or it was enough that they listened attentively to my lessons. So Their English homework was just writing a small weekly article. Difficult? They had studied the model and I had showed them the example. 15 minutes was sufficient for an average student.
Then I went in the neibouring Grade One’s office, where the class teacher happened to be present. Miss Gao, a new teacher, was clever enough to read my mind. She went to the nextdoor where the students were having a self study and then returned,saying the students were writing the compositions. I didn’t know what to say.
That afternoon, Sun, Zhang and I hunted the town for some one who could show us how to play cucurbit flute. They have taken to this instreument since a trip to XishuangBanna(西双版纳）last month. About Banna, there is a nationally famous tune called "the fernleaf hedge bamboo in the moonlight"(月光下的凤尾竹)—–very very romantic like a pretty Dai(傣族）maiden. Sun, knowing nothing about intruments like us , swore he would learn to use the cucurbit flute before returning to Shanghai in the next July. Moved by him, I gave the flute a blow or two once in while, which was sent by Sun, who bought 2 in Banna. We all wished to play one or two pieces such as the "bamboo". Three motivations for us to pick up the flutes: #1 the folk instrument and tune is just so suprizinly wonderful;#2 we could kill the time and satisfy a year-long desire to master an intrument.#3 we wanna leave ourselves some sweeter memories and show off the new ‘talent’ if opportunities come.
The pity is: we didn’t know there were in Honghe county so few people who knew the cucurbit flute. We walked our butts off the whole afternoon only to be told that it was better to go to other places for help. Sigh. Even an amateur is tough to come by, not to mention a master. After all, cucuber flute is a Banna thing, where is nearly 800 kilos away from here. And The cultural diversities are so huge in a huge ethnic minoritie-populated province.
Without masters available, we plan teaching ourselves via cds and scores downloaded from the computers. Sun, our good example, kept practicing the flute everyday. Although pracising the finger positions is boring, the sound is melodoius. During the power-cut nights, our coutyard would echo to the sound from his dorm, which sometimes placed people under a delusion that they were back in Banna(版纳). Except Sun, the other two including me have basicly laid aside the cucurbit flutes, expecting Sun to make progress by leaps and bounds and then teach us. Word came recently that a student knew the intrument. Good.
