Jingxiang Travel Notes 015 | "Northeast Journey" Chapter 15: On the prejudice of Mongolian and Han drivers, seeing that the two ethnic groups share the same ancestral home

Time: June 3, 2013

Location: Zhalantun, Inner Mongolia

Jingxiang's Travel Notes Chapter 15 丨 "Travel to the Northeast" Chapter 15

On the prejudice of Mongolian and Han drivers, seeing that the two ethnic groups share the same ancestral home

According to the scheduled schedule, I should go to Yakeshi tomorrow and stay in Yakeshi for two days. This is not because there is endless scenery in Yakeshi, but because today is Monday, June 3, 2013. If I go straight to Zhalantun where Teacher Bai is located tomorrow, it will definitely bring trouble to her four days of teaching work. Influence. Therefore, I wanted to arrive at Zhalantun on Friday morning, then go to a herdsman’s home in Chenbalhu Banner with his family for a day on Saturday, and leave Zhalantun on Sunday. This is a scheduled itinerary. When I originally designed the itinerary, I had reserved two days of rest in Yakeshi. Since I had been out for many days, in addition to taking a break, I also considered organizing information. The hard work for others when traveling is rushing for time, but the hard work for me is organizing travel information. Not only do you need to record what you see and hear, but you also need to quickly classify the photos. After a long time, they may become messy.

Turning on the computer, I saw Teacher Bai's prompt again: There is an Ewenki Autonomous Banner near Hailar.

This is really timely rain! There are only three ethnic minority autonomous flags in China. In addition to the Oroqen Autonomous Banner, which I have already visited, there are two Ewenki Autonomous Banners and the Molidawa Daur Autonomous Banner that I have not visited. Now the Ewenki Autonomous Banner is around me. , can you not go?

The next morning I refunded the ticket from Hailar to Yakeshi, and at the same time bought the train ticket to Zhalantun at 15:47 – obviously, I canceled my rest plan. Because apart from feeling that my sense of taste was not so sensitive when I ate last night, I didn’t seem to notice any other condition in my body, and I didn’t feel tired. So I told Teacher Bai that I would arrive at Zhalantun in advance.

I gave myself nearly 7 hours to visit Ewenki Banner, which was enough time to make three stops at a time.

I raised my hand and stopped a taxi. The driver was a fat woman.

“How much does it cost to go to Ewenki Banner?”

"30 yuan."

It is about 12 kilometers from Hailar to Ewenk. The price is very reasonable, more affordable than the 18 kilometers in Manzhouli which costs 100 yuan. So, I got in the car. In quite a few areas of our country, taxi meters have become a decoration, and many places do not even use meters in urban areas. It is estimated that this phenomenon will soon attract the attention of the management, and some policies may be introduced, or it may be adopted by emerging The taxi business model forced them to make reforms. Because this is an Internet era, it is not impossible to use the Internet to develop a new taxi model (facts prove that my original idea was right, as witnessed by the subsequent online taxi-hailing).

Although the journey is not far, I will not miss any opportunity to understand the local culture: "I think there are more Mongolian and Han people here, but not many Ewenki people, right?" I still follow their words in spoken language and say "Mongolian" Became "Mongolian".

"Of course, if there are more Ewenki people than Han people in China, is it necessary to set up an Ewenki autonomous flag?" Oh, this is really true! It's not like the average taxi driver who just says "not much" and is done. Sometimes I feel that I am quite lucky. After being out for so many days, I have met all good people. Even though the driver in Manzhouli charged a bit high, he was very conscientious and conscientious. Now I met another driver who meant what he said.

Later I learned that the Evenki people in the Evenki Autonomous Banner accounted for only one-fifteenth of the total population, while the number of Mongolians was more than double that of the Evenki people. For Inner Mongolia, it is common for the Mongolian and Han ethnic groups to dominate the population, but for ethnic minorities such as the Ewenki, accounting for one-fifteenth of the population is definitely not a small number. Therefore, it is a matter of course to establish the Ewenki Autonomous Flag here.

"Are there many intermarriages between Han and Mongolian people?" Before understanding the Evenki, I still want to understand the Mongolians first.

"Not much." The driver shook his head.

"Why?" The driver's answer surprised me. I thought that since many Mongolian people have become Chinese, intermarriage between Mongolians and Chinese should be very common.

"The customs are different." The driver said, "During the Chinese New Year, we Han people rarely go to Mongolian people to pay New Year greetings, and Mongolian people rarely go to Han people's homes to pay New Year greetings."

This really surprised me: "Why is this?" Although I had already heard her say it was because of different customs, I still wanted to guide her to tell her which customs were different.

"We Han people only say 'Congratulations on getting rich' when we greet the New Year, and at most we just give it away. The Mongolian people are different. They have many rituals of kneeling and worshiping. Because they are not used to it, they don't come to the door very often. ”

"Etiquette is a thing that you are familiar with after you have been married or married before. Could it be that this is an obstacle to intermarriage?" I think this reason is very pale.

"Mongolian people are very good at drinking. Regardless of men or women, they drink when they wake up in the morning." The driver seemed to be trying hard to find out who was Mongolian - although I didn't ask, I was sure she was not Mongolian.

"This is a big problem." I looked at the problem from my own perspective again. Because I was most afraid of drinking, I thought this was a big problem. People always look at things from their own point of view.

"The big problem is that they act crazy when they drink." Is the driver's statement an overstatement? I don’t know this, but it can be seen that she also looks at the problem from her own point of view: "Mongolian people often ride in my car. I have seen many people who are crazy about drinking and talking Mongolian. , I don’t know what they said.”

Wow wow wow? This can't help but remind me of Japanese. Although I don't understand Japanese, I often hear Japanese in anti-war films. Did the driver describe it randomly or did it really sound like Japanese? I put this question in my mind at the moment.

"Are you going to go horse riding?" She asked me proactively when she saw that the topic was gone.

"Maybe." I said this realistically, because I don't know if there will be such an opportunity in Chenbalhu Banner. If the owner has a horse, he will definitely be able to gallop on the grassland.

"Be careful of getting slaughtered." She told the story of how she took a guest to ride a horse and was slaughtered. It seemed that she was really biased against the Mongols.

"Ewenki Banner has arrived, where do you want to get off?" The driver obviously wanted me to tell me the specific location in advance, because we had already seen the main street of Ewenki Banner.

"I want to go to the Ewenk Museum, but please find a place for me to have breakfast first."

"Okay." The driver agreed.

As they entered the city, the driver said: "There is only one main street in Ewenki Banner, but it is well built. They have money."

"Is it state support funds?" That's all I can think of.

"Yes, they are not short of money." The driver then pointed to a building on the right and said, "This is the Evenk Museum. I will take you to a restaurant now."

After walking a few dozen meters along the main street, there was a traffic intersection. The car turned right and stopped. "This restaurant is good, get off here."

I walked into a restaurant and had no idea how to buy breakfast. This restaurant uses a special card, a stored-value card? I don't know, because I just want a breakfast that I like. I asked the waiter and it was only 8 yuan in total. I paid 8 yuan at the cashier and got a card. I took the card to the counter and ordered a bowl of rice porridge and a few pieces of pie. The card was taken back.

After sitting down at a dining table, I first took a bite of rice porridge, but found that there was sugar in the porridge. This surprised me: the food in the entire Northeast is salty, and only the South, especially Shanghai and Guangzhou, use sugar for cooking. It is the so-called "sweet in the south and salty in the north". A burst of sweetness appears in this salty world, which can be said to be a little red among the greenery.

I don't know why they call sugar porridge white porridge here. The so-called white porridge means that the word "white" is highlighted and nothing is put in it. It is porridge made from rice. I can only guess that this is the way to eat the rice porridge here. The reason is very simple: there is no indication on the counter that it is sweet porridge, and no waiter told me that the porridge is laced with sugar. In other words, people here have decided that it is sweet porridge. Porridge with added sugar is normal white porridge. Just like our Cantonese steamed buns are sweet, we believe that sugar is needed in steamed buns.

Although the time from entering Ewenki Banner to now is short, I have walked half a street, but I have never seen any Ewenki people wearing national costumes, including old people gathered on the street to play cards. Unexpectedly, there were three elderly women sitting at the table opposite me, all wearing national costumes.

Is it a Mongolian robe or an Ewenki costume? Not only have I never seen the Ewenki costumes, but I only know a little bit about the Mongolian costumes. Therefore, I can't tell which ethnic group the costumes are.

Returning along the road we just walked, we soon saw the "Ewenk Museum" inscribed by Ye Xuanping, but the first thing we saw was not these words, but a sculpture in the middle of the museum door. He is Hailancha, the hero of the Ewenki people. When he was walking just now, he passed the "Hailancha Street" named after him.

The exhibition hall is free and open, and it introduces and displays the history of politics, economy, culture, life and development of the Ewenki people. Ewenki means "people who live in the mountains and forests". Their ancestors have already appeared in the Paleolithic Age. They relied on the mountains, relied on the mountains to eat, and mainly hunted.

I don’t know how scientific archeology can conclude that the ancestors of the Evenki people have appeared in the Paleolithic Age. The Paleolithic Age began three million years ago, but our humanistic ancestor Fuxi belonged to the middle to late Neolithic Age, nearly 10,000 years ago. It can be said that the legendary Fuxi did not even know which ethnic group he belonged to. Did humans earlier than him begin to divide into ethnic groups? Even if it's retrospective, it's just an estimate.

What surprised me even more was that in the exhibition hall, I discovered the "immortal pillar" (also called "Cuoluozi") where the ancestors of the Oroqen people lived in the Ali River. Did they invent this conical housing at the same time or did the latter copy the former? I don’t know, but what I don’t want to see the most is being arrogant.

I remember going to Xi'an many years ago to see the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Qin Dynasty. An introduction said that leather was found in the unearthed saddles, proving that leather saddles had been invented at that time. Then we visited Hongmen in Lintong, Shaanxi Province, not far away. I pointed to the unearthed terracotta warriors and horses of the Han Dynasty and asked the commentator: "Why do these horses have no saddles?" The commentator's answer almost made me faint: "Saddles had not been invented yet."

History is written by people, and it is impossible not to contain the biases and even conjectures of the historians. However, there should not be any arrogance or misalignment of time and space. Leizu, the concubine of the Yellow Emperor, had just taught humans how to raise silkworms and weave cloth. However, the portrait of the Yellow Emperor in our textbooks shows a level of productivity that could only be achieved after the Zhou Dynasty. I hope these fallacies will not appear in the history of ethnic minorities that few people know.

If you want to know what happened next, please read Chapter 16: Looking back at history by looking at the suspension bridge, looking forward to the future by looking at the road