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2006-04-04 19:58
From: chris_lzh
(Tianjin)
a review of Leaving Mother Lake
So this is not the same edition that I read, but it is the same book by the same authors.
So I’ll get the negative bit out of the way first: Especially in the first few chapters, the book seems to be written with a kind of “Look at as Mosuo, aren’t we so great and wonderful and different” tone to it. It’s hard, no, impossible to tell whether this tone comes from Namu or Christine Mathieu. The book is written in the first person as if it were Namu relating her story, but of course I have no way of knowing just how much or what kind of an influence Christine Mathieu had over the final product. I mentioned this to the friend who leant me the book, and she told me to read the Epilogue first, as that explained a lot of Mathieu’s interest in the Mosuo and the motivation behind this book. So I did. But reading the Epilogue didn’t really clear anything up.
In fact, certain passages from the Epilogue only increased my misgivings about the book. All of a sudden, Mathieu seemed to be not merely describing, but idealizing Mosuo society. Compare these two quotations from the Epilogue:
“As these expressions go, women may get to rule the roost or to be the power behind the throne; in other words they may usurp the authority that is ideally vested in men. But Mosuo women do no such thing. They are legitimate figures of family authority, managers of family wealth, coowners of family property, caretakers of ancestors, and owners of their own bloodlines. Not least, they have personal rights and freedoms in the domain of sexual relations that are unthinkable in much of the rest of the world.”
“But in most societies, for marriage to work, something usually has to give. In patrilineal male-dominated societies, that something is very often romantic love, and almost always (female) sexual freedom and pleasure. In more extreme cases, male lineages may well depend on the exclusive sexual cooperation of wives and daughters, a thing that women are not naturally inclined to provide.”
Now, all I know of Mosuo society is what I read in this book, so I won’t comment on that, except to say that Namu’s own story comes close to suggesting that Mosuo society may well be as much of a gilded cage for women as any other society on this earth. However, Mathieu’s characterization of patrilineal societies is nothing more than a collection of extraordinarily sweeping statements. Although there certainly is some truth to those statements, it is a very carefully selected and applied truth, with a lot of other truth that may be a little inconvenient to Mathieu’s argument very carefully omitted.
I first heard of Namu when I read Michael Palin’s Himalaya. He described Namu, from what I recall, as being someone who is pretty gifted at self-promotion, which is why the first few chapters, with their constant “We Mosuo this…” and “We Mosuo that….” left me wondering whether this was just more of Namu’s self-promotion or whether Mathieu was playing up the “Look at the funny people”-ethnic theme park angle. Following my friend’s advice and reading the Epilogue only muddied the waters.
Having said all of that, though, the book is well worth reading. It is very well written and it gives a fascinating account of a childhood in what most be one of the world’s most unusual societies, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. It is a tale told with intelligence and humanity, so that it gives an unusually intimate view of Mosuo family life, leaving us feeling as if we are there with her. And the timing of the story only increases the fascination: Namu’s tale can’t be told without at least an outline of her mother’s tale, and the combination takes us from Liberation (which happened a little later than 1949, thanks to the isolation of the Mosuo country) through the Cultural Revolution (during which the Red Guards found precious little to destroy, thanks to the poverty of the Mosuo) into the beginnings of the Reform and Opening Up.
The Mosuo, thanks to their position on the 茶马古道 (Ancient Tea and Horse Road?) and the obvious need to trade, were never entirely isolated. But Namu’s story takes place at a time when an outside world the Mosuo weren’t really familiar with, and which seemed to exist in a kind of legendary, almost mythical status, was suddenly thrust upon them. Traditionally, it was Mosuo men who did the traveling and trading, while the women stayed home to raise the kids and tend the fields. Namu’s experiences as one of the first Mosuo women to experience the Big, Wide World are the icing on the cake, adding that extra layer of fascination to what is already a fascinating story.
So, add a few grains of salt where they may be needed, but read this book.
This review is helpful to 4 person.
2006-05-20 05:23: Lotus
Sounds interesting. I might want to check it out.
Lotus
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By Yang Erche Namu / Christine Mathieu
Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316735493
Release Date: 2004-02-10
Paperback
List Price: USD 14.95
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