Our First Visit to Hewan
On our first visit to Hewan, we felt ourselves filled with a sense of adventure. It all began when we first went to Guiyang and visited Yexian Bookstore, where we met the owner Mr. Qiu Mazha. We hit things off immediately. When we came to the topic of cultural sustainability, he recommended that we meet another fellow cultural enthusiast. And so we set off soon after for Shidong Town in Taijiang County, Qiandongnan Autonomous Prefecture. It was only afterwards that we discovered that Mr. Qiu was only a loose acquaintance of this person, having met only a couple of times. But such are the wonders of fate.
Like this, we came to the Guizhou Hewan Institute of Hmong Studies and we met the person that Mr. Qiu had described. She was fast-talking, fast-moving, and uniquely poised: Ms. An Hong, whom we later always called “Hong Ge.” The night we arrived, we fell into deep discussion, and she revealed to us how Hewan came to be. Initially she had come to Shidong hoping to invest in the local travel and cultural industry, but the plan went awry and she stayed almost by coincidence. The years quickly passed, and she eventually realized that she had spent two decades in Shidong. During this time, she met a famed scholar of folk culture, Mr. Yang Peide. Mr. Yang had spent years studying minority culture and anthropology, specializing in Hmong studies. He was known as the Elder around the town. Mr. Yang, using his knowledge in anthropology, philosophy, and Hmong studies, formulated a structure for the establishment of the institute. At the macro level, they would have to study the cosmology and worldview of the Hmong; at the micro level, they would document all the minute aspects of Hmong life. Thus at the Hewan Institute they would systematically document, protect, and study Hmong culture.
Speaking of the founding intention of Hewan, An Hong pondered: “What does it take for a group to be recognized? How can we draw connections between them and our modern life so that they may gain wider acceptance? How can we spread culture? All this requires a great concentration of effort.” What An Hong said struck us deeply, for it perfectly encapsulated what we in our interest in cultural sustainability were concerned about.
An Hong said rather humbly that, as a novice without formal training, she can only document not research and that, as a result, she has walked every corner of the town. Culture shifts and adapts at all moments, but no matter where it is heading, as long as it still persists, someone needs to record it all. Otherwise, as soon as there is a breakage or a gap, retracing the steps can be more than difficult. This is An Hong’s sentiment, Mr. Yang has his sentiment, and every researcher at Hewan has their own sentiment.
An Hong shared another story with us. She said that, at the founding of the institute, they were asking for blessings at the Hmong drum shrine when a butterfly appeared and landed briefly on every person in turn. In that moment, she thought that they had received recognition and a blessing for what they were setting out to do.
An Hong’s––and the Hewan Institute's––story moved us deeply, and we also discovered that many had long begun the work that we were setting out to do. In later conversations with An Hong, we shared many of our thoughts with her––our curiosity for culture, our dedication to cultural sustainability, our hope to inspire more young people to contribute to cultural sustainable development, our wish that international society could recognize the Chinese model of sustainable development. An Hong looked at us intently for a moment, perhaps seeing a younger version of herself in us, until finally she said: “You are welcome here anytime!” Like that, we built a field study program with the Hewan Institute, allowing us to engage more deeply with the Hmong and setting an important milestone for our practice in cultural sustainability.