Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Biographies & Memoirs
Author:	Yang Erche Namu and Christine Matthieu

I was in Beijing for about a week when I finally stepped in a bookstore that sells English books. Imagine me salivating as I faced rows upon rows of books that I can finally consume. I didn't know where to start satisfying my thirst for the written word that was unquenched for a year except for the books that I brought from Manila and some mostly unentertaining magazines lying around the house, probably left behind by former foreign teachers.

One of the books that caught my attention is Leaving Mother Lake, because of the mother-daughter theme that it promises in its blurb. This might give me some inspiration for my own novel, I thought. It also tells of a matriarchal society where, among other things, property is passed on from mother to daughter and marriage is considered a foreign custom. Interesting, I said to myself. And because there were other books to keep me occupied, it sat on the floor or any other of my makeshift bookshelves for about a month.

One night though, as I was eating and drinking with some of the athletes in one of their rooms, someone mentioned a place in China where a woman can have many lovers and where the identity of her children's father is none of anyone's business but hers alone. One of the female athletes was quick to make me understand that this is only in a small village in Yunnan and not the usual practice in China.

It was after a few more nights when I remembered to look more carefully at the book's introduction, and then started reading the book itself to see if it was the same group of people that they mentioned. Sure enough, the Moso group can be found in Yunnan and yes, theirs is a completely different world that would probably most resemble utopia. Except this one is real, however misunderstood and misrepresented.

In Moso country, everything is shared. Even lovers. Their word for father is very rarely used as children call their mother's lover "uncle" even if he is their father. Sometimes children never know who their fathers are. It is perfectly normal to exchange children among sisters and neighbors. One is expected to live in her mother's house and raise her own children and aspire to be a Daba, the head of the household.

Despite all the differences, ultimately the book is about a daughter who time and again has disappointed her mother and her people by desiring something almost unimaginable, that of a life outside their small village. It is about pride for one's people and culture even as the government has on several occasions forced them to a life totally alien to them. It is about alienation in both a world where one was born in and a world one has adopted.

And it is good. It is really good. Enough to make me want to write this entry when I could have just slept or moved on to the next book. This of course does not do justice to what the book is. You have to read it. So go.