Journal Entry
by Ali Junkin

7/24
Today was quite a day. My run this morning was wonderful. I saw so many people exercising in the park. They did ballroom dancing, tai chi, badminton, among other things. A lot of people brought their birds in cages and hung them on the fence. I got some great photos.

We went to a lecture this morning about the role of women in China. She also told us about this program called Photovoice run by The Nature Conservancy (TNC). I was really struck by how amazing this concept is. TNC gave cameras to people in ethnic minority villages and told them simply to take pictures of things that are important to them. They chose people of different ages, genders, and societal rank. The results were incredible! Some of the people took the most amazing photos and captured aspects of their cultures that no outsider could. What’s most incredible, though, is that TNC recognized that for this project to be effective they could not tell the people what kinds of things to document. By leaving it up to the photographers, they really captured what is important to the people. When one does research it is impossible to remove all bias. One always expects a certain outcome and perhaps wants a certain outcome. So, by removing the perspective or the bias of TNC and allowing the villagers to focus on what they feel is important, the project becomes much more valuable. And, the researchers realized that there were differences between the perspectives of men and women, older people and younger people, etc. Those differences themselves reveal something about each society.

Our whole discussion this morning made me think about the idea of perspective. Westerners, Han Chinese, Mosuo men (for example), Mosuo women, old/young, upper class/lower class – all of these people have a different perspective on Mosuo culture and it is important that we take them all into consideration when we examine the Mosuo people.

7/30
Yesterday was really an amazing day. We drove to the Mosuo village of Dapo and had an incredible experience. These people welcomed us into their home, cooked for us, and threw us a huge party attended by the whole village. There was singing and dancing and lots of beautiful little children. I gave out Disney stickers and the kids were putting them on their faces and clothes. I took lots of photos. What’s interesting now is to think about how my perspective of the Mosuo people has changed. I read Leaving Mother Lake before we got here and I heard all about the Mosuo people from Eileen and from the Photovoice project. I had a certain idea about who these people were and what their lives were like, but you can’t really know about a people or a culture without experiencing it firsthand, and even then you continue to be an outsider who brings a perspective to the situation.

8/7
We’ve seen a lot of things on this trip that have seemed forced or fake, but a few experiences have been incredibly real. Two nights ago we went out dancing at a Tajik bar in Tashkurgan (near the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan). I learned a lot about the culture from that experience. It seems like women and men have pretty defined roles. For instance, the married women were all dressed in bright, traditional dresses and they did not dance at all. Younger women wore jeans and danced, but mostly with each other. The men also danced with each other. The exception seemed to be older men, who would dance with younger women (and even with us!) Some interactions I witnessed made me think that things are opening up a bit and traditional roles may be changing, but all of this is anecdotal evidence from one evening of dancing. Still, women here can’t go to a mosque to pray, they have to pray at home. I see lots of little girls trying to catch my eye. When they do, they get huge smiles on their faces. I look at them and wonder what they are thinking and what they think about their role in society….

This morning we went to a livestock market and the whole scene was overwhelming and hard to process. There were so many animals and so many people – selling, buying, talking, negotiating, yelling, laughing. There were also people cooking and eating food, giving haircuts, and just going about their days. They took very little notice of us and it was incredible to witness this event that was so unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. We then went to the Sunday Bazaar, which was similarly overwhelming and incredible. We’ve gone to so many shows and restaurants and temples that are supposed to reveal “culture” to us, but really it’s walking around and viewing people living their lives that teaches us about culture.