“You can’t,” Ci-teh jumps in. “We have a ton or more of fermenting tea in our sheds. Think about that. Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but I guarantee I’ll pay you one thousand yuan per kilo.”
That’s half what she previously paid but still the equivalent of a little over $130,000 for Spring Well’s ton of tea at today’s exchange rate. That translates to around $3,250 for each of the village’s forty households, and that doesn’t include teas made from the lesser pickings throughout the year. I remember when my family was lucky to earn 200 yuan a month—$300 a year—and we were thankful for it.
“If everyone wants to make fermented tea,” I say, “then let’s do it the right way. I’ll pay you well—maybe not one thousand yuan to start, but we could build back to that and higher. Let’s never again try to pass off our tea as something it isn’t—”
“I’ve promised to sublease land from every family here,” Ci-teh interrupts. “Let’s say what she’s told you about the price of Pu’er is true, then your tea trees and the land under them have no value. I want to help you. Don’t let an outsider who’s been influenced by bad spirits trick you.”
“Do you realize what she’s doing?” I ask Spring Well’s families. “She’s trying to steal your land!”
“I’m not stealing,” she answers. “I’m subleasing. I’m volunteering to take responsibility for every lease until the next renewal of the Thirty Years No Change policy.”
“You’re trying to become a landowner!” It’s the worst accusation I could make.
I search out Jin. He gives me a subtle nod. Say it. Go for it. You’re strong.
“Your family was always better off than others in Spring Well,” I say, “but now you would take the leases of every family here? At the bottom of the market? Betting that the price of tea will come back?”
She laughs derisively. “You don’t know a thing about it. I’ve decided to tear out the tea trees once and for all. I’m going to help the people convert their land to rubber and coffee.”
“But we’re at too high an elevation to grow rubber! And it destroys everything around it. As for coffee—”
“Starbucks and Nestlé have already approached me,” she says smugly. “Everyone here will make money, because the worldwide demand for coffee—”
“You’d deprive the people of the one thing they have—land with our special trees?”
“But you’ll have money,” Ci-teh says, speaking again to the villagers. “I can pay you more than you’ll ever earn from tea.”
“You’ll have money for a couple of years, but then what?” I appeal to the crowd. “Will your sons and daughters have to go out as I did? You can look at me now and say, Oh, she’s an outsider. Or, Oh, her fate has been easy. But I know what’s out there for Akha who have no education or opportunity.”
How can I make them understand?
“There’s more to us than cash,” I say, “and there’s more to our tea trees than profit. We Recite the Lineage, but our lineage is in our trees too. We can start again, but we should do it the right way, by treasuring what is most valuable to us. Every tree has a soul. Every grain of rice. Every—”
Ci-teh opens her mouth to object, but before she has a chance, A-ba calls out, “Listen to my daughter. She is still the only person from our village to go to second-and third-level school. She went out, just like Teacher Zhang said she would. We need someone who can represent us and look after us.”
I’m overwhelmed that he would speak this way on my behalf, but I have the sense to add, “But only if we can behave as proper Akha—”
“Look around,” A-ba continues. “My daughter’s entire clan is here, but where is Ci-teh’s clan? Where are her husband and her daughters? Who—what—is an Akha without family?”
A man who defended Ci-teh earlier steps forward. “She leased my land three years ago. It’s the closest to Bamboo Forest Village, where her husband is from. She built herself a house on it.”
That would have to be the monstrosity Jin and I saw on our walk here. Whatever improvements have been made in Spring Well—as dramatic as they are—are dwarfed by the riches suggested by Ci-teh’s new home. All of this makes me feel like a fool. If Ci-teh had been anyone else, I would have asked questions, but I never looked beyond the surface of our friendship. Ci-teh was right when she said I underestimated her.
Leave it to the women to know what’s happening with Ci-teh’s family members.
“Her brother and his family are at Disneyland in Hong Kong.”
“Her husband and their daughters are in Myanmar, buying rubies.”
“Child of a dog!” someone shouts. Others call out even harsher epithets, but that doesn’t mean the tide has fully turned. Many people here earn their livelihoods from Ci-teh. If they abandon her, then what will become of them? The tension is palpable. I worry a physical fight could break out.
The ruma stamps his staff. The crowd falls silent as he consults with the nima. After considerable whispering and gesturing, the ruma announces, “We’ll hold a ceremony in my house.”
* * *
We make a somber procession to the ruma’s home, where he and the nima slip on their ceremonial cloaks. The elders sit in a circle around us. Once everyone is settled, the nima beckons Ci-teh and me to kneel before him. He rubs soot from my forehead down to the tip of my nose. He repeats the process with Ci-teh.
“These two with the marks are who you are to look at and examine,” he notifies A-poe-mi-yeh—our supreme god. Next, he ties string around Ci-teh’s and my wrists. “Let them be joined together for the journey to the netherworld.” Last, he pours a little alcohol on the floor, where it seeps through the bamboo to the ground below. “I call on you, ancestors, to help us look for the truth. What, if any, spirit has been chewing on these women’s souls and strangling our village?”
His eyes roll back until we see only the whites. His arms and legs tremble, causing the coins and bones on his cloak to rattle. Unrecognizable words escape his mouth: “Ooh, aww, tsa.” The ceremony continues for three hours, during which the rain finally lets up. The absence of the constant clatter only amplifies the nima’s groans.
When he comes out of his trance, Ci-teh and I are ordered outside so he can confer with the ruma and village elders. Every man, woman, and child of Spring Well Village still waits in the misty drizzle. The divisions are obvious: the group that’s most benefited from Ci-teh and the group that’s held on to their land and the old ways. I’ve been away for more than a decade, while she’s been a constant and influential presence. I’m promising something intangible for the future, while she’s already changed many lives. I’m asking for honor; she’s guaranteeing livelihoods.