It has long been heard that among some ethnic minorities in our country, there is also the custom that brothers and sisters marry, or that their biological sisters serve the same husband. I don't doubt the existence of this custom, but to be honest, I have a lot of mysterious guesses and dark imaginations in my heart, because today, monogamy has become the mainstream culture of marriage, this marriage custom is incredible. However, the documentary "Happy Valley" produced by Yunnan TV vividly describes a place called Oya deep in the valley where brothers and sisters marry, but the family is extremely harmonious and quiet.
This is a mountain city dominated by Naxi people, hidden in the depths of steep valleys and almost isolated from the world. People live a life of farming and grazing and have a high attachment to nature. Two brothers, Gaotu and Shenggeng Duji, married their uncle's cousin, because there must be a person in their farmhouse to watch over the fields, granaries and pastures they cultivated. It's about three hours' journey from home to the farmhouse. If there is only one man in their family, it is difficult to balance production and life. On the contrary, if a family insists on not separating, there will be many farmhouses and granaries. This is the realistic condition of this unique marriage custom. Gaotu and Saint Gengduji insisted on not being separated, so the two brothers actually lived with their parents, and everyone called them "Vahagia" after their mother. This is one of many harmonious families. A wife always handles the relationship between herself and her husband skillfully. Husbands either go to work in the farmhouse or rest at home. They all take good care of their families and children, but they don't know the taste of jealousy.
Happy Valley comprehensively introduces the production, life and customs in Russia and Asia. We can see wedding ceremonies and new houses with the red "Xi" in them all over China. There are well-dressed young teachers who have just been assigned from the city and will never get married in Russia; After nightfall, young people gathered in front of the TV sets of four families who got rich first. The TV screen shows the TV advertisements of "Cable TV New Knowledge Station" and "Hong Kong Cable Widescreen I-CABLE". Although TV viewers seldom know Chinese, they speak Naxi and Tibetan.
However, we often see those dazzling mountains. In the brown and white barren hills, several trees are very fragile and lonely. In the ravine, there is a big gray house. This is their village. The monotonous color of the village makes people feel desolate and powerless at first glance. Only the wooden corridor on the second floor embedded in the house shines with the breath of life under the empty and silent sky. It is rare to see the villagers communicate with each other in language, but Dongba permeates every corner of life. They are in charge of the ceremonies of death and adulthood, and perform divination and exorcism for patients under infusion bottles. Children who are studying should bring their own food and rice. Students who can afford 100 yuan for school meals every month are all children from "rich families".
Can such a life and happiness match? Material poverty, hard life and backward marriage seem to have nothing to do with happiness, but the pursuit of life of Russians is quite different from ours. Gao Tu used to work in the city, and his wife Ji Ma was one of the four junior high school graduates in the county. She and her husband, Bang Qi, freely fell in love and started a family and refused to marry three brothers at the same time. Xiaolan, a foreigner who married in Russia, became good friends with Ji Ma because she refused to marry her husband, three brothers, Adzir. These are people who have seen the world, but the outside world has little to do with happiness for them. Gao Tu is afraid of city people who don't pay, and coaxes them all day. Xiaolan believes that polyandry brings harmony and unity to Russian families, unlike city people who actually notarize their property before marriage. Ji Ma would rather stay at home safely, even if he has no money to earn. I don't know how to understand these ideas, whether it is lack of self-reliance, being willing to lag behind, or a life sentiment worth learning. And the conversation between a fifth-grade child and a reporter in front of the camera really touched me deeply. The reporter asked him: If you study hard and go to Beijing or other places, you can not come back. Would you like to come back? He said: Yes! The reporter asked him why he came back, and he replied: I love my parents. The reporter asked her: Do you want to leave Russia? He said, yes, but I don't want to. Asked why, the answer is shocking: because there is a mother in my hometown! ..... So I prefer to understand the different reactions of Russians and us as that they have a view of happiness, a more primitive view of happiness. They are the kind of people who "eat less, drink water, bend their arms against it and have fun". Their hard living conditions nourish a kindness, and they love and be loved!
Happiness is the goal pursued by all ordinary people, but what is true happiness is a proposition that Chinese and foreign thinkers can't avoid but can't answer clearly. F bacon did not specifically discuss happiness in On Life, and many philosophers' explanations of happiness were questioned and criticized. The subject of happiness is human, which is human happiness, but the reason why people pursue happiness is because real people have limitations. Our own limitations drive us to project outward, to the future, to happiness, and to fight against our own limitations, which produces the concept of happiness. Perhaps happiness needs a lot of material elements as its content, but happiness is ultimately the subject's feeling, because happiness is a comfort to human limitations. Therefore, happiness exists in people's hearts. The rich may feel unhappy, but the poor may enjoy it. Therefore, Confucius spoke highly of Yan Hui's "one scoop of food and one scoop of drink, even in a mean lane, people will be worried if they can't bear it, and they won't change their fun when they go back".
We can't avoid the material basis of happiness. From this point of view, the authenticity of the Russian hard life has brought a strong sense of pressure, and it is reasonable for the newly assigned young teachers to go back. However, Russians built houses on barren land, herded sheep under bare mountains, dug sand for gold by the canyon river, their red clothes floated on the cliffs, they roared in the valley, and the song "Come out, stars jump …" echoed in the valley. The mountains in Russia are not covered with forests in Guang Mao, which is not in line with our mountain springs and flowing water.