7) Loose days. This term refers to a kind of free and unfettered life, a form of existence that, from time immemorial, has been made possible by loose earth.
9) Dragon Day, 11) Phoenix Day, 13) Old People’s Day. These are unique holidays honoring men, women, and the advanced age and accumulated wisdom of the elderly, which Liven used to celebrate but which disappeared many decades ago. Dragon Day honored men, and was held every year on the sixth day of the sixth month; Phoenix Day honored women, and was held every year on the seventh day of the seventh month; and Old People’s Day honored the elderly, and was held every year on the ninth day of the ninth month.
The origins of these holidays can be traced back to the Ming dynasty. After the Great Migration, Liven was founded in the Balou mountains, but because the vast majority of its residents were blind, deaf, paraplegic, crippled, or mute, most of the men were not able to plow the fields or harvest the crops. They enjoyed a solitary existence, but many people were not content with Liven’s style of life and mode of existence. One day, an elderly person arrived in the village and reported that if people headed southeast, the blind could regain their sight, the deaf could have their hearing restored, paraplegics would be able to walk as energetically as if they were flying, and mutes would be able to speak and sing. Even unattractive wholers, as long as they were willing to head southeast, could become handsome and powerful. Therefore the men, behind their wives’ backs, all agreed to leave, and secretly departed in the middle of the night, heading southeast.
If they got hungry along the way, they would help people work the fields, do odd jobs, or even beg for food, and if they were thirsty they would get water from a river or pond. They endured immense hardship and were exhausted, but one day, after walking for a year and a half, they encountered a gray-haired man lying by the side of the road. The old man was extremely hungry and thirsty, and asked them for something to eat and drink. In handing him food and water, the men noticed that he was blind, crippled, and deaf. After the man had had his fill, they said, Although we are all disabled, we are nevertheless young, and each of us has only a single disability. You, however, are already over eighty and furthermore have multiple disabilities, including being blind, crippled, and deaf, and missing a leg. Why didn’t you just remain at home?
The old man replied, I’ve already been on the road for sixty-one years, for more than a full jiazi cycle. He said, When I was nineteen I tried to take my life several times, on account of being disabled. But later God sent me a dream, telling me to head northwest, where there is a Balou mountain and a village called Liven. In Liven, there is an enormous old honey locust tree, beneath which there is buried a secret that can enable the blind to regain their sight, the deaf to regain their hearing, the mute to regain their voice, and cripples to run again. The old man said, It was in order to find that secret that I left my home in the Southeast and have been walking for sixty-one years. I set out when I was nineteen, and now I’m already eighty-one. He added, I know that if I continue for another year and a half I will reach Liven, but unfortunately I’m already over eighty, and am afraid I won’t survive long enough to see it.
As he was saying this, the old man started sobbing.
The people from Liven immediately turned around and headed back to the Balou mountains, carrying this severely disabled man with them. However, despite the fact that they were diligently attending to him, the old man passed away three days later, in the middle of the night. Before dying, he said, I’ve lived for eighty-one years, and have been traveling for more than a full sixty-year jiazi cycle. But it was all worth it, just to have enjoyed these past three days. Then he went to sleep, and the next morning he didn’t wake up.
After selecting a grave site for the old man, the villagers spent another six months on the road, until they finally made it back to Liven. Once there, they quickly took out their pickaxes and shovels and started digging beneath that old honey locust tree. They dug out a large porcelain jar, inside which there was a small redwood box. The mouth of the jar was so narrow they had to shatter it to get the box out. When they finally succeeded in opening the box and peered inside, they discovered that it was actually empty, without even a scrap of paper or a speck of soil.
The villagers threw the box away, cursing the old man, then they each headed home to rest. Because they had spent a full year and a half traveling southeast, and another year and a half traveling back to the Balou mountains, they had spent a total of three years on the road. They were all exhausted, and no one brought up again the possibility of leaving Liven and their wives. Instead, they focused on working their fields and being with their families.
However, during this season of harvesting the wheat and planting sorghum, the one-armed men discovered that, after having spent three arduous years on the road, they could one-handedly reap the wheat and dig the fields, even doing the work of two-armed wholers. The cripples discovered that after having been away from home for three years, they were now so used to walking that they were even faster and more vigorous than able-bodied people. The blind discovered that, because they had walked so far, they could now use their canes even more effectively than sighted people used their eyes. The deaf similarly discovered that after having spent three years on the road and spoken with so many different people, they had learned to guess what anyone was saying just from watching their lips. The mutes discovered that as a result of having needed to sign to people while on the road, they had gradually developed their own sign language.
All those who’d been on the road found they could farm and live as well as wholers. When they remembered the benevolence of that eighty-one-year-old man, they decided to designate the ninth day of the ninth month Old People’s Day. In order to congratulate the men not only for having returned, but for having learned special skills to compensate for those that they lacked, the women designated the sixth day of the sixth month — which is the day the men returned — to be Men’s Day, and called it Dragon Day. In order to thank their wives for having remained so busy and raised their children during the three years they were out traveling, the men decided to designate the seventh day of the seventh month to be Women’s Day, also known as Phoenix Day. On Old People’s Day, all members of the younger generation would kowtow to their elders, and not only would give the elderly good things to eat and drink, but would take out the unlined and lined garments that they had prepared for the elderly to wear all year round and would compete to see whose was the most attractive, and afterward they would donate the garments to the elderly.
The sixth day of the sixth month is generally a busy time of year, but after this day was designated Dragon Day, the men would not do any work on that day, and instead the women would be responsible for preparing food and drink and working the fields, while the men would stay home all day and rest. After spending the day resting, however, the men would then have to go into the fields and work overtime to compensate. On the seventh day of the seventh month, meanwhile, the busy season had already passed, and by this point the women would also be tired, so it would be their turn to rest for a day. On this day, the men would not only cook the meals, but also prepare their wives’ favorite foods.