Sujiawei, Heyuan, Guangdong: A Thousand-Year-Old Poem in the Dongjiang Bay
As the morning light spread across the Dongjiang River, I stepped on the bluestone path and knocked on the door of Sujiawei. Seven hundred years have brewed here like a jar of plum wine, even the air is steeped in a sweet, ancient charm.
Five ancient banyan trees over a thousand years old greet visitors at the entrance to the village. The thickest one, the "Wuxian Banyan," requires six people to embrace it fully. Red silk ribbons are tied to its branches, which, as an old woman told me, were planted when the Su ancestors moved here. Dewdrops slide down the banyan's aerial roots, wetting the stone mill below. Last night, Hakka girls were grinding tofu here, and the scent of bean dregs mingled with the river breeze, creating the freshest wake-up call.
Walking along the Jiushe River, the creaking of water wheels grows louder. Seventy-two-year-old Uncle Su squats by the river washing clothes, a blue shirt floating in his wooden basin. "This water comes down from Dongshan Mountain," he says, "It's the sweetest for making tea." He points to the Yongsi Hall on the opposite bank, where the镬er-shaped gable walls of the Ming Dynasty mansion pierce the morning mist. For five hundred years, the bronze bells on the eaves have been singing Hakka nursery rhymes. I ascend the moss-covered steps into the ancestral hall. The square pond in the courtyard reflects the sky, and I imagine the Su descendants studying here, the scent of ink drifting down the stream towards the Dongjiang River.
In the afternoon, I wander into the Zisu Garden, just as the flowers are in full bloom. Purple flower spikes nod in the wind, and I almost see Su Dongpo hoeing the soil. Eight hundred years ago, he was demoted to Lingnan, never imagining his descendants would cultivate such poetic beauty on the banks of the Dongjiang Bay. Caigu, the garden keeper, teaches me to identify nine varieties of purple perilla. "Young leaves for scrambled eggs, old roots for wine," she says, "Su Dongpo's recipe." Her blue apron is filled with freshly picked herbs, her clothes fragrant with the scent of earth.
As dusk paints the riverbank, horse lanterns light up the ancient opera stage. Grandmothers bring out their homemade rice wine, goji berries floating in the amber liquid. "Moonlight, scholar, riding a white horse, crossing the bridge," the mountain songs drift through the bamboo groves, and the girls washing clothes on the opposite bank pick up the next verse. I hum along, off-key, causing laughter to erupt. A grandmother presses a piece of mugwort rice cake into my hand, its warm sweetness melting on my tongue, a taste of my own grandmother's cooking.
The night before I leave, I stay in the century-old Weilong House, "Gengdu Chuanjia." The river breeze filters through the wooden lattice windows, and the bronze bells on the eaves chime. I seem to hear the morning reading from the ancestral hall, see Su Dongpo's descendants drying grain in the courtyard, river gulls skimming over the horse-head walls, weaving a thousand years into a flowing poem.
As the first rays of dawn once again spread across the Dongjiang River, Sujiawei awakens to the sound of oars. I tuck the uneaten half of my lei cha cake into my pocket, suddenly understanding: the Hakka people's nostalgia resides in the roots of the ancient banyan trees, in the courtyards of the Weilong houses, in every mouthful of smoky lei cha. This bay, after all, has brewed Su Dongpo's poetry into a vibrant, fragrant life.