Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

by Melisa Gao, Sr. Correspondent

Leaving Mother Lake is the autobiographical account of a girl coming of age as a Moso, an ethnic minority that lives in the Himalayas in southwestern China. In the Moso culture, women hold an honored place, and families are matrilineal. Yet young Yang Erche Namu feels trapped by society's expectations of her. As she grows into a strong-willed young woman, she decides to leave the Moso to pursue her dream of becoming a singer. Forsaking her ties to her family and her people, Namu relies on her own determination and resourcefulness to brave the unforgiving world. But Namu is caught between two ways of life, and this struggle eventually becomes the focus of the story.

Namu, now a famous singer, wrote this memoir with the help of Christine Mathieu, an expert on the Moso people and their history. The authors' passion for this story and for the Moso people resonates with every sentence. Moso traditions and beliefs are a departure from almost any we encounter in today's world, and the book is worth reading for that reason alone. Leaving Mother Lake is a lovingly crafted tribute to this enchanting but little-known culture, with all its legend and lore.

Namu and Mathieu use wonderful details to paint a picture of the Moso people and their home. "Red granite and evergreen forests towered over the meadow, and peaks like saw teeth pierced the blue sky, slicing through feathery clouds - ridge after ridge, and as far as I could see," they write. "The air was so pure, so still, so empty of familiar smells and sounds that I might have become frightened if I had not been overwhelmed by so much wild beauty" (80). This calm beauty of the Moso villages later contrasts the rowdiness of the city streets Namu will visit.

Despite its unique setting, the themes of Leaving Mother Lake reach effortlessly across cultural differences. We laugh and cry with our heroine, and we identify with her feelings of confinement and longing. Leaving Mother Lake is primarily a book about love, loyalty, duty, and desire. That Namu and Mathieu can convey these emotions across the vast cultural differences is a testament to their storytelling abilities; their use of exquisite imagery and rich description make the story all the more enjoyable.

Copyright 2003, Blue Jean Online

In Leaving Mother Lake, the reader is instantly drawn in as Namu begins her story by pleading with her mother to share the details of her birth. With this seemingly simple request made at her mother's knee, Namu unfolds the world in which she grew up and all of the important players. She tells her own coming of age story but she also shares the stories of her village and her people.

It's easy to see why she wanted to leave such a remote and impoverished place. What makes Namu's story special is how much she feels indebted to her culture and her people for producing her.

Everyone has great stories about their childhood but some of Namu's are particularly expected. For instance, this is probably the first time readers will come to know a little girl who was so cold while herding yaks in the mountains that she stuck her legs in the yaks' stream of urine during Winter mornings to feel warm, even if only for a few moments.

A truly spectacular memoir.