Chapter 1734 Different Ways of Thinking
Xiao Peng and Eugenia walked around the reindeer festival. This was the largest Nenets reindeer festival in the area, but with over four hundred people on the scene, Xiao Peng was outnumbered—some of them tourists like him.
This is already considered a big "reindeer festival" for them. It is quite good if some small Nenets people's reindeer festivals can have hundreds of people.
Many people were singing the Nenets folk music. The music here is quite simple, just a rhythm of "dong, dong, dong, dong" drum beats, similar to the long "ah-ah-ah" ballads. It was really touching at first, but after listening to it too much, it felt like chanting...
The reason why Xiao Peng and Eugenia were shopping here was because Kasim had been dragged away by Ekaterina.
The reason why Ekaterina came to find me was ridiculous. She thought Kashin was very strong...
The Nenets' reindeer festival also has the element of "blind date", but it is a little different.
People imagine ethnic minority matchmaking festivals as revelries filled with singing and dancing, but the Nenets' matchmaking rituals are wrestling matches. Nenets men step onto the ring and wrestle in traditional Nenets style, showcasing their masculinity and attracting the opposite sex.
The winner can publicly propose to the girl of their choice in front of everyone—of course, the proposed girl can also directly refuse. As the village chief's daughter, Sasa is undoubtedly the most sought-after woman. She has been proposed to once a year since she was fourteen.
But Sasazhi is not willing to do so and refuses every year.
She and Ekaterina were classmates at Novosibirsk State University, both highly educated Nenets. If she couldn't even look down on Arsare, how could she possibly look down on other Nenets villages?
It's like that. After seeing the bustling world, she'd definitely feel uncomfortable returning to her snowy den. She also found the Nenets's patriarchal customs irritating her. All she wanted was to leave.
But she refused every year, which meant she had already refused to do anything wrong: by doing so, she had invisibly offended all the nearby villages.
Even if the village of Yarsale is powerful enough, it cannot reject everyone, so her father forced her to get married this year!
She wanted to escape but couldn't. Just when she was about to accept her fate, Ekaterina and others arrived. Sasa asked Ekaterina for help, and Ekaterina's idea was: let Kashin participate in the wrestling competition, and then after winning the championship, propose to Sasa in public and take her away from here.
This was a completely bad idea. Kasin hadn't wanted to attend at all, but Ekaterina had pulled out a trick—Ekaterina and Eugenia had spent a good portion of their conversation yesterday pretending to be asleep. They knew Xiao Peng was Kasin's boss. If Kasin helped? They'd help Xiao Peng hide it. If he didn't? They'd spread the word.
Although she didn't know why Xiao Peng and Ka Xin hid their identities, since he hid them, it meant that he didn't want others to know and there was a reason for him to hide his identity.
What kind of threat is this?
Was Xiao Peng afraid of threats? Of course not. But imagining Kashin wrestling seemed quite amusing, so Xiao Peng said that as long as Ekaterina could convince Kashin, he would not care about the matter.
Now Kasim was dragged by the two men to do ideological work.
Xiao Peng and Eugenia's interest was entirely focused on the Reindeer Festival.
Although Eugenia is of Russian descent, she was born in warm Spain. Xiao Peng is similar. Although both of them have skiing experience, this kind of life in the Arctic Circle is really their first time to see it, and everything they see is new to them.
This reindeer festival is actually also a market, where you can see the Nenets people selling all kinds of strange things, mainly things related to life, such as animal skins, deer antlers, herbs, frozen fish, bread, hot tea, clothing, hats, combs and so on, as well as living creatures such as dogs and reindeer - Xiao Peng even saw people selling firewood and CDs.
Xiao Peng could understand selling firewood, but he found selling CDs a bit unacceptable. Ordinary Nenets villages, unlike Yarsarek, had virtually no electricity. Why would they buy CDs?
As a mirror? Under the table?
Xiao Peng saw the great shaman leading a group of people to perform sacrificial activities in their "holy land".
The so-called sacred place is a circular altar made up of several two- to three-meter-tall wooden primitive sculptures. They are offering sacrifices to the deer god and ancestors—because the next event is the reindeer sled race.
Eugenia asked, puzzled, "Why do these Nenets believe in reindeer and ancestors but not in God?"
After hearing this, Xiao Peng explained, "This is typical Eastern thinking. Everything they do demonstrates the deep connection between the Nenets and the East."
"Huh? Why do you say that?" Eugenia asked curiously.
Xiao Peng said, "Look, Westerners believe in God. According to the Bible, everything in the world, such as wine and bread, is a gift from God. Am I right?"
Just as Eugenia was about to speak, Xiao Peng waved his hand and said, "I'm not saying your religion is bad. I'm talking about the gap between the East and the West."
"Well, then go on!" Eugenia said, "What about you guys in the East?"
Xiao Peng explained, "We Orientals don't believe in God at heart. We believe in ourselves. Look, there are nine suns in our mythology, so what do we do? We just shoot them down with bows! What about floods? We just use tools to control the water! Want fire? We use the 'Suiren drilling wood' method; want herbs, we try them ourselves, one by one, like 'Shennong tasting hundreds of herbs.' We believe in 'man conquering nature' and don't believe in miracles. Compared to gods, Orientals are more pragmatic and have greater faith in their ancestors. Look, the Nenets people's ancestor worship embodies our typical Eastern way of thinking."
"Then why do they offer sacrifices to the Deer God?" Eugenia asked puzzledly.
Xiao Peng replied, "Because Easterners are more pragmatic. For the Nenets, reindeer are everything. They rely on them for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. If they don't believe in reindeer gods, what do they believe in? This is a standard Eastern way of thinking: we worship whoever benefits us. You Westerners always say that we Easterners don't have faith, but this is a misunderstanding. Almost everyone in the world has faith, it's just that our Eastern way of believing doesn't fit your Western way of thinking. Of course, you see there's an Orthodox priest standing on the podium. Now, many Nenets are also turning to Orthodoxy to integrate into modern society. To put it bluntly, it's just the result of an exchange of mindsets."
Eugenia pointed at the podium and asked, "What are they doing?"
"The Nenets have also learned bad habits from the Russians. There are so many rituals before the reindeer sleigh race!"
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